Billionaire and longevity expert Brian Johnson claims he has successfully cloned himself into a "baby" version, with the aim of testing new treatments and organ transplants for those in need.
Johnson, a 48-year-old businessman known for his obsession with fighting aging and his attempts to defy death through extreme health protocols, says this move could pave the way for reversing the aging process.
He wrote in a post on the X platform: "I have just cloned myself... in the form of a newborn."
The technology used is based on what are known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), where cells are taken from a blood sample and reprogrammed to acquire properties similar to embryonic stem cells.
This is a well-known field of research, founded by the Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka at the beginning of the millennium, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2012.
Johnson explains that this "child" is still in the laboratory stage, acknowledging that the idea may cause concern for some, but he sees it as an inevitable future for medicine and health.
Last month he revealed that he had been diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease that targets healthy stomach cells and is medically classified as incurable, but he announced his intention to fight it using artificial intelligence, advanced genetic analysis and customized DNA technologies.
He added that this clone would enable him to test treatments, develop new drugs, transplant organs, and inject himself with young cells, considering this technology to be a qualitative leap in combating aging.
He described his diagnosis with the intractable disease called autoimmune gastritis (AIG) as one of the best events of his life, because it opened new horizons for him to rebuild and strengthen his body. However, some observers criticized these experiences, considering them a model of the obsession with immortality when a person possesses immense wealth.
Johnson, who has repeatedly defended his unconventional experiments, believes that what he is doing is in the interest of scientific and medical progress.
