Sutures of the immortalist 

By Rich Lee 

In this piece, biohacker/transhumanist Rich Lee shares a proposed intervention for longevity, expressed partly in metaphor. Before you is the immortalist, clad in futuristic wrappings, inspired by the ancient preservation techniques of Egypt. She has biopsied tissues from her thymus, which were then modified and cultured into a new, lab-grown thymus. Slices of the tissue are placed in the intramuscular region of the leg, where they begin to function as a second thymus. The new thymus greatly increases immune cell production, which in turn eliminate senescant cells, allowing new and healthy cells to take their place. This extends the life of the immortalist. She is depicted here sewing her metaphorical soul to her physical body, as it looks on in appreciation. 

Real life relevance 

The thymus is an organ next to the heart which plays a significant role in T-cell production. The thymus shrivels with age, leading to less T-cell production and depleted ability to fight disease and clear broken senescent (zombie) cells from the body. 

A study was conducted where participants took a cocktail of 4 different drugs designed to rejuvenate thymus tissue in vivo. After nine months, the test subjects had all regrown a small percentage of their thymus. Even this small increase had a notable effect, with some of the participants losing their gray hairs as follicles began producing hair of their original color. 

Meanwhile, scientists and doctors have made major strides in helping infants born with athymia, a congenital and usually fatal condition where someone is born without a thymus. Doctors have successfully transplanted a thymus into an infant, allowing it to have a healthy immune system. To do this, the donor thymus is sliced into thin pieces, like pepperoni. Rather than implant the tissue in the chest cavity of the baby, doctors found that the tissues were able to function well when placed in the muscular tissue of the thigh. This shows us that the thymus is form-agnostic and location-flexible. 

Rich Lee hopes to create new, healthy thymus cell lines cultured from his own body which he then plans to surgically graft into his leg in an attempt to replace the thymus tissues that have been lost to time.