Cyborgs, superhumans and cranks

"IT WAS AFTER tripping on hallucinogenic mushrooms that Christian Angermayer realised he had a personal mission to help the human race improve itself. Having passed through the “gateway to God” opened by psychedelic drugs, the German tech billionaire wanted to usher the rest of humanity in the same direction. Nowadays his investment fund not only champions the use of such drugs as a treatment for mental-health problems, but is also “pushing the boundaries for human enhancement overall”, meaning treatments to make people stronger, smarter and longer-lived. He has also donated to a $101m prize-pot for scientific breakthroughs that slow ageing and is helping to found a competition called the Enhanced Games, in which athletes can earn $1m for breaking world records using the sorts of doping that would normally disqualify them.

Some may consider all this quixotic, but Mr Angermayer is far from the only believer. Human enhancement, from wearable devices that monitor health to neural implants intended to overcome paralysis, is already a $125bn industry, according to imarc, a consultancy, and is growing by more than 10% a year. Firms seeking to increase longevity, just one element of enhancement, attracted almost $5bn in venture capital in the first half of last year. Tech luminaries such as Peter Thiel, co-founder of both PayPal and Palantir, and Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, are pouring money into the idea that the human body can be improved.

It is not just the vision of a future in which ageing is held at bay and Olympic feats of strength, speed or endurance are commonplace that is exciting investors. They are also energised by the sense that America’s current leaders are open to this sort of techno-utopianism and may help foster it. Last month Donald Trump Jr, the eldest son and namesake of America’s president, joined Messrs Angermayer and Thiel as an investor in the Enhanced Games. The competition, the younger Mr Trump explained, embodies “excellence, innovation and American dominance on the world stage—something the MAGA movement is all about”. Could the combination of enthusiastic investors and official encouragement pave the way for treatments that redefine the capacity of the human mind and body?

Unremarkable or unhinged?

People have always sought to transcend the limits imposed by biology: clothes and glasses, not to mention pacemakers and plastic surgery, are all forms of enhancement. Yet the idea of making humanity better stirs memories of eugenics and fears of snake oil. Evangelists for the industry can sound a little mad. Elon Musk, who as well as better-known companies like Tesla has also founded a brain-implant firm called Neuralink, talks about giving people “superpowers”. Bryan Johnson, a 47-year-old tech billionaire, thinks his special health regime may allow him to live for ever. Such talk brushes aside umpteen scientific uncertainties, regulatory hurdles and moral quandaries.

But gung-ho enhancers are nonetheless embracing three broad categories of treatments: supplements, gene therapies and neural implants.

Health supplements are an industry in themselves, with annual sales of $485bn. In addition, enhancers also use some prescription medicines in ways their manufacturers do not recommend. Herbal extracts such as ginseng, ginkgo and lion’s mane (a type of mushroom) are taken to sharpen the mind, as is Adderall, a hyperactivity drug containing amphetamines beloved by sleep-deprived students. Nicotinamide mononucleotide, spermidine, creatine phosphate and, for men, testosterone are all used in the hope of delaying ageing or improving mental or physical prowess.

Of mice, not men

There is usually some kind of scientific theory behind these sorts of treatments, but typically not the stringent evidence required to win approval for a prescription drug. The chemical concerned may have yielded positive results in research on animals (often mice), but may not have been tested on people. Or it may be intended to treat specific conditions in people, but has not been evaluated for the purpose to which enhancers are putting it.

Take, for instance, testosterone, which is routinely prescribed to boost energy and libido and lower anxiety in men whose bodies are not producing enough of it. Robert Kennedy, America’s new health secretary, takes testosterone not to overcome a deficiency, but as part of an “anti-ageing protocol”. The hormone has not been tested for this purpose in clinical trials, so it is hard to say whether it will have the effects Mr Kennedy is hoping for—or whether using it in this way might be risky or harmful.

The lack of data is no accident. Medical research has, to a very large extent, focused on treating debilitating afflictions, rather than on improving the capabilities of people who are already healthy. Regulators have developed systems to test whether drugs prevent or alleviate known ailments, but these are typically not well suited to assess whether a treatment has a positive effect on those who are already well. Since such enhancements might be considered less urgent, it is anyway less clear how risks and rewards should be balanced.

What is more, naturally occurring substances cannot be patented, so there is little incentive for pharmaceutical firms to pour money into research on their effects.

