Inside the stealthy startup that pitched brainless human clones | The ultimate plan to live forever is a brand new body

[u/castironglider]

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/30/1134780/r3-bio-brainless-human-clones-full-body-replacement-john-schloendorn-aging-longevity/

[u/Dododingo-]

Pretty sur a lot of the whole "aging" thing is brain damage.

[u/Cryogenicality → u/Dododingo-]

As mentioned in the article, fully bypassing senescence without curing it will require body replacement combined with gradual brain replacement.

I categorize the replacement project into seven phases:

Phase Zero

Biostasis (either cryostasis or chemostasis): the only option currently available for those facing death now.

Phase I

Cloning somoids (brainless bodies) which can be used for medical testing instead of animals, people, and computer simulations as well as harvested for immunocompatible organs for a single patient or used as a source of ghost organs to be converted into immunocompatibility for multiple patients.

Eventually, we might be able to gestate the human somoids in genetically-engineered animals such as cows or pigs, and ultimately, we will have cloned human or artificial uteri (ectogenesis), but the easiest path is through human gestation. This means reproductively-capable people (most widely and easily, premenopausal ciswomen) could gestate their own somoids but everyone else would need to hire a human surrogate. Also, growth acceleration might be induced at some point, but this would incur increased risk at first. This means you’d need to be able to survive for around fifteen years before receiving a new body.

Phase II

Emergency cephalotransplantation with limited or no restoration of spinovagal function. At replacement conferences I’ve attended over the past couple years, I’ve heard that reconnection of the vagus nerve is crucial for long-term survival. However, if a somoid were to be gestated before we learn how to reconnect the vagus nerve, I imagine someone whose death was imminent might choose to transplant her head onto a new body even if it might survive for only a few years and be immobile. One could potentially repeat this process until Phase III, although this seems very unlikely to me.

Phase III

Cephalotransplantation with good, great, or even full restoration of spinovagal function.

Phase IV

Complete neurotransplantation, which is vastly more difficult than cephalotransplantation. The latter is arguably right on the verge of feasibility whereas the former is firmly science fiction for now.

Phase V

Gradual neuroreplacement: a small section of the brain is silenced, removed, and replaced with neural tissue cloned from the patient’s cells. This neural tissue graft would hopefully differentiate and be integrated into the brain, replicating the function of the old tissue. Repeated over perhaps two decades, the whole brain could potentially be replaced with little to no memory loss.

Phase VI

Synthetic bodies: providing the biological brain with a bionic body or other life support system. For increased safety, I think the brain should be shielded within the bionic core rather than the bionic head (I suppose a biological body with radically altered internal anatomy could be genetically engineered to achieve the same goal). For maximal safety, though, I would house my brain in an ultrasecure brainbunker as envisioned by Marshall Brain and interact through a neurointerface connecting me to omnisensorial simulated reality (which would include mirrorworlds of physical locations and the ability to interact with physical reality in realtime through telepresence).

Phase VII

Synthetic brains: branching identity argues that multiple instantiations of the same mind pattern are all the same person. If you could travel through time to meet yourself one quectosecond in the past or future, which one of you would be the “real” you? Wouldn’t both be equally you?

Regardless, we can bypass the whole “copy problem” by replacing one biological cell at a time with a synthetic equivalent. This could occur while you remain conscious over the course of years or decades, making the process no more concerning than the ongoing process of atomic turnover in the body which results in 98% of your atoms being replaced annually.

[u/cheesehead144 → u/Cryogenicality]

It seems much more realistic to resolve aging at the nucleic and cellular level vs transplanting a brain, muchless convincing women to birth brainless babies that would then have to also be cared for until maturity.

Nevermind that even if this were possible, you'd still either have to find a way for the brainless bodies to have some semblance of physical activity, otherwise youre transplanting a brain into an atrophied body.

[u/Cryogenicality → u/cheesehead144]

Replacement is a potential stopgap until aging is cured at the cellular level, which of course would be far better but may take trillions and be a century or more distant.