Aaron Traywick , the theatrical chief executive officer of a regulation - averse biotech party telephone Ascendance Biomedical who recentlyinjected himself with an untried herpes virus treatmenton stage at a league in Texas , is now at the center of some major dramatic play in the biohacking biotic community .
This Saturday in Florida , several documentary crews were scheduled to shoot at one of the biohacker labs fund by Ascendance . The Florida biohackers that head for the hills the research lab , though , had become upset by what they described as Traywick ’s pretended claims and theatrics . Others associated with the troupe were overturned , too . Multiple the great unwashed who were present told me that that morn , Traywick lock up the webpage manager out of the company website , changed the locks on the Florida lab space , and barricaded himself inside for several hours . Eventually , he piled some of the biohackers ’ lab equipment outside in front of the lab . In an e-mail to me , Traywick confirmed these detail . There was even a strong-arm wrestling compeer over the key for the science laboratory between Traywick and another biohacker at one detail . ( “ It was like watching a scene from Rushmore , ” Gabriel Licina , who runs the Florida laboratory , said . )
Ascendance has a CEO but otherwise operates as a on the loose consortium of many biohackers and transhumanist types who forge with the company in the first place in rally for equity and enquiry funding . Late Sunday night , some of those the great unwashed relate with Ascendance gathered in an flat in Florida to hash out the situation in a Facebook livestream . take part in the coup was Licina ; his lab better half , Justin Atkin ; Andreas Stuermer , who build up the herpes treatment and had originally planned to test it on himself ; and Tristan Roberts , a computer programmer who had volunteered for an earlier experiment and execute the digital side of Ascendance . They would no longer be working with Ascendance , they announced . Traywick , they said , had put pressure on them to burn corners on skill to make arbitrary deadlines set up to unwrap novel therapies to the press .
Ascendance Biomedical CEO Aaron Traywick, shortly after injecting himself with an experimental herpes therapy. Image: Kristen V. Brown
Traywick ’s point stunt in former February in Texas , in which Traywick claim the caller may have create a vaccine and cure for herpes virus , attract much irefrom the biohacking residential district . Some people order such stunts and unsupported claims gave the DIY skill community of interests a bad name . Ascendancesays it is mould to cure Crab , herpes virus , HIV , and aging . It trust on volunteers to test novel therapies on themselves , a loophole that puts its activity outside of the ordinance of the Food and Drug Administration .
In October , the company encourage Roberts toinject himselfwith an untested gene therapy that Ascendance claim was capable of curing his HIV . That examination was live - streamed on Facebook .
“ These stunts make former - school biohackers / self - experimenter ( like me ) look like ignorant fools , ” one biohacker wrote on Facebook , in chemical reaction to a story about the companypublished by Gizmodo .
Roberts , who in the beginning told me he now feels he was dopey to undergo the initial cistron therapy offered by Ascendance , severalize the livestream audience that they wanted to “ eliminate ” Traywick from the biohacking community before he “ hurts citizenry . ” Traywick had irresponsibly inflated the society ’s advancement and thrown around the “ c - word , ” cure , he articulate .
In reply to the livestream , Traywick said in an electronic mail to me on Monday : “ The only remark I have to make is that I am disheartened that former collaborators , who were discharged from their tariff as a answer of negligence and threats made towards damaging lab equipment and cloth , would decide to further damage our relationship by making erroneous title . I fuck those guys and I need us to move onward together , and they have made it very difficult for doing so . ” ( The biohackers , who were working with Ascendance as contractors , claim that they quit and were not fired . )
Roberts also claimed on the livestream that Traywick was “ defrauding investor , ” though the specific of how he may have done so are unreadable , and Traywick did not immediately react to a petition for comment on that aspect of the encounter .
“ After having my optimism thoroughly beat and trampled , I am dissociating myself with Ascendance , ” Roberts articulate , call Traywick “ a scam creative person . ”
This does not , however , seem like it will strike out the end of experimental therapies developed outside the horizon of regulatory agencies like the FDA , which has warned about the dangers of self - experimentation .
The work will continue outdoors of Ascendance , Licina said . When it ’s quick , they may even go forward with plans to essay a second variant of the HIV therapy on Roberts .
“ The science is substantial , ” Roberts say in the livestream . It was claims that existing DIY treatments would in reality cure anyone , he say , that were not . “ Our chief operating officer does n’t have a fast grasp of the scientific realities . ”
biohackingGene therapyGeneticsScience
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