Unit 1: Immortality 2.0 (1ère G1_gr2)

Young Blood, Old Dreams

The document under study is an article extracted from Popular Mechanics magazine, published in 2024. It deals with different stories that are about scientists using young blood to try to stay young and healthy. For example, we have learned about Jesse Karmazin, a former Stanford Medical School student, who created a startup called Ambrosia. He was offering $8,000 infusions to improve his patients’ health: physical appearance, sleep and strength as well as treating diseases such as Alzheimer. This treatment was meant to target at wealthy people. Eventually, the FDA decided to put an end to his startup because there was no scientific proof that it could actually work.

In history, we can find several stories of people using young blood to try to stay young and healthy. For instance, Pope Innocent VIII drank the blood of 3 young boys try to survive his illness.

Moreover, in ancient Rome, people who were suffering from epilepsy tried to drink gladiators’ blood to cure their illness.

In the 1920s, A. Bogdanov gave himself several blood transfusions. Unfortunately, the twelfth one gave him malaria and tuberculosis which eventually caused his death.

To conclude, J. Karmazin refused to say the source of the blood plasma he used. Indeed, he might have taken the blood from suspicious or illegal sources. This highlights a lack of security measures and transparency. Moreover, the donors might have been exploited to make these experiments by a profit-driven company. This is unethical.

Homework: Learn the lesson.