The Profile AMA: Josiah Zayner, biohacker
Josiah Zayner, a NASA scientist-turned-biohacker, participated in an AMA chat with Profile readers. He has experimented with a DIY fecal transplant, glowing skin, and artificial muscle growth.
Here are the highlights:
Q: What’s the most exciting project you are working on?
ZAYNER: The most exciting project I think is the stuff I am working on now. Human cosmetic genetic modification. It’s an extremely interesting area because up till this point in time all gene therapies have been for medical purposes in adults but now we have the technology a understanding to make it otherwise. It is still a gray area with the FDA because it is not meant to treat diseases so it could possibly reach a consumer market. At the moment the possibilities are limited but still interesting we know enough to increase physical performance in a number of ways, treat obesity and maybe hair loss. Lots of opportunities. It’s the first time in human history that we can change our genetics! No longer slaves to what we were born with. That’s exciting to me.
Q: How far do you see bio-engineering going? “Designer” babies or more preventative treatments?
ZAYNER: Bioengineering is really interesting in that it can provide so many positives. Remove diseases from human before birth instead of after. Cure genetic diseases and provide cosmetic modifications. Understand we have been genetically modified humans since the 90s for medical reasons to much success. What is holding back genetic modification in humans is regulation and ethics. I feel like this happens with all technology in history though. It goes through a phase were people fight it before widespread adoption. So TLDR; I imagine in the next 5 years or less we will have adult human cosmetic genetic engineering and eventually in embryos because there are no technical challenges holding us back.
Q: How do you see the use of nanobots evolving over time? It appears to be the intersection point of tech and medicine that most people are counting on — how viable do you think the solution is? What would be the most interesting use case?
ZAYNER: The idea of nanobots is still a little bit science fiction unless you mean the idea of say repurposing things like viruses, bacteria and even human cells, modifying them outside the body and putting them back in. This is very promising and in the past year a number of treatments have been made using modified immune T-cells, so called CAR-T cell therapy. It is a very complicated, expensive and intensive process but it is one of the most promising treatments for many diseases including many cancers.
Q: Are there any sort of ethical guidelines for the DIY biohacking movement?
ZAYNER: Biohackers are kind of a decentralized group of people who all have their own set of reasons for doing what they do. It makes it so that people can choose their own limits and boundaries without controlling others. Social decentralization. I think most biohackers would only agree on one rule, Don’t harm others or put others in a situation to be harmed. Obviously, there are caveats like say if I am trying to help someone dying of a terminal illness and they want to take the risk or trying to replicate a therapy in a new study. But I think it is generally a good starting point.
Q: Where is innovation happening? Are there particular spaces, networks, or community that truly embody the DIY label? Also, apart from more accessible hardware/equipment, what’s needed for the biohacking movement to leap from where it is now?
ZAYNER: At the moment, Europe is pretty harsh on most biohacking and DIY genetic engineering no matter the organism and no matter what for. Germany actually has laws in place that will send you to jail simply for mixing DNA with cells. The U.S. is the most lenient where they basically allow all forms of genetic modification. You can’t experiment on some species of animals and definitely not humans without permission but otherwise you are mostly ok. After that China, UK, France, Mexico, Canada and many South American countries. Understand though that some countries don’t even have guidelines or laws for this type of stuff yet. The most active groups of people are in the US and more specifically in Silicon Valley/Bay area but there are people all over the world doing cool stuff.
Q: What are your thoughts on the longevity-related research on fasting? Have you experimented with fasting in any form? What have your experiences been like?
ZAYNER: While there is a bunch of research that shows longevity can increase lifespan we are talking about animals that are very distantly related to humans like mice, rats, worms, &c. And the numbers aren’t radical. You aren’t going to live to 150 or even 120 from eat a low calorie diet or fasting lots. I think the main thing people don’t understand about aging and longevity is that slowing the aging process is only a small small factor in living longer. Think about it like your favorite shirt, making a shirt that doesn’t wear out easy is just a small part, it can still gets stains, tears and all manner of things that don’t relate to the “age”. Same thing with humans, your bones and teeth get beat up after a while, you genome is mutated just from years of breathing oxygen, which means higher incidence of cancer and disease.
Eating healthy or healthy caloric restriction and fasting is rarely bad and can probably add years to your life compared to a high calorie, insulin tolerance building prediabetic diet. But it’s not going to make you live forever.
