Donor Class: The Dark Science Of Life Extension

By: Todd Baum

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

It began with a peculiar piece of laboratory science, a surgical union of old and young mice that suggested aging was a reversible process. This single discovery accelerated a multi-billion-dollar race to identify the rejuvenating factors hidden within the human bloodstream. The science of parabiosis moved from a biological curiosity to the forefront of the quest to manage humanity's most persistent medical challenge.

The promise was a potential medical revolution, a new therapeutic path for the conditions of dementia and the frailty of old age. Yet this ambition immediately raised complex questions in a world defined by significant inequality. A new and challenging economic model emerged, one in which the biological material of the young could be sourced to extend the healthspan of the old.

This book charts the course from that laboratory bench to the rise of a new bio-economy, a red market trafficking in the most valuable commodity on Earth. It is a story of Silicon Valley investors pouring fortunes into the science of longevity, and of the donor class whose plasma has become the raw material for that research. At stake is the potential creation of a long-lived elite and a biological class divide that could reshape society.

From the history of blood as a medical resource to the modern science of cellular reprogramming, this is an account of a technology that could lead to one of two futures: a world of unprecedented inequality, or a world forced to redefine the ethics of a human life. The discussion is happening in the laboratories and boardrooms of today. The consequences will define the social and political landscape of tomorrow.