From Jeff Bercovici's recent article entitled "Peter Thiel Is Very, Very Interested in Young People's Blood":
"More than anything, Peter Thiel, the billionaire technology investor and Donald Trump supporter, wants to find a way to escape death. He's channeled millions of dollars
into startups working on anti-aging medicine, spends considerable time
and money researching therapies for his personal use, and believes
society ought to open its mind to life-extension methods that sound
weird or unsavory.
"Speaking of weird and unsavory, if there's one thing that really
excites Thiel, it's the prospect of having younger people's blood
transfused into his own veins.
"That practice is known as parabiosis, and, according to Thiel, it's a
potential biological Fountain of Youth--the closest thing science has
discovered to an anti-aging panacea. Research into parabiosis began in
the 1950s with crude experiments that involved cutting rats open and stitching their circulatory systems together. After decades languishing on the fringes, it's recently started getting attention from mainstream researchers, with multiple clinical trials underway in humans in the U.S. and even more advanced studies in China and Korea.
"Considering the science-fiction promise of parabiosis, the studies
have received notably little fanfare. But Thiel has been watching
closely.
"In Monterey, California, about 120 miles from San Francisco, a company
called Ambrosia recently commenced one of the trials. Titled 'Young Donor Plasma Transfusion and Age-Related Biomarkers,'
it has a simple protocol: Healthy participants aged 35 and older get a
transfusion of blood plasma from donors under 25, and researchers
monitor their blood over the next two years for molecular indicators of
health and aging. The study is patient-funded; participants, who range
in age from late 30s through 80s, must pay $8,000 to take part, and live
in or travel to Monterey for treatments and follow-up assessments."
To read the rest of Bercovici's article, click HERE.
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