It’s debatable whether healthy people should be exposed to these risks, says Fernandez Lynch. The technology “still has serious questions about its safety and effectiveness,” even for people with life-threatening diseases, she says. “If you are a healthy person, the risk of harm is more substantial because it’ll be more impactful on your life.”
But Leshko is adamant. “Over 120,000 humans die DAILY from age-related causes,” he wrote in an email. “Building ‘ethical’ barriers around ‘healthy’ human (in fact, aging human) trials is unethical.” Morgunov did not respond to a request for comment.
Some people want to take those risks anyway. In his video, the biohacker influencer Asprey—who has publicly stated that he’s “going to live to 180”—described VEGF as a “longevity compound,” and Eterna’s CEO Khan, who delivered the treatment, described it as “the ultimate upgrade.” Neither Asprey nor Khan clinic responded to requests for comment.
Michael Gusmano, a professor of health policy at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, worries that this messaging might give trial participants unrealistic expectations about how they might benefit. There is “huge potential for therapeutic misconception when you have some kind of celebrity online influencer touting something about which there is relatively sparse scientific evidence,” he says. In reality, he adds, “the only thing you can guarantee is that [the volunteers] will be contributing to our knowledge of how this intervention works.”
“I would certainly not recommend that anyone I know enter into such a trial,” says Gusmano.
A penis project
The muscle study is only the first step. The Unlimited Bio team hopes to trial the VEGF therapy for baldness and erectile dysfunction, too. Leshko points to research in mice that links high VEGF levels to larger, denser hair follicles. He hopes to test a series of VEGF therapy injections into the scalps of volunteers. Morgunov, who is largely bald, has already started to self-experiment with the approach.
An erectile dysfunction trial may follow. “That one we think has great potential because injecting gene therapy into the penis sounds exciting,” says Leshko. A protocol for that trial has not yet been finalized, but he imagines it would involve “five to 10” injections.
Ylä-Herttuala isn’t optimistic about either approach. Hair growth is largely hormonal, he says. And injecting anything into a penis risks damaging it (although Leshko points out that a similar approach was taken by another company almost 20 years ago). Injecting a VEGF gene therapy into the penis would also risk edema there, Ylä-Herttuala adds.