A startup claims it’s found a drug to make your blood young
A startup claims it’s found a drug to make your blood young
一家初创公司声称发现了一种能让血液“返老还童”的药物
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY I knew I’d officially become a ‘longevity influencer’ this month when a company called Generation Lab reached out to offer me the chance to write about—and even receive—their new rejuvenation treatment, an injectable combination of two existing drugs which they call 1 Generation. This wasn’t just any antiaging treatment, either. A company fact sheet says that it “blocks the systemic spread of aging in the bloodstream, reawakens the body’s own repair mechanism and restores health and youth to multiple tissues.”
执行摘要 本月，当一家名为 Generation Lab 的公司联系我，邀请我撰写关于他们的新型回春疗法，甚至邀请我亲自体验时，我就知道自己正式成为了一名“长寿网红”。这种疗法是一种注射剂，由两种现有药物组合而成，他们将其称为“1 Generation”。这可不是普通的抗衰老疗法。公司的一份情况说明书称，它能“阻断衰老在血液循环系统中的扩散，唤醒人体自身的修复机制，并恢复多种组织的健康与活力”。
The exclusive offer to join a “private cohort” receiving access to the treatment was being “extended to a limited number of people whose judgment on the science we trust, under close physician supervision.” “There’s a long wait list including a lot of celebrities, well-known people, people who you have heard of,” Generation Lab’s CEO Alina Su told me in a conference call. “So we’re super excited to, like, create this drug and [are] letting you know that this first longevity therapeutic in [the] human body is here and it’s actually working.”
这项加入“私人队列”以获取该疗法的独家邀请，正“提供给少数我们信任其科学判断力的人，并在医生的密切监督下进行”。Generation Lab 的首席执行官 Alina Su 在电话会议中告诉我：“我们有一份很长的等待名单，其中包括许多名人、知名人士，以及你听说过的人。所以我们非常兴奋能创造出这种药物，并让你知道，这是人体首个长寿疗法，而且它确实有效。”
This was all clearly a marketing campaign and, like most other claims in the world of longevity medicine, probably too good to be true. What’s more, Generation Lab wouldn’t tell me what the two drugs are, making the proposition hard to take seriously. Yet this pitch got my interest. The reason? I am a longtime follower of Generation Lab’s irascible scientific founder, Irina Conboy, a take-no-guff specialist in the bizarre, but scientifically fruitful, practice of joining together the circulatory systems of old and young lab animals.
这显然是一场营销活动，而且像长寿医学领域的其他大多数声明一样，听起来好得令人难以置信。更重要的是，Generation Lab 不愿告诉我这两种药物究竟是什么，这使得该提议很难被严肃对待。然而，这个推销还是引起了我的兴趣。原因何在？我长期关注 Generation Lab 那位脾气火爆的科学创始人 Irina Conboy。她是一位雷厉风行的专家，专门研究一种奇特但科学成果丰硕的实践——将年老和年轻实验动物的循环系统连接起来。
The procedure, called parabiosis, or heterochronic blood exchange, is one of the few things actually proven to make an old animal act younger. But you can’t go through life attached by the veins to a younger person. So the quest has been to find practical ways to mimic those benefits. And that is something Conboy says she’s now achieved by hitting on a combination of two existing drugs that produce youthful effects—but without the need for any bodily fluid exchange.
这种被称为“异体共生”或“异时血液交换”的程序，是少数被证明确实能让年老动物表现得更年轻的方法之一。但你不可能通过与年轻人静脉相连来度过一生。因此，人们一直在寻找模拟这些益处的实用方法。Conboy 表示，她现在已经通过找到两种现有药物的组合实现了这一目标，这种组合能产生年轻化的效果，且无需进行任何体液交换。
Over the last two months, Conboy has been taking the drug combination and feeling quite a bit better and more energetic, she says. So have a handful of other insiders, including Su, the company’s 26-year-old CEO, as well as Conboy’s husband and scientific collaborator Michael Conboy. The company’s public relations staffer sent me a spreadsheet of the supposed benefits experienced by the participants, including improved vision in a 64-year-old female, longer landscaping sessions for a 59-year-old man, longer badminton games, improved hand grip, better erections than with Viagra, as well as “increased bowel movements.”
在过去的两个月里，Conboy 一直在服用这种药物组合，她说自己感觉好多了，精力也更充沛了。其他几位内部人士也有同样的感受，包括公司 26 岁的首席执行官 Su，以及 Conboy 的丈夫兼科学合作者 Michael Conboy。公司的公关人员发给我一份电子表格，列出了参与者所体验到的所谓益处，包括一名 64 岁女性视力的改善、一名 59 岁男性园艺时间的延长、羽毛球比赛时间的增加、握力的增强、比服用伟哥更好的勃起效果，以及“排便次数增加”。
Obviously, any age-reversal drug that works would be the best-selling product of all time. The problem is that none have ever been shown to do that. And Generation’s approach to evidence raises several red flags. For instance, Su says the company now plans to launch a larger study, involving a hundred or more people. However, others are being offered the drug before firm evidence of a benefit is in. In addition, the trial will be led by longevity doctors who practice alternative medicine.
