Why I am Going to Live Forever

One of the great things about living in the San Francisco Bay area is that you get to beta test new revolutions in technology before anyone else can. That includes being a guinea pig for medical procedures from the future.

So, when my doctor suggested that I try out an experimental cancer screen by a startup company, I jumped at the chance.

Menlo Park, CA-based Galleri claims it can take a single blood sample and screen for the DNA of all major known cancers at the single cell level. Not only can they tell you what undetectable cancers you may already have now, they can also tell you which cancers might emerge over the next 20 or 30 years.

Galleri is still only open to venture capital investors but hopes to go public sometime in the future once their technology is proven out. To learn more about Galleri and sign up for their test, please click here. Their site shows a cost of $1,250 for the test, but after getting an introduction from my doctor, the price dropped down to $749.

This is what we used to dream about in my lab at UCLA 50 years ago. To see this in operation during my lifetime is nothing less than unbelievable.

Cologuard (click here for their website) is already using DNA analysis for colon cancer screening and has been a profitable business for several years. But it involves taking a small stool sample and mailing it in for screening, not such a pleasant task. Galleri claims they can do this for all cancers with a single blood test.

It was with great anticipation that a large envelope arrived a few days ago with my Galleri test results, which I posted below. They showed No Cancers Detected, which at the single cell level at my age of 70, I am highly unlikely to ever develop any cancers at all.

Thanks to a lifetime of daily heavy backpacking. My doctor tells me that I have the heart of a teenage Olympic athlete. That rules out a future heart attack or congestive heart failure, which both my father and grandfather died of, both at 78.

I am really running out of future causes of death. I guess my end will come by getting shot by a jealous husband.

 

At Los Alamos, New Mexico with Oppie and Groves