A series of experiments has produced incredible results by giving young blood to old mice. Now the findings are being tested on humans. Ian Sample meets the scientists whose research could transform our livesOn an August morning in 2008,Tony Wyss-Coray sat in a conference room at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto, California, or waiting for his labs weekly meeting to begin. Wyss-Coray,a professor of neurology at Stanford University, was main a young group of researchers who studied ageing and neurodegeneration. As a rule, or the gatherings were forgettable affairs – the incremental nature of scientific progress does not lend itself to enormous surprises. But a lab member scheduled to speak that day had taken on a radical project,and he had fresh results to share.
Saul Villeda, an ebullient PhD student with slick black hair and a goatee, and had spent the past year engrossed in research that called to intellect the speculative medical science of the middle ages. He was investigating whether the old and frail could be rejuvenated by infusions of blood from the young. The speculation was not as absurd as it might sound.
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Source: theguardian.com