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IF YOU were listing organs on which your life depends, you would probably overlook the placenta. Yet it plays a vital role in supporting a developing fetus, providing it with nutrients and oxygen, and removing waste products. Made from both fetal and maternal tissue, it is also a rich source of stem cells, which can turn into any cell needed by the body. Most placentas are discarded, but according to XPrize founder and space-flight entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, we could be missing a trick. He and Bob Hariri have set up a new company, Celularity, to harness placental cells. Diamandis has two young sons and says he hopes to live to meet his great-great-grandchildren. “My boys have the potential to live indefinitely. I think that’s something we’ll figure out in the next 10 to 20 years,” he says. 91av met Diamandis and Hariri at the Unite to Cure conference on regenerative medicine at the Vatican last month.

What’s special about cells from the placenta?

Bob Hariri: First and foremost, they are incredibly young. I often argue that at the instant of birth, a healthy newborn has gone through nature’s quality control process. If the DNA wasn’t perfect, you wouldn’t have a viable offspring. So if you can recover those cells it’s like immediately freezing fruit off the tree. Clarence Birdseye said if I want fresh food, I have to freeze it at the site of harvesting. This is like the Birdseye of biology. And the beauty is we can store these cells with cryopreservation for decades. I actually believe that they are infinitely useful.

So should we all be keeping our placentas when we have children?

Peter Diamandis: I have two boys, and my wife and I banked their placental stem cells. I feel these cells give them this huge set of options. The notion that, god forbid, they should ever need an extra heart, liver, lung, kidney, there’s going to be the ability to grow organs. And ultimately the notion that giving your own stem cells back to you as you age maintains a more youthful state.

BH: When people ask me ‘should I bank my baby’s cells’, I say: if your baby was born with an extra set of kidneys or lungs, would you throw them away? It’s a no-brainer. And the cost of doing this is relatively low in the grand scheme of things.

How much does it cost to bank placenta cells?

BH: Probably about a couple of thousand bucks, and then a couple of hundred bucks a year. It’s the cost of a nice cellphone and your monthly usage.

Can we talk about ageing – how could people use placenta stem cells to prevent it?

PD: Ultimately, the selfish gene argument says that the biological imperative is that after you have passed through reproductive age there’s no need to keep you around any longer. And so we need to hijack that, and provide ourselves what we need to maintain a healthy life.

BH: I am convinced that we age because we use up the high-quality stem cells resident in our tissues that are responsible for renovating and renewing tissues. If I give you cells that can replace those cells, that can support them, you can have that renovation process at the same level you did when you were young. So the objective is to recharge the regenerative engine in your body that keeps you young. In my mind, in the future we are all going to get a booster shot of these cells on a regular basis.

How much longer do you think we would be able to live healthily if we did this?

PD: I believe that cellular medicine can give us an extra 10 to 30 healthy years. The phrase I use is making 100 years old the new 60. Here’s the beautiful thing: if you are living an extra 20 or 30 years, you are intercepting all these new technologies that are going to be coming online afterwards. To quote an adviser and mutual friend, Ray Kurzweil, it’s living long enough to live forever.

BH: Some people believe in this concept of ‘longevity escape velocity’: there will be a point in the future when for every year you live, science can extend your life by more than a year. So every year you live gets you closer to the treatments that will allow you to live forever. It’s a really appealing concept.

“If your baby was born with an extra set of lungs would you throw them away?”

What about people who don’t have a placenta on ice?

BH: The placenta is designed to exist in an unrelated environment without rejecting it or being rejected. A pregnant woman shares only 50 per cent of her DNA with her offspring yet her body doesn’t reject it. This means cells from a placenta can be used in other patients, giving access to people who haven’t had the benefit of banking their stem cells. I believe that in the future no placenta should go to waste. It could be a one-size-fits-all.

What research are you doing into whether placenta cells can cure illnesses?

BH: We are in clinical trials for everything from cancer to degenerative diseases. We are in late-stage trials for treating autoimmune disease, we are designing a phase three trial to treat inflammatory bowel disease, and we are looking for accelerated approval pathways for our cancer products.

And you infuse the stem cells into the body via the bloodstream?

BH: Yes. Nature is much smarter than we are. Most stem cells traffic naturally in your body through the circulatory system – they are designed to know where to go based on surface markers on cells that guide them to their destination. But you can also deliver them locally by injecting them in the target area.

People store their child’s umbilical cord blood already, how does this compare?

BH: Cord blood was the first easy way to do it. Placenta is the next evolution of that. Fortunately, there is often no reason you can’t collect both. Cord blood cells are good for building the blood and immune system, but they can’t be used for all other purposes. Placenta cells are much more versatile. Remember, the cells in cord blood come from a placental stem cell. It’s just earlier along the line; a few stations before your stop.

Peter, you made your name in space flight. Why switch to health?

PD: When given a choice, take both. I didn’t switch, I just added. Selfishly, as I’m now 57.

BH: He doesn’t want to die on the way to the stars.

PD: Yeah. First, ageing is the largest marketplace on the planet. Second, I’m selfish, I have two 6-year-old boys and I want to see their great-grandkids. I think it’s one of the most exciting business areas around, and a way to help people be happy, healthy and live longer.

This article appeared in print under the headline “A shot at eternal life”