显然，任何有效的逆转衰老药物都将成为史上最畅销的产品。问题在于，目前还没有任何药物被证明能做到这一点。而且 Generation 公司对待证据的态度引发了几个警示信号。例如，Su 表示公司现在计划开展一项涉及一百人或更多人的更大规模研究。然而，在获得确凿的益处证据之前，其他人就已经被提供了这种药物。此外，这项试验将由从事替代医学的长寿医生领导。
These include Matt Cook, founder of a network of clinics called BioReset Medical. Cook’s clinics offer what I would characterize as unproven treatments, such as stem-cell injections. A 2021 article reported he’d recommended covid-19 treatments designated as “fraudulent” by the FDA. Those included inhaling amniotic fluid from a nebulizer. In a phone call, Cook says he initially agreed to prescribe the combination to Conboy and a few other insiders. (Everyone involved, he says, is a member of the same “happening” Silicon Valley scene around life extension.)
其中包括 BioReset Medical 诊所网络的创始人 Matt Cook。Cook 的诊所提供我所认为的未经证实的治疗方法，例如干细胞注射。2021 年的一篇文章报道称，他曾推荐过被 FDA 指定为“欺诈性”的 COVID-19 治疗方法。其中包括通过雾化器吸入羊水。在一次电话中，Cook 说他最初同意为 Conboy 和其他几位内部人士开这种药物组合。（他说，所有参与者都是硅谷同一个围绕延长寿命的“热门”圈子的成员。）
“My confidence this was going to work was a zero. Like, I did not believe it was actually going to work,” says Cook. That is because “it’s two safe, generic drugs that are not even longevity drugs.” But Cook, who also took the combination, says there was an effect. “And I have to tell you, it was the most surprising thing that ever happened to me,” he says. After taking the weekly injections, he experienced a sense of mental clarity that lasted for a day, and then several days.
“我当时对它是否有效信心为零。我根本不相信它真的会起作用，”Cook 说。这是因为“这是两种安全的通用药物，甚至不是长寿药物。”但同样服用了该组合的 Cook 表示，确实有效果。“我必须告诉你，这是我经历过的最令人惊讶的事情，”他说。在每周注射后，他体验到了一种持续一天，后来持续几天的精神清晰感。
The other subjects, he says, reported a sense of well-being, as well as old aches and pains that evaporated. “There was a fairly significant broad set of symptoms that doesn’t really match what either of the drugs do,” he says. “So it’s interesting. [But] I have many more questions than I have answers … I still feel like I don’t understand exactly what the mechanism is.”
他说，其他受试者报告说有一种幸福感，而且旧有的疼痛也消失了。“出现了一系列相当显著的广泛症状，这与这两种药物各自的作用并不完全吻合，”他说。“所以这很有趣。[但是] 我的问题比答案多得多……我仍然觉得我不完全理解其机制是什么。”
Prior to joining Generation Lab full time in 2025, Irina Conboy had a long career at the University of California, Berkeley, where she made her name via a widely cited series of experiments aimed at learning whether the characteristics of age, or youth, could be transferred between animals via the bloodstream. In 2005, for instance, she surgically connected two-month-old mice to very aged ones, finding that the old animals’ ability to heal from injury dramatically improved.
在 2025 年全职加入 Generation Lab 之前，Irina Conboy 在加州大学伯克利分校拥有长期的职业生涯。她通过一系列被广泛引用的实验而闻名，这些实验旨在了解衰老或年轻的特征是否可以通过血液在动物之间传递。例如，在 2005 年，她通过手术将两个月大的小鼠与非常年老的小鼠连接起来，发现年老动物从损伤中愈合的能力得到了显著改善。
This suggested that young blood must contain specific, powerful molecular signals capable of restoring the regenerative capacity of an old animal. As researchers zeroed in on candidate signals, several startups, including Elevian, a Harvard spinout, and Alkahest, tied to Stanford University scientists, were able to raise millions to pursue treatments for stroke or Alzheimer’s. However, those efforts still have not hit commercial paydirt.
这表明年轻的血液中一定含有特定的、强大的分子信号，能够恢复年老动物的再生能力。随着研究人员锁定候选信号，包括哈佛大学衍生公司 Elevian 和与斯坦福大学科学家有关的 Alkahest 在内的几家初创公司，成功筹集了数百万美元，用于寻求中风或阿尔茨海默病的治疗方法。然而，这些努力尚未取得商业上的成功。
Although it’s clear that young blood is good for old mice, scientists also know the reverse is true: Even a single exchange of plasma from an aged mouse has powerful, negative effects on a younger animal. That means that in the battle of age versus youth, says Conboy, “old blood dominates.” Conboy next tried a new approach. Instead of giving old animals young blood, in 2020 she removed the plasma (the part of the blood without cells) of old animals.
虽然很明显年轻血液对年老小鼠有益，但科学家也知道反之亦然：即使是单次交换年老小鼠的血浆，也会对年轻动物产生强大的负面影响。Conboy 说，这意味着在衰老与年轻的较量中，“年老的血液占据主导地位”。Conboy 随后尝试了一种新方法。2020 年，她没有给年老动物输入年轻血液，而是移除了年老动物的血浆（血液中不含细胞的部分）。