What sparked your interest in this field? After a degree and then a master's in biochemistry, I was thinking about next steps. That summer, my dad and I went to a small conference in Cambridge on ending ageing. It seemed like pretty wild science but there was nothing else like it. The message was 'we don't have to accept the inevitable: we can do something about it'. From that moment, I knew what I wanted to do.
I found out about a research project at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, looking at the 'hallmarks of ageing' and how your function is gradually impaired as you age. The project was focused on mitochondria, which are found in our cells and have a number of important jobs, one of which is to produce energy.
But mitochondria can go wrong. They have their own genome and if that gets damaged they become dysfunctional and stop pulling their weight. We found a way to get rid of the bad mitochondria by encouraging the 'good' ones to reproduce more.
