286: David Sinclair | How to Think About Aging and Reverse It




Social Anxiety Society show

Summary: David A. Sinclair, Ph.D., is one of the world's most famous and influential scientists. He is a tenured Professor at Harvard Medical School and TIME magazine named him "one of the 100 most influential people in the world" (2014) and among the "Top 50 People in Healthcare" (2018). New York Times Bestselling author of Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To.<br><br>David is on the board of directors of the American Federation for Aging Research and has received more than thirty-five awards for his research and is an inventor on 40 patents. Dr. Sinclair has been featured on The Joe Rogan Experience, 60 Minutes, a Barbara Walters special, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, and Newsweek, The Rich Roll podcast, among others.<br><br>After thirty years of searching for truths about human biology, David is in a unique position. If you were to visit him in Boston, you'd most likely find him hanging out in his lab at Harvard Medical School, where he's a professor in the Department of Genetics and CoDirector of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biological Mechanisms of Aging Research. He also runs a sister lab at his alma mater, the University of New South Wales in Sydney. In his labs, teams of brilliant students and PhDs have both accelerated and reversed aging in model organisms and have been responsible for some of the most cited research in the field, published in some of the world's top scientific journals. He is also a cofounder of the journal Aging, which provides space to other scientists to publish their research on one of the most challenging and exciting questions of our time. He's also a cofounder of the Academy for Health and Lifespan Research, a group of the top twenty researchers in aging worldwide.<br><br>In trying to make practical use of his discoveries, he has helped start a number of biotechnology companies and sits as chair of the scientific boards of advisers of several others. These companies work with hundreds of leading academics in scientific areas ranging from the origin of life to genomics to pharmaceuticals. He is, of course, aware of his own lab's discoveries years before they are made public, but through these associations, he is also aware of many other transformational discoveries ahead of time, sometimes a decade ahead.<br><br>Having received the equivalent of a knighthood in Australia and taken on the role of an ambassador (hence the AO at the end of his name), he's been spending quite a bit of his time briefing political and business leaders around the world about the ways our understanding of aging is changing--and what that means for humanity going forward.<br><br>He's applied many of his scientific findings to his own life, as have many of his family members, friends, and colleagues. The results-- which, it should be noted, are completely anecdotal--are encouraging. He's now 50, and he feels like a kid. His wife and kids will tell you he acts like one, too. The all live in Boston and enjoy hiking, kayaking, and traveling to unique places in the world together.<br><br>David and his wife Sandra are committed to turning key discoveries into medicines and technologies that help the world. He is involved in a variety of activities beyond being an academic including being a founder, equity owner, adviser, member of the board of directors, consultant, investor, collaborator with, and inventor on patents licensed to companies working to improve the human condition or national security. These include Vium; Jupiter Orphan Therapeutics; CohBar; Galileo Bioscience; Wellomics; EdenRoc Sciences and its affiliates Arc Bio, Dovetail Genomics, Claret Medical, Revere Biosciences, UpRNA, MetroBiotech, and Liberty Biosecurity; and Life Biosciences and its affiliates Selphagy Therapeutics, Senolytic Therapeutics, Spotlight Therapeutics, Immetas Therapeutics, Lua, Animal Biosciences, Iduna, Continuum Innovation, Prana (now Alterity); and...