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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.”
How does it work?
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.
Banking immune cells, banking on a breakthrough
The company is clear: “Reservoir preserves cells and is not a treatment. It does not predict or promise any future use.”
But that hasn’t been a stumbling block to finding clinics to roll out this service in.
Dr. Michael Doney, Executive Medical Director at preventative health clinic Biograph, says it hits the right notes for his patients.
“Individuals who seek out advanced, concierge preventive medicine do so because they want the most complete picture of their health, as early as possible,” he told The Post. Cell banking offers something more than any advanced imaging, biomarkers and genomic sequencing can’t: living cells themselves.
“You collect this data now for proactive intervention, because this exact point in time won’t come around again.” PBMCs do decline as you age. Some cells become less effective while others contribute to low grade inflammation.
The PBMCs stored by Reservoir would remain biologically younger than whenever you come pick them up.
Doney says that patients proactive about their long-term health “frequently ask about emerging cell-based therapies — particularly in oncology and autoimmune disease management.”
“While those therapeutic applications are still in development and shouldn’t be framed as an immediate treatment plan, they explain why interest in cell preservation is growing so rapidly.”
Saklayen also says cell and tissue replacement and regenerative therapy could be another possible use in the future. This is the tech driving Cellino, Reservoir’s parent company which she co-founded in 2017.
She acknowledges no one can know whether the stored cells will be enough for whatever the patients want to use them for down the line. But she feels confident in their survival.
Last year, a healthy baby was born from a 30-year-old frozen embryo.
“That is why this is a great moment to use existing cryopreservation technology,” she said. “We can trust that these cells will be around — to the best of our knowledge … There’s increasing data to show decades is very doable.”