MIT professor, Dr. Leonard Guarente, conducts research into sirtuin genes and the power of a molecule called NAD.
WCVB
July 22, 2025
It might sound too good to be true: a pill that could help you live a longer, healthier life. But Leonard Guarente, a longtime MIT biologist, believes the idea holds promise.
Guarente, the Novartis Professor of Biology at MIT, has spent more than 40 years studying the science of aging. He started small, working with yeast cells.
“We decided to look for genes that could make yeast live longer,” he said. That’s when a gene called SIR2 caught his attention. Boosting SIR2 activity helped yeast cells live longer—and when the same effect was observed in roundworms, Guarente turned his attention to humans.
Humans, it turns out, have seven genes similar to SIR2. Collectively, these are called sirtuins, a group of proteins essential to cell health. According to Guarente, sirtuins help power cells, repair damage, and regulate which genes are turned on or off.
Guarente says sirtuins need NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) to stay active, but NAD levels naturally decline as we get older.
“If we could restore NAD levels in an older person back to youthful levels, we thought that would do a lot of good,” he explained.
That idea became the foundation for Elysium Health, a company Guarente co-founded. Some critics question the ethics of a scientist selling supplements based on his own research, but Guarente stands by the rigor of his approach. “We ended up with eight Nobel Prize winners on the board,” he noted.
Of course, whether restoring NAD levels leads to longer life is still uncertain. “A person who is very healthy might not notice much initially because where is there to go?” Guarente explained. “But what about in 30 years? There’s no way to answer that question right now.”
