Therapeutic plasma exchange has been a cornerstone of clinical medicine for decades. It is used to treat autoimmune disorders, neurological conditions, and hematologic diseases. But in the past several years, the conversation around TPE has expanded well beyond its traditional indications. Researchers and clinicians in the longevity and regenerative medicine space are increasingly recognizing what apheresis specialists have understood for a long time: removing harmful circulating factors from the blood can do more than treat acute disease. It can change the trajectory of aging itself.
That shift in attention is one reason our Medical Director, Dr. Dobri Kiprov, has been invited to speak at the WIRM World Congress 2026 in San Francisco this April.
What Is WIRM?
The World Institute of Regenerative Medicine (WIRM) is a global platform that brings together clinicians, scientists, biotechnologists, and industry leaders working at the frontier of regenerative, precision, and longevity medicine. Their annual World Congress is designed to bridge the gap between laboratory research and clinical practice, with a focus on therapies that restore function, repair tissue, and extend healthspan.
The 2026 World Congress takes place April 23 through 25 at a venue in San Francisco. The three-day program spans regenerative medicine, precision medicine, orthobiologics, emerging technologies, and longevity. Sessions cover everything from mesenchymal stem cells and exosome therapy to AI in clinical medicine, PRP applications, and gene regulation for regenerative purposes.
It is a research-intensive program. And therapeutic plasma exchange is on it.
Dr. Kiprov's Presentation
Dr. Kiprov will present “Plasmapheresis and Therapeutic Plasma Exchange” during Session 4 on Thursday, April 23. The session is titled “Longevity” and is moderated by Trusha Shah, M.D. Other presentations in the session include mitochondrial delivery using PRP and peptides for regeneration and longevity, followed by a panel discussion on “The New Science of Longevity.”
For those unfamiliar with Dr. Kiprov's background: he is one of the physicians who established therapeutic plasma exchange as a clinical discipline in the United States. He completed a fellowship in Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He was the first U.S. physician to pass the Hemapheresis Practitioner Exam administered by the American Society for Clinical Pathology. He is a founding member of both the American Society for Apheresis (ASFA) and The Journal of Clinical Apheresis, and he has overseen more than 15,000 apheresis treatments over the course of his career.
His presence on a regenerative medicine stage is not incidental. It reflects a real and growing convergence between apheresis and the broader field of preventative medicine.
Why Regenerative Medicine Is Paying Attention to TPE
The regenerative medicine community has historically focused on what you put into the body: stem cells, growth factors, exosomes, peptides, gene therapies. These are additive approaches. They aim to introduce something new that triggers repair or regeneration.
Therapeutic plasma exchange works differently. It is a subtractive approach. Rather than adding a therapeutic agent, TPE removes harmful or aging-associated molecules from the blood. Autoantibodies, inflammatory cytokines, misfolded proteins, lipid-bound toxins, and senescence-associated circulating factors are all cleared during a single procedure. The body's own regenerative systems can then function more effectively in a cleaner internal environment.
This is not a theoretical framework. Published research supports it.
A 2022 study in GeroScience demonstrated that a series of TPE treatments produced measurable reductions in biological age, as assessed by validated epigenetic clocks. Patients showed rejuvenation of immune cell profiles and shifts in inflammatory markers consistent with a younger biological state.
A follow-up study published in Aging Cell in 2025 confirmed and extended these findings, showing sustained improvements in biological age markers after repeated TPE treatments. The data suggest that TPE does not simply produce a transient improvement. It appears to reset certain aspects of the aging process at the molecular level.
These findings place TPE squarely within the scope of what regenerative medicine aims to accomplish. The mechanism is different from stem cell therapy or PRP. But the goal is the same: restoring the body to a more functional, more resilient state.
A Cleaner Starting Point for Regenerative Therapies
There is another dimension to this convergence that deserves attention. If you are investing in regenerative therapies like stem cell injections, PRP, peptides, or exosome treatments, those therapies are being introduced into your existing biological environment. If that environment is burdened with inflammatory cytokines, autoantibodies, and senescence-associated circulating factors, the therapeutic agents you are introducing have to work against that background noise.
Therapeutic plasma exchange clears that environment first. By removing the circulating factors that drive chronic inflammation and immune dysregulation, TPE creates a cleaner biological starting point. Stem cells, growth factors, and other regenerative agents may function more effectively when they are not competing with a compromised plasma milieu.
There is already clinical evidence for this principle in oncology. The ReCIPE-M1 trial at the Mayo Clinic studied patients with metastatic melanoma that had stopped responding to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. Tumor-derived soluble PD-L1 in the blood was suppressing the immune response and blocking the drugs from working. Researchers used TPE to clear soluble PD-L1 from circulation, then re-challenged patients with the same immunotherapy that had previously failed. The result: a 61 percent response rate in patients whose cancer had been classified as treatment-resistant. The study, published in Nature Communications in 2025, demonstrated that TPE reduced soluble PD-L1 by an average of 78 percent per session, and that sustained suppression of sPD-L1 predicted overall survival.
This is not regenerative medicine. But it is the same underlying principle. Clearing immunosuppressive and pathological factors from the blood allowed a therapy that was already in the patient's system to start working again. The biological logic extends naturally to regenerative therapies. If the goal is to restore function, it stands to reason that restoration works better when the obstacles to healing have been removed first.
TPE and the AMBAR Trial
The relevance of TPE to regenerative and preventative medicine extends beyond biological age. The AMBAR trial (Alzheimer's Management by Albumin Replacement), one of the largest randomized controlled trials ever conducted for Alzheimer's disease, demonstrated that therapeutic plasma exchange with albumin replacement slowed cognitive and functional decline by 52 to 71 percent in moderate Alzheimer's patients over 14 months.
Dr. Kiprov was directly involved in the AMBAR trial. His clinical experience with TPE for neurodegenerative disease spans decades and informs both the science and the practical application of the procedure.
For a regenerative medicine audience, the AMBAR data is significant because it demonstrates that removing pathological circulating factors, rather than introducing a new drug, can meaningfully alter the course of a neurodegenerative disease. This subtractive model of intervention is something the regenerative medicine field is only beginning to explore in earnest.
What This Means for Patients
If you have been following developments in longevity, regenerative medicine, or biological age research, the inclusion of TPE on the WIRM program is worth noting. It signals that the medical community is recognizing plasma exchange not only as a treatment for specific diseases, but as a tool for maintaining health and preventing age-related decline.
At Global Apheresis, we have been performing therapeutic plasma exchange for these purposes for years. Our physicians bring more clinical apheresis experience than any other practice in the country. If you are interested in learning whether TPE might be appropriate for your situation, we offer free discovery calls with a physician. No referral is needed, and there is no obligation.
We will update this article after the WIRM World Congress with highlights from Dr. Kiprov's presentation and the longevity session.
Dr. Allen Green is the Associate Medical Director at Global Apheresis in Mill Valley, California. He is board-certified in Clinical Pathology and has personally performed over 500 TPE procedures.