If I were a worm, I would rather be the long-lived mutant than the normal worm, that's for sure.

Life's too short to not be around nice people.

You could have two completely different careers if you could stay healthy to 90. How fascinating that would be.

I eat some fruit every day, but not too much and almost no processed food. I stay away from sweets, except 80 per cent chocolate.

In the early '90s, we discovered mutations that could double the normal life span of worms.

Ageing is very exciting. But if I didn't work on ageing, I'd want to work on the brain. There are really cool techniques you can use now. And bioinformatics. The methods you can use for comparing large data sets - that's so powerful.

If I were a worm, I would rather be the long-lived mutant than the normal worm, that's for sure.