Professor David Sinclair, AO, PhD, is the leading genetics researcher at Harvard Medical School with 50 patents to his name, and heads-up a world-leading lab where his progress on slowing and reversing aging is changing the game.

 

Speaking at World Science Festival Brisbane in a special recording of ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas program, hosted by Natasha Mitchell, Professor Sinclair believes we can live healthier, happier, and much longer lives up to 150 years old – and avoid many diseases that are associated with aging.

 

“If we look at aging as a process that can be treated, we have a chance for the first time in human history of slowing and even curing, not just one disease in the body, but potentially most major diseases on the planet,” Professor Sinclair said.

 

A breakthrough begins with yeast

His first significant discovery was decades ago while undertaking his PhD on yeast, and researching why yeast cells don’t live forever. It became central to his path to researching longevity and aging.

 

Sinclair discovered that yeast has a Silent Information Regulator 2 gene (SIR2) that controlled other genes.

 

“When you have more of it (SIR2) in a yeast cell, they live 30 percent longer,” he explains.

 

“What we figured out was that this gene was protecting the cell during times of adversity – and that was a real breakthrough. And then we connected that to gene regulation as a cause of aging itself.”

 

Humans also have ‘Sirtuin’ genes (what SIR2 is now called), which are key to our health, with variants in the genes predisposing humans to either a long healthy life, or susceptible to certain diseases.

 

“The good news is we figured out the way you live your life can greatly impact how active those genes are, and counteract their natural decline in activity over time,” Professor Sinclair says.

 

Sirtuin genes need a molecule called NAD to work – it’s part of the chemical reaction to control the genes. NAD naturally declines in our bodies over time – 50 year old people have significantly less NAD than 20 year olds.

 

Exercise, diet changes and other lifestyle choices can naturally raise NAD levels.

 

Regenerating nerves and reversing aging

Professor Sinclair and his talented laboratory team have also published medical journals describing successful experiments to cure blindness in mice by regrowing optic nerves that had died off in an adult mouse.

 

Usually only young mammals can re-grow nerves, not older mammals.

 

“We’re reversing aging. I have no trouble saying that, and it’s all based on data,” Professor Sinclair says.

 

“We extracted the proteins and the DNA, and there’s a very clear way to know if the cells are younger or not.

 

“It’s mathematically provable if a cell is younger, or older than it was, and so we did that experiment, and the clock said that it was much younger.”

 

This experiment has led Professor Sinclair to believe and try to prove that our cells have a ‘back-up’ copy, and aging is simply a loss of information that needs to be restored.

 

“We like to work on holy grails in my lab. The holy grail for us right now is trying to find the back-up copy,” he says.

 

“So where is that information? Is it on the DNA? Is it the packaging proteins? Is it something brand new? We think so – and in the next couple of years, we’ll know so.”

 

To listen to David Sinclair’s full conversation on ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas program hosted by Natasha Mitchell, click here.

In this special episode of ABC Radio National’s What’s that Rash podcast, recorded live at World Science Festival Brisbane, hosts Tegan Taylor and Dr Norman Swan discuss the health risks associated with the carnivore diet.

 

So what is the carnivore diet?

Dr Swan and Tegan introduce the diet and explain the carnivore diet consists of almost no carbohydrates, very high fat – 60-70%, and the rest protein. They share images with the audience of what a typical day in the life of a person on a carnivore diet might eat: Breakfast – bacon and eggs (no toast), lunch – ground beef, dinner – steak with salt, and a snack could be a stick of butter (often consumed in a coffee).

 

Did cavemen and women really only eat meat?

The hosts dispel the popular theory that the carnivore diet is based on our ‘caveman’ origins. Dr Swan believes it’s too simplistic to say early humans only ate meat, and ‘caveman’ diets were very dependent on which region of the world they lived. Those living in far northern regions wouldn’t have access to many vegetables and likely ate diets with high consistencies of seal and blubber.

 

“(However), most of the world had carbohydrates, and the women would go out foraging for really quite complex carbohydrates…and they had tools to pound them and make them more digestible,” Dr Swan said.

