Aaron Traywick was an American life extension activist in the transhumanism and biohacking communities and former founding CEO of Ascendance Biomedical. He sought to develop gene therapies to make inexpensive treatments available for incurable conditions such as AIDS and the herpes simplex virus. His lack of any medical training and his unconventional methods—such as broadcasting an associate injecting himself with an “untested experimental gene therapy”, then later doing the same to himself in an onstage public demonstration—drew widespread criticism.
From January 2016 to his termination in July 2016, he worked to advocate investment in radical approaches towards anti-aging at the Global Healthspan Policy Institute started by his cousin. In 2017 he founded Ascendance Biomedical in Washington, D.C. with the mission to “make cutting edge biomedical technologies available for everyone”. Traywick's self-administered do it yourself homemade gene therapies received substantial media attention. In October 2017, Ascendance Biomedical shared a live broadcast of Traywick's associate Tristan Roberts injecting himself with an “untested experimental gene therapy” for HIV over Facebook's live-streaming service. During a presentation at the February 2018 BodyHacking Con in Austin, Texas, Traywick injected himself with something he referred to at the time as a “research compound”. In a later conversation with BBC reporters, he spoke of it as a “treatment” for Herpes virus, a term with a specific meaning subject to FDA regulations. Shortly after the event, the FDA issued a statement on the inherent dangers of this approach to untested gene editing, without mentioning the company by name: At the time of his death, Traywick was planning a CRISPR gene therapy trial for the treatment of lung cancer in Tijuana, Mexico, and served as managing director for Inovium Rejuvenation, which was conducting pre-enrollment for FDA-approved trials in several US locations to reverse menopause, rejuvenate ovaries, restore fertility, and bring hormone levels back in line with those found in youth. He was featured as a subject in an as-yet unreleased documentary film directed by Ford Fischer: Transhuman: Biohackers and Immortalists.. He is also a subject in the limited Netflix series "Unnatural Selection."
Death
Traywick was found unconscious in a sensory deprivation isolation tank, or “float pod”, at a float spa on April 29, 2018. A spa spokesperson informed reporters that the spa's co-owner arrived twenty minutes after Traywick's float session was scheduled to end, and asked why someone was still in the float room. The door was closed although unlocked. The room was dark, though its automatic lights should have been activated when the tank's lid was opened. Traywick was discovered in the tank, which had automatically drained by that point. Emergency responders arrived within four minutes of the spa's 911 call. Traywick's body was taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for an autopsy. A spokesperson for the spa told reporters that police twice told her they found drug paraphernalia among Traywick's belongings; Police did not confirm this point. Toxicology reports were said to be expected six to ten weeks following autopsy. An autopsy report provided to Bloomberg News on June 28 by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner showed that he accidentally drowned with the drug ketamine in his system. Ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic, is sometimes used as a recreational drug. The U.S. Transhumanist Party issued an official statement about his death, saying it was, as far as they were aware, a "tragic accident". Traywick was 28 years old.
