Bryan Johnson’s quest for extreme longevity seems to have taken a controversial turn.
The 48-year-old entrepreneur had announced in early July that he had been diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis, an incurable condition where the immune system goes after the stomach cells that produce acid.
According to the National Institutes of Health, the disease can trigger severe iron and vitamin B12 deficiencies, leading to anemia.
Johnson, who attributed the diagnosis to the stress of building a business while raising three children and his poor eating habits during that time, quickly pivoted to a radical solution, claiming on X (formerly Twitter) recently, “I just cloned myself … as a newborn,” and adding that “baby Bryan” is currently residing in a Petri dish.
The “blood boy” protocol
Johnson’s plan for the project is expansive.”With this clone, I can become my own blood boy, test therapies on the clone, grow organs for transplantation, develop new treatments and inject young cells,” he wrote.
The scientific process he described, however, which starts with a blood draw whereby cells are extracted, exposed to Yamanaka factors, and reset to what he called an embryonic-like state, is part of standard induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) research, not cloning.
In reality, the process involves taking ordinary skin or blood cells and reprogramming them in a lab to behave like embryonic stem cells. Because Yamanaka factors effectively “erase” a cell’s biological memory, the resulting cell can self-renew and, theoretically, turn into any cell type in the body. Still, the procedure does not create an embryo, nor does it develop into a newborn by any means.
The post drew reactions on X anyway, with some folks calling it unsettling. One user wrote that Johnson “is what happens when you combine eccentricity with extreme narcissism and a need for attention (the misleading picture as the cherry on top).” Others pointed out that unconventional methods have produced real medical breakthroughs before.
Johnson, nonetheless, framed the diagnosis as an opportunity. “I mentioned getting diagnosed with an incurable disease is one of the best things that has happened to me in a long time,” he noted. “It’s opened up a frontier of new paths to repair and strengthen the body. This is the first example,” the entrepreneur added.
Sources: X (Formerly Twitter), NIH, UCLA, NewsNation