{"id":229096,"date":"2026-03-30T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/inside-the-stealthy-startup-that-pitched-brainless-human-clones\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T05:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:15:18","slug":"inside-the-stealthy-startup-that-pitched-brainless-human-clones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/inside-the-stealthy-startup-that-pitched-brainless-human-clones\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the stealthy startup that pitched brainless human clones"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inside the stealthy startup that pitched brainless human clones<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Publish Date: 2026-03-30 05:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.technologyreview.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Last Monday, the same day it announced itself to the world in Wired, R3 sent us a sweeping disavowal of our findings. It said Schloendorn \u201cnever made any statement regarding hypothetical \u2018non-sentient human clones\u2019 [that] would be carried by surrogates.\u201d The most overarching of these challenges was its insistence that \u201cany allegations of intent or conspiracy to create human clones or humans with brain damage are categorically false.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even Schloendorn and his cofounder, Alice Gilman, can\u2019t seem to keep away from the topic. Just last September, the pair presented at Abundance Longevity, a $70,000-per-ticket event in Boston organized by the anti-aging promoter Peter Diamandis. Although the presentation to about 40 people was not recorded and was meant to be confidential, a copy of the agenda for the event shows that Schloendorn was there to outline his \u201cfinal bid to defeat aging\u201d in a session called \u201cFull Body Replacement.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a person who was there, both animal research and personal clones for spare organs were discussed. During the presentation, Gilman and Schloendorn even stood in front of an image of a cloning needle. Pressed on whether this was a talk about brainless clones, Gilman told us that while R3\u2019s current business is replacing animal models, \u201cthe team reserves the right to hold hypothetical futuristic discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n

MIT Technology Review found no evidence that R3 has cloned anyone, or even any animal bigger than a rodent. What we did find were documents, additional meeting agendas, and other sources outlining a technical road map for what R3 called \u201cbody replacement cloning\u201d in a 2023 letter to supporters. That road map involved improvements to the cloning process and genetic wiring diagrams for how to create animals without complete brains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A child with hydranencephaly, a rare condition in which most of the brain is missing. Could a human clone also be created without much of a brain as an ethical…
\n
Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inside the stealthy startup that pitched brainless human clones https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2026\/03\/30\/1134780\/r3-bio-brainless-human-clones-full-body-replacement-john-schloendorn-aging-longevity\/ Publish Date: 2026-03-30 05:00:00 Source…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Clones-3.jpg?resize=1200,600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229098,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229096\/revisions\/229098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}