Hacking your circulatory system: a less icky alternative to heterochronic parabiosis

Presented at ToorCamp 2022, July 16, 2022, 4:30 p.m. (20 minutes)

Heterochronic pararabiosis is the interlinking of the circulatory systems of young and old animals. While it has been shown to have rejuvenative effects on the older animal, it is the sort of experiment that sends villagers into the mad scientist's laboratory with pitchforks and fire. Last summer I convinced a few fellow hackers to try something novel and less icky: donate plasma on an aggressive schedule and see if we could observe similar effects in humans. It worked, and we published a paper about it. This is the story of what we did, how we did it, and what might happen next.

Read the paper: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.30.466597


Presenters:

  • Rob Flickenger
    Rob Flickenger is a long time hacker most recently interested in biochemistry, scanning electron microscopy, DNA sequencing, and longevity research. Previous Toorcamp adventures included a Tesla coil orchestra and The Tesla Gun.

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