Aubrey de Grey

What I actually wanted to do with my life is make a difference to the world. That led me into science very quickly. ”

There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in both cases we are giving people the chance of more life. ”

What I'm after is not living to 1,000. I'm after letting people avoid death for as long as they want to. ”

Some things tend not to work so well for science - things that rely on substantial written contributions by key experts are a case in point - but even there I tend to keep an open mind, because it may just be a case of finding the right formula. ”

The biggest handicap in research is an ability to think outside the box. The handicap is being encumbered by all the conventional wisdom in a given field. ”

The aim is to postpone frailty, postpone degenerative disease, debilitation and so on and thereby shorten the period at the end of life, which is passed in a decrepit or disabled state, while extending life as a whole. ”

Public enthusiasm for new advances is a key ingredient in influencing policy-makers to stimulate follow-up work with suitable funding, and it can be achieved far faster now that interested non-specialists can explore new research autonomously and can also be appealed to directly by scientists. ”

If you look at winners of the Nobel Prize in biology, you'll find a fair smattering of people who don't know how to work a pipette. ”

Most scientists will get serious media exposure about twice in their entire career. And they'll get that because they've actually done an experiment that was interesting. ”

My approach is to start from the straightforward principle that our body is a machine. A very complicated machine, but none the less a machine, and it can be subjected to maintenance and repair in the same way as a simple machine, like a car. ”