Introduction

We are each individual little nations. We all have different rules. We all have different opinions. It's hard to say "you're a biohacker, do this". So we're not a union.

Definitions

Definition of biohacking? Who gives a shit. Who's a biohacker? Anyone who wants to see themselves as that. Or anyone who the media calls them that-- Antonio, we miss you, if you're watching the livestream.

Stats

Running the-odin and this conference, whether you like it or not, whether anyone likes it or not, biohacking is growing. This is Google trends for the topic of diybio which includes biohacking and genetic engineering. It's really starting to take off. Hopefully it will go exponential in the future.

If you look at the stuff going on in Facebook groups, participation is growing at 40% since last year. Our sales at the-odin.com are growing, too. If you want to start a biohacking company, do it now before it's too late. It's alright, I don't mind the competition.

I think we're right at that inflection point where things are going to start to take off. Everyone here right now, you people can be the people the leaders -- the people who create the next HP or whatever right here in this room and really take that into your heart. Invest in the community and be proud of what you do. Make good shit. That's important.

The number of bioethicists is also growing. Boo. The only people writing papers about garage biohacking are the bioethicists. So we can look at Google Scholar trends for this. It's increasing a lot. People are talking a lot about biohackers.

This is exciting. People care. That's the important thing, that people care. Whehter you agree with them or not, it's great that htey care.

The number of biohackers injecting gene therapies is increasing. Things got pretty crazy after I injected myself in October 2017. Then we got a bunch more. This year we had a little spike. We've had the longest period of time in the past 2 years, without injections, and that's in the past few months. At least the ones that I know of. So, whew, doing well.

For Rob, the cost of DNA sequencing and synthesis is going down. Everyone puts this slide in their presentation so I felt like I had to, too.

Code of conduct

People call me a lot of things. Antonio likes to call me a celebrity because he knows I hate that term. Some people call me a de facto leader or some shit like that. A decentralized network doesn't have a leader, because if it did then it is easy to take it down. In the hacker manifesto it said, you can stop me but you can't stop us all. I don't want to be someone that if I am stopped then the movement is hurt.

People ask me about codes of conduct. It's hard for me. I don't like to say anything about codes of conducts. In general, in the world, I hate the thing where you're supposed to admirably protect people from harm and make sure people don't get hurt. The less pretty things make money. Companies that can't make money aren't going to give people drugs in clinical trials that could save their life, if it has a possibility of hurting someone. Right to try isn't that good, because the companies still have to give you the drugs even if you can legally ask for it. People want to publish research and grants, but if the research isn't publishable -- then they don't do it. Can't get a grant for some of this stuff.

What is going to happen when the first person makes a dragon that flies around? They aren't going to be able to get a grant for that. They won't be able to publish a manuscript. So this can't fit into the code of conduct or whatever. At the bottom of the typical list is "do everything to help those suffering and dying", and that pisses me off. It should be at the top. We're protecting suffering people from harm, when they would do anything they can to get their hands on a drug that would give them any sort of chance of living.

I was in Dominican Republic earlier this year. I went to visit some medical doctors and talk about the medical system. Over there they don't have a heavy regulatory body that puts constraints on people. Just in general, nobody even cares, the government isn't going to come after you anyway. People are doing really crazy shit there. I don't always agree with that. But I was at this medical clinic, in a rural area in Dominican Republic in San Pedro, and all these people were coming out to meet me and say hi and whatever. And these people came up to me, and three guys on a motorcycle, I thought that was crazy. They get off, come in, and I go to shake his hand and he couldn't lift up his arm. He couldn't move. He was riding in the middle of those two guys because they were holding him up. He wanted to talk with me about gene therapy. The government there doesn't have anything. If you have muscular dystrophy there, you don't get shit. You just die. You don't get a wheelchair, you don't get anything. You just die. I was talking with this guy, and I was just asking him about everything about his life what's going on and everything like that. I say to him, "you know, I don't think I can help you, but say I could give you a gene therapy right now that had a high chance of killing you within a week you could be dead, and it has some small chance of helping you - would you take it?" He said, it's not even a question: I'm the walking dead right here. I have nothing. I'm just waiting to die. Of course, of course he would take it. So many people have terminal illnesses and are suffering and hurting. Of course they would take it. I have never heard one single person -- I get tons and tons of email all the time. I talk with so many people. Not one single person has ever told me that they would not try anything they could to keep themselves alive. Doesn't matter if there's risk. And that's crazy.