 

“Every Palaeolithic diet pretty much had complex carbohydrate in it, just of different kinds depending on availability.”

 

The hosts discuss the data and research available that suggests humans have throughout evolution been omnivorous, and can adapt to eating lots of different foods and diets.

 

How does the carnivore diet get its feel good factor?

Tegan asks Dr Swan to explain why many people on the carnivore diet report feeling great and losing weight.

 

“This is a ketogenic diet, so you are producing ketone bodies, these alternate sources of energy which come from metabolising fat, rather than glucose and glycogen for your energy,” says Dr Swan.

 

He explains that people report feeling energised, but caveats this with reports that people say their breath smells, and they experience constipation. Dr Swan believes that more accurate studies need to be done to fully understand the risks and benefits.

 

Why the carnivore diet is risky

Dr Swan shares that evidence suggests people on a carnivorous diet are low in vitamin C, with reports of people on the diet getting scurvy, a severe and prolonged deficiency of vitamin C.

 

“(In the) short-term, like any ketogenic diet, you’re going to feel quite good. You may well lose weight…but in the long term, it’s going to clog up your arteries, increase your risk of dementia, and it’s not a healthy way to do a ketogenic diet,” Dr Swan says.

 

To listen to ABC Radio National’s What’s that Rash episode on the risks of the carnivore diet, click here.

 

The heart, as we discover in this edition of ABC Radio National’s Life Matters podcast hosted by Tegan Taylor, and recorded live at World Science Festival Brisbane – is so much more than a muscle.

 

Featuring heart experts, Adam Bode, researching human love in PhD studies, Associate Professor Sonia Shah from the Institute for Molecular Biosciences at the University of Queensland, and Professor John Fraser, the founder and director of the Critical Care Research Group at The Prince Charles Hospital and The University of Queensland, who dive into the science of love and matters of the heart.

 

As a human mating researcher, Adam Bode shares the point of love from an evolutionary perspective:

“We can draw inferences from modern behaviour, and you’ve got to remember there’s many different types of love – maternal love, love for our pets, people love sporting teams – all of these types of love played a role in survival of the species,” he says.

 

Romantic love developed through evolution as a means of survival hundreds of thousands of years ago when life was challenging. Being pregnant and raising a young child on your own was dangerous given the environmental risks, so over time, romantic love developed, creating a team of two to raise offspring.

 

How does love affect the heart?

Professor Fraser continues the discussion and explains that there is now significant data and research indicating that love is good for humans – People married or in relationships are happier than those who are single. People in love experience less depressive illness, love reduces your risk of contracting infections and pneumonia, and people in love experience less hypertension.

 

A simple cuddle releases oxytocin and sleeping in the same bed gives you a better night’s sleep.

 

What becomes of the broken-hearted?

The guests turn to the topic of the “broken-heart” and discuss broken heart syndrome or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, Professor Shah, who researches the links between heart and brain disorders, shares more:

 

“(In broken heart syndrome), the left ventricle which is the main pumping chamber of the heart becomes weaker, and it can be triggered by extreme emotional stress,” she said.

 

Interestingly, broken heart syndrome appears to affect more women than men, data indicates that 85% of broken heart syndrome patients are middle-aged to older women, with symptoms similar to heart attacks – chest pain, sweaty, nauseous.

 

Professor Fraser recalls a patient who had just attended the funeral for her husband of 40 years. She was experiencing deep emotional stress which is likely to have triggered the onset of the condition.

 

Why break-ups are unbearable:

Adam shares the chemical reactions humans experience when a love rejection occurs:

 

“Break ups, or loss of a loved one through death, is somewhat akin to an opioid withdraw,” he says.

 

“Heroin addicts report a lot of very similar symptoms to someone undergoing a break up.”

 

These symptoms can include feeling unable to eat, or sleep, and experiencing crying spells. For those experiencing the dark cloud of a break-up, Adam says time is the best predictor of when someone will feel better.

 

As good as new:

Ending the conversation on a positive note, Professor Fraser describes heart transplants as “one of the most beautiful things in medicine” and has been involved in trials to prolong the ‘life’ of a heart being transplanted.

