Leonard Guarente was 38 and already a tenured professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he decided to devote himself to one of the most alluring problems in biology: how to slow down aging.
More than three decades later, the 72-year-old Guarente is considered a grandfather of the booming longevity movement. Top science journals have published his discoveries about genes. He is an architect of one of the field’s biggest ideas, has trained its most influential scientists and helped create the company behind a suite of popular supplements.
Now the field he shaped has moved from the fringes to science’s hot center. It’s drawn billions in investment in recent years, and is poised to draw even more attention under the Trump administration. Even so, the science behind longevity remains fiercely debated by those in the field, many of whom are building businesses based on still-emerging research—and Guarente is at the forefront there, too.
