Hack Yourself

03/20/23 • 44 min

In the United States, many citizens place personal freedom above all other societal values. Combine that with a wave of new gene hacking technologies that are cheap and easy to use, and the biohacking movement is born. It’s fun, you can inject yourself in your own basement, and it can generate a lot of interest on social media.

In this episode we start with visionary biochemist, genetic designer, and biohacker Jo Zayner. An ex-NASA biochemist, turned underground biohacker, Jo first gained notoriety by publicly injecting themself with CRISPR at a live event. Although their claims that it would enhance their muscles did not pan out, it did inspire a wave of copycat hackers who started dubious enterprises that publicly injected themselves and sold untested cures to Herpes and other ailments. Samira and Cody traveled with Jo to the Dominican Republic, which has no medical regulations, to meet with patients suffering from muscular dystrophy, and who are desperate to meet Zayner and try any DIY cure.

Episode Guests

Jo Zayner (formerly Josiah Zayner) is a biohacker, artist, and scientist best known for their self-experimentation and work making hands-on genetic engineering accessible to a lay audience, including CRISPR.

Ynti Eusebio is the medical director of Prometheus Regenerative Lab located in the Dominican Republic. Ynti provides plastic surgery and Stem Cell Therapies to his patients.

Henry Thompson, a resident of the Dominican Republic suffering from muscular dystrophy.
Resources

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/biohacking-stunts-crispr/553511/
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/19/18629771/biohacking-josiah-zayner-genetic-engineering-crispr
http://www.josiahzayner.com/p/about.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/style/biohacker-death-aaron-traywick.html
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Credits
Written and Edited by Cody Sheehy
Produced by Samira Kiani
Music By Tyler Strickland
Impact production by Megan Friend
Recorded by Cody Sheehy and Samira Kiani
Additional Recording By Galen McCaw
Sound design and mixing by Kim Christensen
Supporting materials by Cody Sheehy
Social media and marketing by Megan Friend, Amna Vegha, and Marci Fiamengo
Website by Craig Boesewetter
Legal by W. Wilder Knight II
Executive production by Randall Gebhardt and Christopher Gebhardt

Episode Guests

Ynti Eusebio is the medical director of Prometheus Regenerative Lab located in the Dominican Republic. Ynti provides plastic surgery and Stem Cell Therapies to his patients.

Henry Thompson, a resident of the Dominican Republic suffering from muscular dystrophy.
Resources

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Previous Episode

Immortality

As far back as we have recorded history, from ancient cave paintings to the pyramids, humans have quested for immortality. It is the ultimate prize for a species that can imagine the future and their own eventual death. In recent years, science has transformed that quest into a technological one. This episode starts with Max More, the former president of ALCOR Life Extension Foundation. Next stop is to meet with Dr. George Church, the legendary genomics pioneer, and take a trip to the forefront of age reversal. He has recently started a new company, Rejuvenate Bio, with his protegee Noah Davidsohn. The logic is that if people see the safety of radically increasing the lifespans of their pets, they will become much more comfortable trying the same therapy on themselves.
Andrew Hessel is a micro-biologist and geneticist and entrepreneur.

Max More is a philosopher and futurist who writes, speaks, and consults on advanced decision-making about emerging technologies.

George Church is an American geneticist, molecular engineer, chemist, and a serial entrepreneur who is widely regarded as the "Founding Father of Genomics", and a pioneer in personal genomics and synthetic biology.

Noah Davidsohn is the CSO & Co-Founder at Rejuvenate Bio. Previously, Noah was Research Scientist at Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Daniel Oliver is Founder and CEO of Rejuvenate Bio. He holds a business degree from Harvard Business School.
Reference links for this episode

Transcript https://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/makepeoplebetter/episode-002-longevity/
https://www.alcor.org

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230105006059/e

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Next Episode

Code of the Wild

Mosquitoes, which have evolved on Earth for more than a hundred million years, could be extinguished by new genetic engineering tools in a matter of years in modern efforts to prevent malaria. The first of these immensely powerful technologies are called “gene drives.” In this episode, we sit down for a mind mending interview with Dr Kevin Esvelt of MIT’s Sculpting Evolution Lab, who is one of the key inventors of gene drives and has been a chief advocate for its current deployments to sterilize invasive rodents and drive disease laden mosquitoes to extinction. We also get a sobering perspective from James Collins, an evolutionary ecologist at Arizona State University. At the end of the day, humans have never been able to modify nature without huge unforeseen consequences, but we usually proceed anyway.
Episode Guests

Kevin Esvelt is director of the Sculpting Evolution group, which invents new ways to study and influence the evolution of ecosystems.

James P. Collins is an evolutionary ecologist whose research group studies the role of host-pathogen interactions in species decline and extinction.

Reference links for this episode
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02087-5
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/first-us-open-air-test-of-genetically-modified-mosquitoes-deemed-a-success-180979960/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-021-00386-0
https://www.netflix.com/title/80208910

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