 

Prior to the trial, 3 out of 4 hearts were unable to be used, as too much time had gone by for the heart to be viable.

 

Professor Fraser explained that a clinical trial to give the heart ‘Medical Gatorade’ – that is oxygen and blood to keep the cells alive while it was enroute to its new body, extended the viability of the heart from 4-5 hours up to 10 hours, meaning that more hearts were arriving to transplant surgeries in better condition.

 

For more fascinating discussion on the science of love, listen to Life Matters podcast on ABC Radio National.

 

Listen to ABC’s All in the Mind: Dissecting the Brain Podcast

 

The innerworkings of the brain are as fascinating as ever, particularly as we enter a blooming era of neurotechnology, and keeping neuro-experts on their toes.

 

Recorded at World Science Festival Brisbane, ABC podcast, All in the Mind: Dissecting the Brain, hosted by Sana Qadar, guests Brisbane based neurosurgeon Dr Alex Koefman, Dr Kiley Seymour, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, University of Technology Sydney and Dr Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston author and Neuroscientist at Monash University discussed the latest on brains surgery and neuro-tech.

 

Experienced brain surgeon, Dr Alex Koefman is still awe-struck at times by the magic of the brain, recounting a brain mapping surgery – where an anaesthetist woke the patient mid-way through a surgery, with their brain is exposed, so the surgeon could find the best entry point without affecting critical regions such as speech, colour vision etc.

 

“I looked under the drape to say hi to the patient and I waved at the patient and the patient just waved back at me,” Dr Koefman said.

 

“I saw this patient having a conscious experience, hearing me, seeing colour, the brain doing its thing. And I was just awestruck about how there was no explanation how that white stuff (the brain) was creating the experience right in front of me.

 

“It’s just a white pulsing brain creating the most incredible mystery in the universe.”

 

More mysteries and innovations are being unveiled in the field of neurotechnology. Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Dr Kiley Seymour likens the brain to a ‘super computer’ given its efficiency, energy, and capacity for learning. She explains how the latest neurotech innovations will make critical advancements for people with physical disability.

 

“There’s work in clinical trials, (that) we’re able to convert thoughts into interactions with computers, for instance,” she says.

 

“If there’s an implant in the motor cortex for someone who’s paralysed, the information, the signals that usually would be sent to the spinal cord to innovate muscles to move limbs, are now being interpreted to allow for movement of robotic limbs and things like that.”

 

While neurotech innovations are exciting and will change lives, Dr Seymour says that safety over ‘hype’ is a critical factor, where companies like Neuralink promote similar technology without being in clinical trials as yet.

 

Like many tech advancements, skilled humans aren’t as required as they once were. Dr Koefman is bittersweet about innovations in blood vessel neurotech that do not require surgeons to operate anymore, making neurosurgery a bit boring.

 

“It’s the most beautiful thing you can do in neurosurgery is operate on the blood vessels – it’s the real rock and roll of neurosurgery,” he said.

 

“It’s the thing that we all wanted to do, and we were all doing it until about early 2000s. Now we hardly ever do it so it’s really been quite upsetting for me personally,” Dr Koefman joked.

 

Moving further into the future of neurotechnology Dr Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston’s new book The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death discusses brain preservation.

 

Can we preserve the memories, experiences, personality, functional abilities of a person who is for example, terminally ill, and then restore it in the future at a time that is more compatible with health?

 

“First is preserving someone, the second is then restoring them to consciousness. I think the preservation we can essentially do today,” says Dr Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston.

 

“We have good enough technology that for someone who is terminally ill, if we could take them and we could preserve their brain and body, we could do that in a way where there’s a very good chance that their memory’s personality is still there intact in their brain.

 

“The question then is how do you restore them to consciousness at some point in the future? Because that is not something we can do at the moment.”

 

Another question that divides the panel is should we be able to do this? That might be a discussion for another podcast.

 

To listen to ABC’s All in the Mind: Dissecting the Brain, click here.

