Josiah Zeiner is a biohacker - a person who is not afraid to reshape the biology of his body. Last month he stood in front of a small crowd of thirty people who came to the conference to hear about genetic engineering in humans. He told them it was time to stop being afraid of genetic engineering - and then emphasized the point when he pulled out a syringe, stuck it in his arm, and re-engineered his body's genetics.
The treatment that a biohacker injected into himself is the first of its kind in the world, and is designed to delete a gene called Myostatin from the muscles in the injection area. This gene inhibits muscle growth in normal people. In creatures that are born without it as a result of a mutation, you can see a massive growth of the muscles that makes them look like Olympic weightlifters.
To tell you that the treatment is effective? Nobody knows yet. Even Zeiner He himself admits that he has not yet seen an increase in the muscle mass at the injection site - but of course only a month has passed since the treatment, and we have to wait to see how things progress. But that's not the really important thing. Zeiner explains that the purpose of the demonstration was to show that "we are on the brink of the change of humanity". He believes that he is only – “…the first of many people who will change their genetic code. It will happen for medical reasons, for the sake of science, sports, or maybe just because people wanted to do it or were bored."
It is important to emphasize that the treatment is still far from safe, and that I would not recommend even the most terrible of my enemies to experiment in this way on themselves. This kind of self-treatment can easily cause unwanted side effects, such as cancer. But Zeiner is right about one big thing: it will not be possible to prevent curious people from experimenting in this way on themselves. Anyone can today purchase DNA through the Internet, and using laboratory equipment at a cost of several hundred dollars - prepare it for injection. It is still not about treatments with proven success, but how much longer can we delay the human race from experimenting on itself?
Not much. Not much at all. And the results will be extraordinary. In the era of publicly available genetic engineering, people will be able to engineer their bodies as easily as they purchase tattoos today. They will be able to engineer areas of the skin so that they shine in a certain light or change the color of the skin, improve vision, increase muscle mass, speed up or slow down the metabolic rate to lose weight or gain weight, and much more. The human body will become the canvas for future generations - and some of the genetic changes will also be passed on to the children of the genetically engineered.
And it all started last month, with one man who engineered his body live.
If you are interested in reading about the future, and how technologies will reshape society, you are invited to read Spray in the bookstores - The guide for the future and- who control the future.
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One response
Crazy.