![Scientist David Sinclair's anti-aging research has been picked up by NASA.](/content/dam/images/g/v/y/h/l/p/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.gvmp24.png/1494132189382.jpg)
![](/web/20170511052436im_/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/l/d/0/5/t/image.imgtype.afrAuthorAvatar.120x120.png/1449002258891.jpg)
For a man who is convinced he has plenty of time left, David Sinclair seems to be in a hurry. Lunch with the AFR is at 11am, fitting in around a tight schedule. He's flown into the country for a conference for just a few days.
When AFR Weekend arrives in Sydney's Rhodes on a brilliantly sunny, cold morning, Sinclair – who's been included on Time magazine's 2014 list of the world's most influential 100 people and is variously described as both "over the top" and "circumspect" – arrives a few minutes late at the coffee shop, motioning in a friendly way as he wraps up a call.
The cafe only has a smattering of people in it and we chat about whether to stay inside or venture outdoors. Sinclair chose this spot because it's close to the conference centre, where he and his peers are gathered for two days of the Australian Biology of Ageing Conference.
Small talk seems out of place with this scientist who may be on the way to eradicate human ageing. But where to start with the 47-year-old molecular biologist from St Ives, a professor of the Harvard Medical School and University of NSW?
![Talking to David Sinclair about reversing ageing is a mind-bending exercise.](/content/dam/images/g/v/y/h/l/b/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1493860299420.jpg)
How does it work? What does it mean? And … is it real?
Boston-based Sinclair is more than convinced it is – he's taking the latest molecules himself ("part of the fun is seeing if what I experience through my blood tests matches what happens in the mice, or vice versa," he says).
So too are his 77 year-old father, his wife and most recently, his younger brother.
In March this year, influential industry journal Science published Sinclair's lab research showing how a compound called NAD+ (short for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) can reverse ageing in mice muscle and improve DNA growth, which usually splits and regrows imperfectly as part of the ageing process. The results indicate that, in mice, it is possible to repair DNA damage from ageing and radiation.
Now, NASA is working with Sinclair to see if it is possible to protect astronauts from the impact of cosmic radiation when they travel in space.
![David Sinclair's work with red-wine compound resveratrol was challenged but ultimately proved right.](/content/dam/images/g/v/y/h/n/w/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1493943259094.jpg)
Talking to anyone about reversing ageing can be a mind-bending exercise. Talking to Sinclair – who spends his life trying to do so – often seems surreal. I've barely glanced at the menu, though I'm conscious time is ticking as I try to understand just how the mice thing works and what it means.
Human trials
Human trials to test the safety of the drug will begin in June this year and, all things going well, Sinclair – after some thought, much later in our conversation – estimates there could be a product of some sort on the market in five years or so time. Though it's not going to be a drug for ageing, he says, more likely for a degenerative muscle because of businesss reasons. Um, why? According to government definitions, age happens to everyone and isn't therefore a disease.
Right. So back to the start. How does it work again? Can you really reverse, or even delay, ageing?
![David Sinclair is advising China on how economic growth and a healthy population intersect.](/content/dam/images/g/v/y/h/n/s/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1493943242293.jpg)
One of his skills, Sinclair says, is his ability to explain his complex work at many levels.
Sinclair's reputation as an outstanding scientist comes with some history of making over-enthusiastic predictions. He started in the field in the late 1990s, working with molecular biologist Leonard Guarente on yeast. Later, Sinclair co-founded Sirtris Pharmaceuticals to develop drugs based on his work on the anti-ageing red-wine compound resveratrol. The company was bought by GlaxoSmithKline for $US720 million, and ultimately wound down after the research was challenged, though ultimately, it was proved right.
But to take it back to basics: according to the research published in Science, Sinclair's team fed a two-year-old mouse the compound in water, and turned it back to a three-month-old mouse. Based on muscle physiology, they couldn't tell the difference. That's equivalent to a 70-year-old human with the traits of a 30 year old, he says, though the impact on humans is yet to be proved.
However, Sinclair is popping the pills. And after just three months on this latest molecule, he says his biological age went from 57 (he's 47) to 31.4 years.
![David Sinclair predicts his anti-ageing research could be the new phenomenon in the pharmaceutical industry.](/content/dam/images/g/v/y/h/l/h/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1493860269408.jpg)
In terms of the science, Sinclair predicts this latest leap "if and when we get the molecules through clinical trials, could be the new phenomenon in the pharmaceutical industry". And just as antibiotics changed medicine, Sinclair says finding a cure for ageing is only a matter of time.
"We're very good at protecting the body against cardio-vascular disease and people are living longer, their brain still ages at the same rate … and that's why we have an epidemic of dementia … and that's why we need to work on ageing and that's the whole body degradation process."
As we look over the menu, there's a brief silence.
"I don't watch what I eat as much as you might think," he says into the quiet, noting that even though he might only make it onto the treadmill once a week, because of the compound, his body behaves as though he's running every day.
He orders the asparagus and eggs, and I order the mulloway and barley.
International work
In passing, he mentions he's advising a large Asian nation (China, he clarifies after some questions) on how economic growth and a healthy population intersect.
"This gets down to how do you transform the planet economically and not just [with] health," he says.
"The advice I'm giving that nation – and it's at the highest level – they now want to know how do they raise up not just the economics, but the health [of their people]. Because they are very clever, they know [the two] have to go hand in hand."
He's also – it emerges later – advising Thailand on pig and shrimp stocks.
Sinclair thinks big – throughout lunch, as we move from talking about lab experiments, reputations, the Pentagon and family, our conversation is dotted with talk of "mission", "vision", "global view" and "long view", to name a few.
