The Immortality Project

Jonathon Lord, a flamboyant, brilliant, but erratic young scientist advances a hypothesis that senescence can be overcome by using genetic engineering to re-program our chromosomes so that each cell always replicates as a young cell. He publishes a bold paper that creates a major stir in the scientific community and which excites the general public. In short order, Jonathan is joined in the project by the most powerful man on earth, Murdock McLaughlin, a aging billionaire media baron, who helps to finance the project through a List of the Elect – a list made up of anyone who contributes a ‘worthy proportion’ of his or her wealth to the Immortality Project. The list prescribes the order in which each contributor is given the treatment to becomeimmortal. Membership ranges from billionaires to pensioners – the only criteria for inclusion being that the donation be an appropriate portion of the donor’s assets. At first driven by the lure of fame and wealth, Jonathon is profoundly changed by the immense implications of his project, a change encouraged by Gabrielle Salmon, an idealistic and well-intentioned scientific colleague whom he makes his partner in the enterprize. Jonathon begins to think of himself as an instrument of divine providence, destined to achieve immortality for mankind. Financial resources accumulate rapidly. A team of the world’s best genetic scientists is assembled and begin work. Progress is fast and in a surprisingly short period success seems to be imminent. As the implications of immortality for humankind emerge (unsustainable overpopulation, the inevitable exhaustion of all the world’s resources, and unimaginable social change), opposition builds up against the project. Leadership of the forces mobilizing against the Immortality Project is taken by Jack Devereaux, the charismatic young President of the United States. Under Jack’s leadership, a decision is made that the Immortality Project puts the fate of humanity at risk and that the project must be stopped at any cost. At first, the measures taken are legal: Bills are passed by Congress forbidding any form of genetic engineering aimed at changing the human genome in order to bring about immortality, and court injunctions are taken out prohibiting the Jonathon Lord Foundation from continuing its work. But the cat is out of the bag – Jonathon now has unimaginable funds at his command and moves the Immortality Project to Switzerland, whose Government has been literally ‘bought’ by his Foundation. Jack Devereaux turns to the CIA for a solution, and the CIA works with the intelligence organizations of other governments in a 'Consensus Group’ to infiltrate the Project, initially to monitor its scientific progress but if necessary to destroy it. Professor Ann-Marie Bell, a leading figure in genetic science who had had a youthful affair with Jonathon but who had parted from him because she felt he was prostituting science, is recruited by the CIA to work as a mole within the Project. She pretends to have fallen back in love with Jonathon and joins him and the rest of the team in the Foundation’s research complex at the Chateau de Papillon on an island in Lake Geneva. The laboratories are set in the grounds of the chateau, and in this beautiful setting Ann-Marie realizes that Jonathon is a changed man and that she is more in love with him than ever. She confesses her role as a spy, and joins Jonathon in the project. Gabrielle feels betrayed by Jonathon’s transference of affection to Ann-Marie, and approaches the CIA to reveals Ann-Marie’s treachery in a move aimed at having her rival withdrawn from the Chateaux. It was an act taken in the heat of high emotion and she is immediately remorseful. Meanwhile, a treatment has been developed that promises to deliver immortality, and the team of scientists at the Chateau de Papillon begin phase two of the experiment: human trials. Ten men and women, including Murdoch McLaughlin, are given infusions of immortalized mysenchymal stem cells, which in turn release genetically engineered exosomes in a treatment that is designed to make them young forever. The first qualitative bioassay tests indicate that the treatment is working, and world governments, fearing that the experiment is about to succeed, decide that the time has come for action. The CIA and other intelligence organizations from the Consensus Group execute a covert raid on the island, aimed at destroying the laboratory and killing all those involved in the project. Jack Devereaux has an epiphany, and flies out to Switzerland to try and stop the raid, but is only able to prevent the worst of the killings. Many key figures in the project are killed, but many escape. Pope Francis II, who has always had a scientist's open mind to the project, leads a campaign to welcome the scientific advance 'as opening a doorway to a new age for mankind.' The book concludes on a high note. At the personal level, love triumphs - often in unexpected ways - and at the world level, humanity awakes to the prospect of a world without the curse of old age..