When QBiotics Group co-founders Dr. Victoria Gordon and Dr. Paul Reddell began their medical research company 25 years ago, using nature to find treatments for cancer and wound healing, they can be forgiven for not realising they were also creating art.

 

Unseen Worlds, presented by QBiotics Group at World Science Festival Brisbane 2025 was a stunning, large-scale installation featuring microscopic images usually reserved for viewing by researchers in labs.

 

Through artist-in-residence, donna davis and sound designer, Luke Lickfold, the images by QBiotics Group and Queensland’s leading institutions were brought to life on screen for thousands to experience in Queensland Museum’s Whale Mall.

 

The microscopic images of pollen, eucalyptus, butterfly wings, mouse cells, and fish blood vessel specimens , revealed an incredible kaleidoscope of colours, shapes and textures.

 

QBiotics’ submissions were images of Fontainea picrosperma, a seed found on the Atherton Tablelands, and a central component in the group’s anticancer treatment, ‘tigilanol tiglate’.

 

The drug is currently approved for the treatment of canine mast cell tumours (MCTs) in Australia, the USA, the EU and the UK, having treated 20,000+ dogs,(1-4) and also in human Phase II trials for head and neck cancer, and soft tissue sarcoma.(5,6)

 

During World Science Festival Brisbane, visitors were able to appreciate the unassuming seed in a whole new way with electric green pollen tubes and grains, bright yellow images of stigma of Fontainea picrosperma, and black and white images of textured spheres of pollen grains.

 

QBiotics’co-founder and microbiologist, Dr. Gordon explains the natural environment offers a vast and largely untapped source of medical innovation, by understanding how plants interact within their ecosystems.

 

“By researching the way plants defend themselves in their environment, we’ve been able to identify molecules with specific disease-targeting abilities.”

 

It’s this research, and their microscopic images that supported World Science Festival Brisbane to exhibit and celebrate QBiotics’ groundbreaking research and 25 year anniversary with audiences through a unique and artistic lens.

 

To learn more about how QBiotics uses nature to develop new treatments for cancer and wound healing, watch the video featuring co-founder, Dr. Gordon.

 

View Unseen Worlds Digital Gallery here.

 

 

Unseen Worlds featured images by QBiotics Group, donna davis – artist-in-residence, Queensland Herbarium and Biodiversity Science Unit; Geoff Thompson and Lily Kumpe, Queensland Museum; The University of Queensland’s research centres – The Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and The ARC Centre of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology (QUBIC); with soundscape design by Luke Lickfold.

QBiotics Group Gallery

Unseen Worlds

References

  1. Cullen JK, Yap P-Y, Ferguson B, Bruce ZC, Koyama M, Handoko H, et al. Tigilanol tiglate is an oncolytic small molecule that induces immunogenic cell death and enhances the response of both target and non-injected tumors to immune checkpoint blockade. Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. 2024;12(4):e006602.
  2. Grant EL, Wallace HM, Trueman SJ, Reddell PW, Ogbourne SM. Floral and reproductive biology of the medicinally significant rainforest tree, Fontainea picrosperma (Euphorbiaceae). Industrial Crops and Products. 2017;108:416-22.
  3. De Ridder TR, Campbell JE, Burke-Schwarz C, Clegg D, Elliot EL, Geller S, et al. Randomized controlled clinical study evaluating the efficacy and safety of intratumoral treatment of canine mast cell tumors with tigilanol tiglate (EBC-46). J Vet Intern Med. 2021;35(1):415-29.
  4. Musser ML, Jones PD, Goodson TL, Roof E, Johannes CM. Response to tigilanol tiglate in dogs with mast cell tumors. Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2024;38(6):3162-9.
  5. ClinicalTrials.gov. A Clinical Study to Investigate the Efficacy of Tigilanol Tiglate Directly in Head and Neck Cancer 2025 [Available from: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05608876?intr=tigilanol%20tiglate&rank=2].
  6. ClinicalTrials.gov. A Clinical Study to Investigate the Efficacy of Intratumoral Tigilanol Tiglate in Soft Tissue Sarcoma, 2025 [Available from: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05755113?intr=tigilanol%20tiglate&rank=3].

