Sinclair obtained a Bachelor of Science at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and received the Australian Commonwealth Prize. In 1995, he received a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics. He was a professor at Harvard Medical School. In 2004 Sinclair met with the philanthropist Paul F. Glenn who donated $5 million to Harvard to establish the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging at Harvard. He founded Sirtris company focused on developing Sinclair's research into activators of sirtuins, work that began in the collaboration with Guarente. The company was specifically focused on resveratrol formulations and derivatives as activators of the SIRT1 enzyme; Sinclair became known for making statements about resveratrol. In the future, people will maybe be taking these molecules on a daily basis to prevent heart disease, stroke, and cancer Sinclair was also a co-founder of CohBar, along with Nir Barzilai and other colleagues. In 2018 Sinclair was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for "distinguished service to medical research into the biology of ageing and lifespan extension