Aaron Traywick

Biohacker

What is Aaron Traywick known for?

Aaron James Traywick, born on December 19, 1989, in Elmore, Alabama, was an American businessman and life extension activist known for his unconventional experiments within the transhumanism and biohacking communities. Despite being a graduate of Stanhope Elmore High School in Millbrook, Alabama, and the University of Montevallo with a degree in interdisciplinary studies, Traywick had no formal training in clinical medicine or a scientific background.

Traywick's career began advocating for investment in radical anti-aging approaches at the Global Healthspan Policy Institute in early 2016, which was started by his cousin. However, his employment was terminated within the same year. Undeterred, he founded Ascendance Biomedical in Washington, D.C. in 2017, aiming to make cutting-edge biomedical technologies accessible to everyone.

Despite the controversy surrounding his methods, Traywick's do-it-yourself homemade gene therapies garnered substantial media attention. His operations included broadcasting the injection of his associates with untested experimental gene therapies on social media platforms. His goal was to develop inexpensive treatments for incurable conditions such as AIDS and the herpes simplex virus.

In 2018, Traywick went a step further by publicly injecting himself with what he referred to as a "research compound" during a presentation at the BodyHacking Con in Austin, Texas. He later referred to it as a treatment for the herpes virus, drawing critiques due to the FDA's specified definitions of "treatment" and their subsequent warnings about the inherent dangers of such approaches.

Before his untimely death at the age of 28, Traywick had plans to conduct a CRISPR gene therapy trial for the treatment of lung cancer in Tijuana, Mexico. He also served as the managing director for Inovium Rejuvenation, which was in the process of conducting pre-enrollment for FDA-approved trials to reverse menopause, restore fertility, rejuvenate ovaries, and bring hormone levels back to those found in youth.

Traywick's life and work were featured in the 2020 Showtime documentary, 'Citizen Bio', and the limited Netflix series, 'Unnatural Selection'. On April 29, 2018, Traywick was found dead in a sensory deprivation isolation tank, or "float pod," at a float spa in Washington, D.C.

Inovium Rejuvenation | Ascendance Biomedical | Citizen Bio Documentary | Unnatural Selection Series