[thedoc (OP)]

Tina Fix asked the Naked Scientists:
   I want to donate myself to science now. I'm 53, female & very much alive. Is this possible?
What do you think?

[alancalverd]

You can sign up with your GP, local hospital, pharamaceutical company, or clinical trials unit as a healthy volunteer, and also talk to your favourite teaching hospital about becoming a cadaver donor (the good ones still do dissection).

If you have an interesting condition, you are probably on the radar already!

[evan_au]

Google "Find clinical trials".
Some countries have a government website that records clinical trials, and assists the public to find relevant trials.
This site lists around 50,000 clinical trials recruiting volunteers: https://www.patientslikeme.com/clinical_trials

For those who aren't so healthy, clinical trials are a way to obtain access to a potential new treatment, often heavily subsidized or free.

Now all we need is a mechanism where to obtain approval for a drug, you must pre-register the success criteria to be measured in the clinical trials, and to make the trial results available, even if these criteria are not met. That will greatly improve transparency in an industry which has frequently been accused of publishing favorable results, and suppressing unfavorable results. And then expecting the public to pay for it.