Gilmour Space Technologies is about to put Australia on the space innovation map, with an historic and imminent rocket launch from Bowen in Far North Queensland.

The launch of the Eris Rocket will mark the first time in Australian history that an Australian developed, manufactured, assembled and tested rocket launches into orbit from Australian soil.

Speaking at World Science Festival Brisbane, two of Gilmour Spaces’ senior members, Ashley Hasforth, Chief Commercial Officer and Kody Cook, Deputy Chief Engineer (Systems Engineering) discussed the upcoming moment with ABC’s Kate O’Toole and an audience at the State Library Queensland.

Headquartered on the Gold Coast, with a spaceport in Bowen, Gilmour Space Technologies has bold plans for the future, with Test Flight 1 of the Eris rocket just the beginning of a rocket launching enterprise from Australia.

Describing themselves as an ‘end-to-end space provider’, once Gilmour Space achieves successful orbits, the privately owned business will design, build and launch rockets and satellites into orbit – one of only three companies in the world that has this capability.

“One of the big advantages that we have, if you can launch rockets, you basically can control what can go into space. So we have a lot of control of what we can send up there,” Hasforth said.

Before they get to the commercialisation of launching satellites into space for commercial and government clients, the team must perfect the launch.

Taking investors and the public on the journey is part of the mission, with Hasforth emphasising that success for the first test flight doesn’t necessarily mean getting all the way into orbit.

“To tell people that 10 seconds (in the air) or getting off the (launch) pad is a success, is hard to believe, but from that time we can get so much data that’ll put us in such a good place for future launches, you can’t put a dollar value on that,” Hasforth said.

Deputy Head of Engineering, Kody Cook added, “When you consider everything that happens before TO (take-off), to have done all of that math, gone over all of the regulatory hurdles, to have done all of the design, all of the testing, all the analysis, by the time the clock hits zero, you are 99.9% of the way to having that capability ready to orbit.”

Resting in its vertical launch position for almost 12 months, the Eris is ready to take its first flight – and why from Bowen may you ask? Cook says it’s all about efficiency, and being near the equator.

“If you think about spinning a basketball and looking at a single point on that basketball, if you’re near that centre line, you’re travelling pretty quickly and that actually gives you a kick if you’re going into a pro-grade orbit,” Cook said.

“There’s a lot of math involved but it turns out that being close to the equator is good but you don’t have to be right on it.”

Discover more about Gilmour Space Technologies game-changing rocket launch and the challenges overcome to get to this exciting point in Australia’s space innovation history. Watch the World Science Festival Brisbane, In Conversation event in the video player above.

Ahead of the full program launch for the WSFB 2025, Minister for Education and the Arts, the Honourable John-Paul Langbroek paid a visit to Queensland Museum for a sneak peek at this year’s festival program, providing a powerful reminder of the role that science plays in shaping our future and fostering curiosity among the next generation of thinkers and innovators.

A Celebration of Science and Discovery

Minister Langbroek’s visit to Queensland Museum also included a brief tour of the collection and a look at the incredible educational and research work done at the institution, some of which will be on show during WSFB 2025.

 

The Minister met Collection Manager Marissa McNamara and the team who will be part of the event Everything You Need To Know About: Crusty Crustaceans – World Science Festival Queensland, similar to the free series Labs Unlocked – World Science Festival Queensland.

Visitors will have an  exclusive behind-the-scenes look at cutting-edge scientific research happening in Queensland’s top laboratories, engaging with experts and exploring groundbreaking discoveries.

 

Minister Langbroek also visited SparkLab to explore some of the accessible, interactive science on offer.  This is something visitors and students can experience each day.

Looking Ahead to the Future of Science

Science is more than just a field of study. It is a way we explore the world, question the unknown and shape a better future for everyone.

 

As the WSFB enters its 10th year, the full program will once again showcase how the event is a beacon for scientific discovery and innovation, and this year’s festival promises to be even bigger and brighter.

 

The World Science Festival Brisbane runs from 21 – 30 March 2025

Explore the full program here: Events Archive – World Science Festival Queensland