‘Project Baby Face’ Fat Injections Cause Entrepreneur’s Face to ‘Blow Up’ amid His $2 Million Quest to Look Younger

Mar. 15, 2025

Bryan Johnson shared the allergic reaction he had after having fat from a donor injected into his face.Photo:Bryan Johnson/Instagram

Bryan Johnson/Instagram

A software entrepreneur who is spending millions to “bio-hack” his body and reverse the aging process shared how one treatment — injecting fat from a donor into his face — went horribly wrong.

The fat injections, which caused his face to swell to the point where he couldn’t see, were the latest effort inBryan Johnson’s “Project Blueprint.”

The 47-year-old has enlisted 30 doctors and is spending$2 million this year on cutting-edge scienceto have the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, tendons, teeth, skin, hair, bladder, penis and rectum of an 18-year-old.

In a Nov. 13Instagram postabout his fat injections, Johnson shared that calorie restriction was an early mandate for Project Blueprint.

“I got really lean and lost a lot of fat—especially in my face …I looked gaunt. People thought I was on the brink of death,” Johnson said, even though he had improved his “biomarkers” — which theNational Library of Medicineexplains are “a characteristic that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biological processes, pathogenic processes, or pharmacologic responses to a therapeutic intervention.”

Johnson revealed his team discovered that facial fat “is pretty important for how people perceive youth” and that “it didn’t matter how good my biomarkers were if I didn’t have face fat.”

Bryan Johnson shares his allergic reaction to fat injections from a donor.Bryan Johnson/Instagram

“Immediately following the injections, my face began to blow up,” he added. “And then it got worse, and worse, and worse until I couldn’t even see. It was a severe allergic reaction.”

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Bryan Johnson had the plasma removed from his body and replaced with albumin.Bryan Johnson/Instagram

“Seven days later my face was back to normal,” Johnson said, sharing that experience won’t deter him from seeking other ways to restore lost volume in his face.

“We were back in the trenches reformulating plans for our next attempt,” he wrote. “Building a product is one thing; being the product is a whole different thing.”

source: people.com