Geneticist Daniel E. Gottschling is driven by discovery. From doctoral projects involving the identification of the first self-splicing RNAs and telomere-binding proteins to recent work at the forefront of the cellular aging field, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center researcher’s career has leap-frogged from one area to another in the pursuit of discovery. In his Inaugural Article, Gottschling, elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2011, identified 135 age-associated proteins retained by the yeast mother cell throughout multiple asexual replications. These long-lived proteins provide Gottschling with more questions about their role in aging than answers, a challenge in which he revels.