Longevity obsessives can now freeze their immune cells for future treatments that havent been invented yet
A new service offers anyone with a cool $5,000 the opportunity to harvest and freeze their immune cells at the youngest they’ll ever be again.The catch? No one can say how these cells will be useful in the future.Reservoir, which launched today, hopes to capture the imagination of folks obsessed with longevity.They believe in the near-ish future, these immune cells might be used in therapies against things like cancer and autoimmune diseases.People who’ve expressed interest so far “are definitely on the frontier, early adopters of medical science and research deep in that world,” co-founder Nabiha Saklayen told The Post.
“I’m curious myself where the members will take it.”To harvest immune cells, all you need to do is show up for a 15-minute blood draw.You can head to a partner clinic or book a phlebotomist to come to your home, in certain areas of the country.
They’ll collect about 60 mL of blood, which is about six to seven standard vials — more than most standard blood draws.They need that much for the next step, in which the blood is processed to isolate immune cells.Specifically, they’re isolating peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMCs) that contain cells like T cells, B cells, monocytes, and dendritic cells — which all play an important role in immune response.In total, they’re looking for five vials with 5 million PBMCs in each, Saklayen said.
“Everyone that we’ve done blood draws for so far in the testing phases, we have been able to get this baseline number of cells out through the isolation process.”After that comes the sci-fi stuff.Your cells get frozen below -150°C and it stays that way — at $270 a year — indefinitely, and under close monitoring, until you’re ready to use them.These cells remain the client’s property, and are released only at their instruction, in coordination with a doctor.A one-time price of $4,995 covers the harvesting, isolation and storage for one year.The company is clear: “Reservoir p...