Cynthia Kenyon

We are trying to find drugs, small molecules, that people could take to make them disease-resistant, more youthful and healthy. Eventually we will find them.

Humans live a lot longer than dogs, and we don't suffer any penalty that I can see. We're superior in almost every way - they can smell better. But really, they can't drive cars, they can't do half the things we can. I don't understand why you can't live longer and be really fit.

Maybe one day we will be able to take a pill that keeps us young and healthy much longer. I believe in my heart that this will happen.

Age is the biggest risk factor for many diseases. You're 100 times more likely to get a tumor at age 65 than age 35. It makes a huge difference. It gives a whole new meaning to preventive medicine.

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

It's possible that we could change a human gene and double our life span. I don't know if that's true, but we can't rule that out.

I was a little truth seeker as a child. I wanted more than anything to understand myself and also other people.

With worms you can just change genes at random and see if you can find a mutant that does what you want it to do.

It is unlikely that changes in telomeres are influencing the lifespan of the worm. That is because telomeres only shorten when cells divide. Most of the cells of the worm stop dividing when the worm becomes an adult.

It's like, say, if you were a dog. You notice that you're getting old, and you look at your human and you think, 'Why isn't this human getting old?'... But now we're the human looking out and imagining a different human.

The hope is that if we can increase youthfulness, we can postpone age-related diseases.

There are lots of different strategies that an animal can use to survive. What a worm does is try to convert food into worms as soon as possible. In three days a single worm produces 300 progeny. So why put your resources into developing if you can make a brand-new worm in no time at all?