That leaves people like Mr Johnson conducting research on themselves. He describes himself as a “rejuvenation athlete” and spends $2m a year on a regimen that is supervised by a team of scientists. Every day he gets up at about 5am, takes 100 pills (a mix of supplements and prescription medicine), exercises for an hour or more and follows a calorie-controlled vegan diet. He does not eat after 11am and goes to bed by 8.30pm. He sleeps alone, for better rest.

And that is the more conventional part of Mr Johnson’s health experiments. He recently said he has replaced all his plasma (the liquid part of blood) with a solution of a protein called albumin. He has received a blood transfusion from his son after research in mice had suggested it may have a rejuvenating effect. His intention is to minimise the biological indications of ageing, although that is difficult, since there is no scientific consensus on what they are. He, for instance, seems to set great store by the quantity and duration of his night-time erections, which is not a widely accepted metric.

Charles Brenner, a biochemist at the City of Hope, an American medical-research centre, has suggested that Mr Johnson’s “polypharmacy” is likely to be harmful and dismissed his claimed immortality as “delusional”. Without proper clinical trials of his various treatments, it is impossible to judge with any certainty.

That is why the world of enhancement is excited about a study called TAME, which is the first clinical trial that targets ageing specifically to be approved by America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

TAME will test whether metformin, a drug to treat diabetes, can also prolong human lifespans. Since it would be impractical to run a trial over 80 or 90 years, TAME will measure the onset of age-related ailments such as cancer and dementia over a shorter period as a proxy for longevity. In time, the FDA may come to accept other indicators of ageing as the basis for further trials, although agreeing on the format of TAME took years.

Another type of treatment championed by enhancers is gene therapy, whereby new genetic material is introduced to the body to alter the way it functions. George Church, a geneticist at Harvard University, argues that humans are reaching the limits of improvements in physical and mental performance that can be achieved through diet and exercise. Further gains, he says, will require advanced technologies such as gene editing. At any rate, improvements in various Olympic records have slowed in recent years. Whether related to the body’s limits or to more stringent anti-doping controls, the slowdown tends to support enhancers’ arguments.

Existing gene therapies that achieve various medical ends, such as boosting the production of red blood cells for anaemics, or strengthening muscles for those with a wasting disease, are also of interest to enhancers. Doping agencies are worried that athletes will use such treatments, which are hard to detect, in competitive sport. As early as 2006 a German trainer reportedly tried to get hold of an experimental gene therapy called Repoxygen, although there is no evidence that he was successful.

Dr Church is a co-founder of a firm called Rejuvenate Bio, which is exploring gene therapy to tackle age-related diseases. In a paper last year in Cellular Reprogramming, a scientific journal, it reported introducing genes into mice to get them to produce proteins called Yamanaka factors that prompt cells to revert to a more youthful state. The animals lived far longer than normal and age-related changes in their DNA diminished. The firm aims to reproduce this effect in humans.

Only one genetic enhancement (as opposed to gene therapies for conventional medical purposes) is known to be publicly available. A firm called Minicircle has developed a method to introduce new genes into the body using loops of bacterial DNA called plasmids. It has harnessed this technique to induce the body to produce more follistatin, a hormone that, among other functions, stimulates muscle growth. As usual, most of the underlying research was conducted on mice. Mr Johnson, the immortal tech mogul, received Minicircle’s follistatin therapy last year at a clinic on Roatán Island, off the coast of Honduras. The intention, as well as bulking up, was to delay the onset of ageing and even lengthen the ends of chromosomes, which may be an indicator of longevity.

The location of the clinic, in the semi-autonomous town of Próspera, was no accident. It is part of a special economic zone with less onerous regulation than the rest of Honduras. It has become known for allowing medical procedures that might not be permitted in other jurisdictions. The private firm that runs the city includes among its backers Mr Altman, Mr Thiel and Marc Andreessen, a celebrated venture capitalist. Mr Altman has also invested in Minicircle. The government of Honduras, however, is trying to rescind Próspera’s special status.

A third form of treatment championed by enhancers is brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). These can collect and analyse signals from the brain or send signals to it. They can be headsets or invasive implants, inserted into the brain itself. Although a new technology, they have already been used to achieve surprisingly sophisticated results. Scientists have been able to decode activity in the area of the brain that processes visual information to work out what kind of images people are looking at, and even reconstruct those images in some cases. An implant developed by Mr Musk’s firm, Neuralink, has allowed a paraplegic to operate a computer with his thoughts.

