David Sinclair Biography
David Sinclair with his middle name being Andrew is an Australian biologist and a genetics professor best known for his advocacy for resveratrol as an anti-aging dietary supplement and potential medication.
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Sinclair was born in the year 1969 June 26th. He is 49 years old as of 2018.
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Sinclair was born in Australia and grew up in St Ives, New South Wales. His father had changed the family name from Szigeti to Sinclair. His paternal grandmother immigrated to Australia following the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.
David Sinclair Lab| Harvard Medical School
Sinclair got a Bachelor of Science at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and also received the Australian Commonwealth Prize. He also received a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics in 1995, from the same school, focusing on gene regulation in yeast. In 1993 he met Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Leonard P. Guarente, who studied genes involved in the regulation of aging. The two met when Guarente was on a lecture tour in Australia, and the meeting made Sinclair apply for a post-doc position in Guarente’s lab.
He was hired at Harvard Medical School in 1999 and in 2003 his lab was small and struggling for funding. He met philanthropist Paul F. Glenn in 2004 who donated $5 million to Harvard to establish the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging at Harvard with Sinclair as the founding Director. He is currently the co-Director with Bruce Yankner. In 2004 Sinclair founded Sirtris Pharmaceuticals along with serial entrepreneur Richard Aldrich, Christoph Westphal, Andrew Perlman, Richard Pops, and Paul Schimmel.
The company was focused on developing Sinclair’s research into activators of sirtuins, work that began in the Guarante lab and specifically focused on resveratrol formulations and derivatives as activators of the SIRT1 enzyme; Sinclair became known for making statements about resveratrol like: “Its as close to a miraculous molecule as you can find… One hundred years from now, people will maybe be taking these molecules on a daily basis to prevent heart disease, stroke, and cancer.” Most of the anti-aging field was more cautious with regard to what else resveratrol can do inside the body and its lack of bioavailability. The company’s initial product was called SRT501 and was a formulation of resveratrol. The company went public in 2007 and in 2008 was subsequently purchased and made a subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline for $720 million.
In 2006 Sinclair was a co-founder of Genocea Biosciences along with Harvard scientist Darren E. Higgins based on his work around antigens that stimulate T cells and the use of these antigens to create vaccines. Sinclair was promoted to tenured professor at Harvard Medical School in 2008 and professor at the University of New South Wales. He joined the scientific advisory board of Shaklee and helped them devise and introduce a product containing resveratrol called “Vivix”. He disputed the use of his name and words to promote the supplement and resigned after the Wall Street Journal requested an interview about his work with the company and its marketing.
In 2011, Sinclair co-founded OvaScience with Michelle Dipp who was also involved with Sirtris Aldrich, Westphal, and Jonathan Tilly, based on scientific work done by Tilly concerning mammalian oogonial stem cells and work on mitochondria by Sinclair. Sinclair was also a co-founder of CohBar in 2011, along with Nir Barzilai and other colleagues. CoBar focused on discovering and developing novel peptides derived from mitochondria.
In 2015 Sinclair described to The Scientist his efforts to get funding for his lab, how his lab grew to have around 20 people, shrunk back down to about 5 people, and how it went back to its feet as he brought in funding from philanthropic organizations and companies some of which he helped to start. The same year his lab had increased to 22 people and was being supported by one R01 grant and was 75% funded by non-federal funds. Sinclair was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2018 for “distinguished service to medical research into the biology of aging and lifespan extension, to biosecurity initiatives, as an advocate for the study of science and as a geneticist and academic.”
David Sinclair Anti Aging | David Sinclair Nad | Resveratrol Dosage
While Sinclair was still in Guarente’s lab, he did a discovery that Sirtuin 1 also called sir2 in yeast slows aging in yeast by reducing the accumulation of extrachromosomal rDNA circles. Others working in the lab at the time identified NAD(Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) a cofactor found in all living cells, as an essential cofactor for sirtuin function. In 2002 he clashed with Guarente at a scientific meeting at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory this was after he had left for Harvard. He challenged Guarante’s description of how sir2 might be involved in aging and this led to a scientific rivalry.
In 2003, Sinclair learned that scientists at Biomol Research Laboratories a Pennsylvania biotech company discovered that polyphenols including resveratrol could activate sir2. He collaborated with them to confirm this and it led to publications authored in part by Sinclair in both Nature and Science the same year. Sinclair’s claims for resveratrol as an anti-aging compound started a scientific controversy over whether his claims were true, and whether resveratrol even activated sirtuins. Work in another lab, done partially funding from Sirtris, found increases in the number of mitochondria in the cells of mice given high doses of resveratrol. Sinclair’s lab continued to work on reservatrol and analogs of it, as well as on mitochondria and NAD, all directed to understanding aging and how it can be prevented.
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