Blood Boy for All - by Alexei Gannon - One Thousand Means
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Blood Boy for All<br>Young blood is a human right
Alexei Gannon<br>Jan 30, 2026
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Isn’t this photo incredible? Above: the man who made Venmo profitable, Bryan Johnson, posing shirtless with his teenage son. They hold vials of each other’s plasma as a photoshoot for Project Blueprint. Three generations of Johnson men engaged in a series of young-to-old plasma transfusions under the premise that young blood could slow or even reverse the effects of age. The goal? Don’t Die.<br>From what I can tell, no one was a huge fan of this act of literal vampirism from an incredibly wealthy venture capitalist. While I don’t think the shirtless photoshoot did them any favors, the substance of this endeavor was roundly clowned on when Bryan Johnson cased treatment, citing lack of revealed efficacy.<br>So, that’s it then. The uber-wealthy continue to fantasize about immortality, satisfying this urge with science-fiction treatments. The emperor eats mercury to live forever…<br>However, to be honest with you, it is entirely plausible injecting young blood could make you younger.<br>Bryan Johnson’s Project Blueprint isn’t an insane fantasy, it’s a disgrace to the positive-sum and egalitarian goals of scientific research. While Johnson has burned millions of dollars running irreproducible studies on himself, dozens of scientists have studied the rejuvenating impact of young blood—not for the immortality of one CEO—but for the health of the public.
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There’s Power In the Blood
There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder-working pow’r<br>In the blood of the Lamb;<br>There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder-working pow’r<br>In the precious blood of the Lamb.<br>--“There is Power in the Blood,” Lewis E. Jones, 1899<br>Johnson’s infusions were inspired by studies examining the effect of connecting the circulatory systems of young and old mice. This technique called heterochronic parabiosis has shown rapid, coordinated improvements across organs: muscle regeneration, neurogenesis, and lower inflammation. Something about injecting young blood into old mice can bring back signs of youth throughout the entire body.<br>Naturally, human studies followed. Early attempts found that infusing young-plasma was generally safe, but not necessarily effective. However, as of 2022, we’ve discovered young-plasma can induce changes in the expression of proteins and genetic regulation associated with aging and decrease inflammation in humans.<br>I understand how an industrious capitalist like Johnson might see this and say, I’ve seen enough. I’ve found a minimal viable product: my son! Whip together a couple of biomedical PhDs with some computer geeks and an FDA whisperer to make an app that matches wealthy consumers with their biomarker-optimized Blood Boy for whatever fortune that would cost. Throw in an at-home infusion kit so any aspiring Abraham can start injecting his son’s plasma.<br>There are hundreds of biotech startups that are essentially Blood Boy apps: less obviously vampiric but just as impractical. When running his at-home experiment, Johnson used an assay from TruDiagnostic, a company that offers regular blood testing for dozens of longevity biomarkers at $1,799 per year. Not only is this unreasonably costly, but also, as a biologist, I don’t know what I’d even do with the results of this test. First, these biomarkers are entirely correlative. Second, we already know the best ways to slow aging: eat healthy, exercise, sleep well, etc. Products like these do nothing to make a long life accessible to the public.<br>Thinking like a VC isn’t going to democratize public health. Thinking like a scientist might. Instead of stopping at the minimum viable product, basic science that uncovers the circulatory mechanisms of aging can provide actionable and affordable therapeutics.<br>Let us try to understand why those parabiosis studies worked in the first place. Even if plasma transfusions had obvious anti-aging effects in humans, it is likely that there are specific molecules in the blood that mediate these effects. This would be great, because then we could learn how to synthesize those molecules at scale and provide cost-effective treatment without straining our already limited supply of donated plasma. These molecules could take one of two forms:<br>Young blood has youth-inducing factors that cause rejuvenating effects
Old blood has age-inducing factors that, when diluted, reduce the signs of aging
As it turns out, just diluting aged blood causes many of the positive effects we see from heterochronic parabiosis in mice. This does not exclude the possibility of youth factors, but it does provide a new model for our problem: age is a plausibly reversible state that must be maintained by circulating biochemical signals. Johnson’s study could have revealed something novel about this if, when removing 600mL of his father’s plasma, he did not also inject 1L of his own plasma, replicating an experimental error the scientific...