For me, I want to move "do everything we can to help those who are suffering and dying" to the top of the priority list. It's something we need to think about. As biohacking grows, how do we use our community to get this a priority? We need to be political and push this. We need to put pressure on governments and figure out way sto go to other countries like Dominican Republic where regulations are lax. Why fight against the US government when you can fly a couple of hours? Why aren't more people setting up clinics there? Right? Something to think about.

It's something to think about.

Yes, we should obviously protect people. But I think we need to think more about the people who are suffering and dying right now, rather than possibly suffering people in the future.

Medical board investigation

I was under investigation and apparently I still am. I haven't heard word about what is going on with it. I was told I might receive a letter in 45 days or something. It was really weird to have that conversation, because they were saying you sell antibiotics on your website and I said yeah, that's what you use in molecular biology. It's for bacteria. They said something interesting to me. I said, say someone signs a waiver and they say yeah I can experiment on you and no matter what no charges no lawsuits and it removes all liability. They said, yeah, that's okay, but it doesn't really matter technically because what's going to happen is you're going to get in front of a judge and a judge is going to say, did you give this person just a standard of care that was reasonable? And I was like, wow, that is a good question. If I am trying to help somebody, and you know, I have a PhD, but I'm not a medical doctor. And you guys out there, you're not Good Will Hunting. Can you provide an adequate standard of care if you're going to help someone with a treatment? That should be the base level of things that we do. If we're really trying to help people, then it's not that hard to talk with a medical doctor or PhD scientist. Get them involved. There's crazy people out there. There's me, I'll give you advice and put you in contact with medical doctors who are crazy enough to give you medical advice. At the least, you should try to write an adequate standard of care. That's the minimum thing that we need to think about. It's not just about injecting ourselves with shit. This is just a minimum standard of care. This does not infringe on your rights. There should be some basic medical care, and if you .... All the PhDs I talk with about all the projects I work, on all the MDs I work with. We need to build great shit. We're not here to hold you back.

Injections

If you want to inject yourself or self-experiment, then do it for you. A lot of the stuff lately is about getting famous and getting press. I get it. I've been there. I do crazy shit, you know. The media gets attention from it. But like, it's not going to end well in most of the cases. The media is not going to treat you kindly. People don't write nice things about me, I have to fight for that all the time. Academics aren't going to treat you well. They aren't going to say wow you're so smart with your personal injection. They aren't going to bring you into the fold just because you're brilliant.

The general public is going to treat you worse. They are going to call you stupid. I can't read the comments on the articles written about this. And also, the FDA is not going to approve your drug. If you're trying to create a drug and you go to file an IND or a Phase 1, and they know that you tested it on yourself, there's zero chance that it will ever be approved. That's against the law, technically. They will not approve it.

So when you inject yourself, you're removing any chance of the FDA liking you. So do it for you. Find a reason why you want to do it. I started doing biohacking because I'm passionate about it, you know. I love those experiments. I remember before all the stupid cameras and the press, I remembe rsitting in my garage at night while everyone was asleep, I remember tinkering and purifying DNA and testing it on myself, purifying RNA, testing it from gene expression, all of this - I loved it, nobody was there to criticise. I was doing it for me. Do it for you. That's the important thing. Then you don't have to worry about all this other shit.

Someone thought really hard and came up with this dumb insult saying, "Your face is the face version of Crocs". A person literally sat and thought about this. It's funny.

Venture capitalists and investors are afraid

Investors are afraid when you're doing wild shit. I'm not saying don't do this stuff. But in my experience, there are repercussions of how I operate. Take this into account when you make the choice to do these things. People are going to become afraid and say oh, you know, you're too controversial, right. We're afraid you'll get regulated. Nobody wants to invest or work with me. You have the deparmtent of consumer affairs and everyone coming after me. It's my own fault. It's tough. I'll take the heat. But think about these things, a little more. I couldn't understand all these repercussions a few years ago. I'm not saying I wouldn't have done it, I still would have, but I am suffering because of it. You don't have to -- you can figure out a better way to do it. We all can.

Genetic engineering is the most powerful technology that we have on this planet, that we know of right now. Biohacking and modifying the human body, implants, making yourself better. The future of the human race is not with the genetics we have right now. It's not our current physical form. Whether it's 100 years or 200 years from now, humans just aren't going to be the same. Every other organism we have modified- you think we're not going to do human? You think we're going to stop at food? At plants and crops that we grow? No, it's coming for humans next and it already is. So it's important that we all start to think about these things very deeply. We can't anticipate everything. But just think about it, deeply: what do you want to do?

On YouTube, someone said "Hey bro, I wonder if you could use CRISPR to grow some eyebrows". That was a low blow, you know. He was staring at my face for a while.