A series of experiments has produced incredible results by giving young blood to old mice. Now the findings are being tested on humans. Ian Sample meets the scientists whose research could transform our lives
On an August morning in 2008, Tony Wyss-Coray sat in a conference room at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto, California, waiting for his lab’s weekly meeting to begin. Wyss-Coray, a professor of neurology at Stanford University, was leading a young group of researchers who studied ageing and neurodegeneration. As a rule, the gatherings were forgettable affairs – the incremental nature of scientific progress does not lend itself to big surprises. But a lab member scheduled to speak that day had taken on a radical project, and he had new results to share.
Saul Villeda, an ebullient PhD student with slick black hair and a goatee, had spent the past year engrossed in research that called to mind the speculative medical science of the middle ages. He was investigating whether the old and frail could be rejuvenated by infusions of blood from the young. The hypothesis was not as absurd as it might sound.
Villeda had conducted pilot studies with pairs of surgically conjoined mice that shared a blood supply for several weeks. Young mice received blood from older mice, and old mice received blood from younger ones. Villeda wanted to see the effect on their brains. Neurons in ageing brains lose their connections and start to die off; ultimately, the brain shrinks and becomes less effective. A region called the hippocampus, crucial for memory and learning, is one of the first to deteriorate with age, causing people’s memories and thought processes to falter.
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Villeda got three hours’ sleep that night. The next morning, he stood up at the lab meeting and revealed to his colleagues what young blood did to the ageing brain. “There was a palpable electricity in the room,” Wyss-Coray recalled. “I remember seeing the images for the first time and saying, ‘Wow.’” Old mice that received young blood experienced a burst of brain cell growth in the hippocampus. They had three to four times as many newborn neurons as their counterparts. But that was not all: old blood had the opposite effect on the brains of young mice, stalling the birth of new neurons and leaving them looking old before their time.
The other scientists in the room were stunned. Some were sceptical. Could it be real? “This could be big,” said Wyss-Coray. “If an old mouse starts to make more neurons when you give it young blood? That is amazing.”
Since that meeting seven years ago, research on this topic has moved on dramatically. It has led some to speculate that in young blood might lie an antidote to the ravages of old age. But the apparent rejuvenating properties of young blood must be treated with healthy scepticism. The hopes they raise rest solely on mouse studies. No beneficial effects have ever been proven in humans. Then again, no one has ever looked.
That is about to change. In October 2014, Wyss-Coray launched the first human trial of young blood. At Stanford School of Medicine, infusions of blood plasma from young people are being given to older people with Alzheimer’s disease. The results are expected at the end of the year. It is the greatest test yet for the medical potential of young blood.
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Scientists may never halt the process entirely: ageing is an opaque and complex mingle of molecular pathways. But they might learn how to stop changes that underpin the worst chronic diseases. They want to extend healthspan, not lifespan.
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The study was published in Nature Medicine in 2014. Immediately, emails flooded in to Wyss-Coray’s inbox. Alzheimer’s patients wanted infusions of young blood. So did numerous aged billionaires. One, who flies around in a jet with his name emblazoned on the side, invited Wyss-Coray to an Oscars after-party this year. (He didn’t go.) Another correspondent wrote with a more disturbing offer: he said he could provide blood from children of whatever age the scientists required. Wyss-Coray was appalled. “That was creepy,” he said.
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As a business proposition, the transfusion of young blood raises all kinds of fears. It raises the spectre of a macabre black market, where teenagers bleed for the highest bidder, and young children go missing from the streets. Then there is the danger of unscrupulous dealers selling fake plasma, or plasma unsafe for human infusion. The fears are not unfounded: health has become one of the most lucrative sectors for criminals and con artists.
Havocscope, an online database, tracks the latest prices of all manner of black market goods and services. For $600 you can buy an AK-47 in Europe. A rhino-horn dagger will cost you $14,000. The services of a group of former military snipers? That will be $800,000. The list includes human organs too, mostly lungs, kidneys and livers. Today, a healthy seller can expect about $5,000 for their kidney. The organ broker who handles the deal can make a hefty profit, selling it on for $150,000 to a wealthy patient who needs a transplant.
In some countries, there is already a legal market for blood plasma. In the wake of the BSE crisis of the 1990s, plasma donations are not used in the UK. But in the US, donors can make $200 a month (plus loyalty points) from plasma donations. The fresh plasma is separated from the blood, and the red blood cells returned to the bloodstream, in a sitting that lasts 90 minutes. The plasma is used in medical procedures, to treat coagulation disorders and immune deficiencies. The business is completely legitimate, but if young plasma is proved to have anti-ageing effects, the risk of backstreet operators setting up will soar. When I asked Wyss-Coray if the prospect worried him, he looked serious. “Absolutely,” he said. “There are always going to be nutcases.”
Now, if only, for the sake of the ageing billionaires of the world, we had a large and ever-growing population of poor people desperate to make money any way they could. Including younger generations growing up knowing that they will never achieve the same level of (relative) prosperity as their parents. Oh, right.
Fun fun times ahead.
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