Mr Musk says that it should soon be possible for brain implants to allow disabled patients to move artificial limbs as well. Neuralink is also developing an implant to restore sight to the blind, although it has not yet started human trials. In the long run, however, Mr Musk wants not just to overcome disabilities, but to increase patients’ mental powers. He hopes to use BCIs to connect human brains to artificial intelligence, massively augmenting reasoning capacity and knowledge.

Investors seem enthusiastic about this vision. Neuralink, which is privately held, has secured several rounds of funding, including one in 2023 led by Mr Thiel’s investment fund. Messrs Angermayer and Thiel have also invested in another BCI firm, Blackrock Neurotech. A third, Synchron, counts Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, among its backers.

Meanwhile, several wearable BCIs are already on the market. One, made by Flow Neuroscience, uses electrodes attached to the scalp to send a small electrical charge to specific areas of the brain. It is being tested by Britain’s National Health Service to treat depression. Other startups hope to tackle different neurological or psychological disorders in a similar way.

But in addition to treating conventional ailments, wearable BCIs, too, are intended to enhance. Some devices promise to help users become calmer, more focused and remember more. Another claims to “elevate your performance” by increasing alertness. There are hopes that BCIs of this sort could detect distraction or fatigue and thus improve workers’ performance.

The jurisdiction where BCIs are being developed most eagerly is China, where multiple trials are under way involving monkeys and humans. Chinese scientists recently claimed to have developed the world’s first non-invasive two-way BCI, allowing a drone and human pilot to communicate with one another. The government has also issued various regulations to hasten the adoption of BCIs.

BCIs raise all manner of ethical and legal concerns. If the technology gets sophisticated enough, ensuring privacy and preventing subtle forms of mind control will become urgent and difficult. Regulators will naturally be cautious. But some entrepreneurs hope that the American authorities, at least, will soon be taking a more permissive approach to enhancement in general.

Mr Kennedy, after all, is happy to break with medical orthodoxy and has personally embraced some supposed forms of enhancement. He has complained in the past that the FDA is suppressing research into stem-cell therapies. President Trump has nominated Jim O’Neill, a long-term lieutenant of Mr Thiel and a longevity enthusiast, as one of Mr Kennedy’s deputies. He, too, has criticised the FDA as unduly cautious in licensing experimental treatments.

Aron D’Souza, the head of the Enhanced Games, thinks America’s new leadership will unleash “a technological revolution”. “There’s big moves in play,” he says. “The FDA is a great organisation, but ultimately, there are many things and compounds outside of the purview of the current rules, because it’s not designed for this rule set.” He understands that Mr Trump’s administration is already considering loosening regulations around the use of anabolic steroids, for instance, making life easier for bodybuilders. Mr Angermayer, too, insists that the American authorities understand the need to “change the framework” around the development of new medicines, particularly those targeting longevity, to allow greater scope for enhancement. That, in turn, would spur investment in research and thus hasten the development of new therapies.

As exciting as that prospect is to advocates of enhancement, the general public may not be so enthusiastic. A study conducted in 2018 found that the overwhelming majority of Americans approved of treatments that could restore normal physical functions to people who lacked or had lost them, such as the blind and paraplegics. But only a minority endorsed the idea of developing enhancements to human abilities beyond the typical range. Whether this reflects only a fear of the unknown, which will melt away as the potential of enhancement becomes clear, or a more deep-seated unease about tinkering with nature, is hard to say. Other intrusive technologies, such as mobile phones, have been greeted with scepticism at first only to be almost universally embraced as their benefits become apparent.

Flaws begone!

Proponents of enhancement, at any rate, are optimistic. Mr D’Souza was among the participants at a recent conference in Britain at which enhancement was heralded as both a right and a moral imperative. As he puts it, “We have the ability to overcome the weakness of our feeble biological forms and become something more.” The Enhanced Games, he says, will “redefine what ageing is about”. He wants them to be a popular spectacle and to receive lots of attention. That might help normalise and popularise the idea of enhancement. “I believe in superhumanity,” he declares. The rest of us will soon have the chance to decide if we do, too," [1]

1.  Cyborgs, superhumans and cranks. The Economist; London Vol. 454, Iss. 9440,  (Mar 22, 2025): 13, 14, 15.