Voices are bouncing off the hard floors as families start to pop in for lunch, though it doesn't look like any other of Sinclair's anti-ageing scientist peers have arrived in the coffee shop yet.
"What drives me is getting humanity to where I want them to be," he says later, before adding proudly that his son – the youngest of his three children – has promised he will continue his father's work if he doesn't get quite get there.
And later again: "Guys like Elon Musk have a similar mindset – don't tell me it can't be done because humans can achieve anything. It's a matter of time and effort and money, you can solve anything."
We talk a little about Australia's challenge in successfully commercialising research, and he remarks that the Federal Government's decision to judge universities on innovation, rather than published research, is the biggest change in his lifetime in how a university operates and one which is working well.
And with tax incentives, among other factors, Australia is now the number one place to do clinical research in the world, he says.
But he's still concerned about the pressure the three-year grant-funding cycle puts on scientists, and points out the ecosystem in the US frees scientists from this. He's hopeful he can help improve the local ecosystem with his cult-like sounding "network of 10,000" – thinkers, scientists, businessman and others that he has amassed through his work. He had a dinner last night with some influential businessmen and scientists, he says, who are supportive of his plans to create the right sort of ecosystem in Australia for investment and research.
Our food arrives, and we both pick a little at it. On reflection, eggs were probably a better choice for a late brunch/early lunch.
Business and research
Onto the complicated subject of how he mixes his business interests with his research. Sinclair is doing everything from raising a $US50 million fund, to creating a range of life sciences companies under the umbrella "Eden-Roc" with a private investor, to investing in health apps that will use an implant to send real-time information to your doctor and more. Basically, everything except investing in the sharemarket, which he says he has no time to do and Harvard tends to frown upon, in any case.
So does he now see himself more as a businessman than a scientist? "Without the science, I'm not effective as a businessman," he says.
"The advantage I have is I get to know all the founders [of the science] as friends first. Are they going to go with a venture capitalist they have never met or are they going to go with Sinclair, who is my colleague and my friend? There's no competition … the scientist says I want to work with Sinclair, and the university says that's great, tell Sinclair to get in touch with us."
Sinclair says he has to raise more than $US3 million a year to just run his lab of 25 people at Harvard. "I don't do it to be rich, but the money is a means to an end. It's an ecosystem that the company benefits the lab, the lab benefits the start-ups and the world benefits from all of us," he says.
Sinclair's entrepreneurship showed up early. He was dabbling with start-ups while he was still at school. He began his first business in his teens, selling "ergonomic chairs" that he and his brother made in their garage, he recalls, though the wood was flawed and the chairs cracked. From there, he dragged his brother up the east coast in his Daihatsu Charade after finishing university to pitch fish farms "my vision of the future".
"I was worried we were going to deplete the oceans and run out of food."
But his real record in commercialising research started sensationally and controversially with the float of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, which was to develop Sinclair's research about resveratrol, the chemical found in red wine which he claimed activated an enzyme that could slow ageing. GlaxoSmithKline's 2008 takeover deal valuing the company at $US720 million, just a year after it floated. Sinclair owned less than 1 per cent. And then Sinclair's research was challenged.
"It was really very difficult, I'm not immune to criticism particularly if you think you are likely to be right," he says.
"I was getting a little bitter and thinking to hell with humanity … but I got over it in a few weeks, and said I don't want to be on my deathbed not knowing the answer to this."
After going back and showing different ways that his research stacked up, Sinclair is still on the case. He says he's now poised to publish a paper that shows the results of making a mouse from stem cells where they have changed one genome out of a billion. If he's right, the red wine molecules won't work anymore on the purpose-built mouse.
Noticing there is someone politely hovering (he's introduced later as UNSW molecular biologist Lindsay Wu, who is working with Sinclair), Sinclair suddenly jumps to his feet. Seconds later, he's introducing Leonard Hayflick, the professor who is giving the keynote address on "Unlike Ageing, Longevity is Sexually Determined". Hayflick is 89, and says he's not on Sinclair's molecules; he's happy to rely on his own good genes.
As we settle back down, another person appears, journalist Stuart Scowcroft who is filming a documentary on Sinclair. We invite him to settle in for the rest of the conversation.
Sinclair – who replied in less than 24 hours to AFR Weekend's email request for an interview – confesses that while he used to reply to every email, he's now stopped responding. He says he gets literally thousands a week from people wanting to get themselves or a relative into the trials.
And we discuss again how the anti-ageing science field is filled with snake-oil merchants. He says that he tries to distinguish himself from that, making it clear he doesn't work with nutraceutical or supplement companies.
"I take the high road and develop the pharmaceuticals only," he says. "They might say I'm a salesman, a pitch guy, sure. But read the papers, they're peer-reviewed."
As we wrap up lunch, Sinclair wants to re-emphasise that he's not out to prolong life – though that's one possible side-effect – but rather to improve the quality of life as people age. And who, he asks, can possibly turn down the chance to live longer and better?
The tape is off, but it's impossible to stop the questions – and we cover how the research may have applications for infertility treatment, astronauts and cancer, and more.
But Hayfield is out of the restaurant, and quite possibly on the podium, so Sinclair and Scowcroft head out the door with another wave.
I settle up the bill at the counter, realising AFR Weekend is also picking up the tab for the reporter's brownie and coffee.
Perhaps that's how it's done in Sinclair's network of 10,000. Does that mean I'm in line for the drugs?
MENU
Left of Field
Shop 3, 7 Gauthorpe Street,
Rhodes, Sydney
1 mulloway, $26
1 broccolini, $18
1 flat white, decaffeinated, $4.30
1 brownie slice, $4.50
Total $52.80 (inc GST $4.80)