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'Biohacker' Who Injected Himself With DIY Herpes Treatment Found Dead (livescience.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Okian Warrior quotes Live Science:
The CEO of a biomedical startup who sparked controversy when he injected himself with an untested herpes treatment in front of a live audience in February has died, according to an email sent to Live Science. Aaron Traywick, the CEO of Ascendance Biomedical, was found dead at 11:30 a.m. ET on Sunday (April 29) in a spa room in Washington, D.C., according to a statement provided to Live Science by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) of the District of Columbia. Traywick was 28 years old. According to the website News2Share.com, Traywick was found in a flotation tank. Flotation tanks are soundproof pods filled with body-temperature saltwater that are used to promote "sensory deprivation."
Vice News reports that Traywick had "lost touch" with co-workers at his company more than four weeks ago, adding that "Disagreements over the company's direction and philosophical differences over how to best distribute its creations split the small startup."
MIT Technology Review reports that Traywick, "who had no formal medical training, was also planning to test an experimental lung cancer treatment that supposedly involved the gene-editing tool CRISPR. The therapy was to be offered at a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, just a few miles over the U.S. border... An employee at the Tijuana clinic, International BioCare Hospital & Wellness Center, confirmed in a phone interview that doctors there were working with Traywick to set up the trial but won't be moving forward with it after his death...
"In December, the American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy issued a statement warning patients about unregulated gene therapies, saying such procedures are potentially dangerous and unlikely to provide any benefit."
Vice News reports that Traywick had "lost touch" with co-workers at his company more than four weeks ago, adding that "Disagreements over the company's direction and philosophical differences over how to best distribute its creations split the small startup."
MIT Technology Review reports that Traywick, "who had no formal medical training, was also planning to test an experimental lung cancer treatment that supposedly involved the gene-editing tool CRISPR. The therapy was to be offered at a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, just a few miles over the U.S. border... An employee at the Tijuana clinic, International BioCare Hospital & Wellness Center, confirmed in a phone interview that doctors there were working with Traywick to set up the trial but won't be moving forward with it after his death...
"In December, the American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy issued a statement warning patients about unregulated gene therapies, saying such procedures are potentially dangerous and unlikely to provide any benefit."
The title implies that he died from his treatment. He would have continuously been tested since injection in multiple sites across his body as well as blood work. Herpes itself is not fatal. A preliminary examination on the scene would be more informative. If it was his treatment I would have expected him to have been admitted to the hospital for weeks before death.
It sounds to me like depression and maybe a suicide. The FDA probably came down on him and told him he was blacklisted and no company he was associated with would ever get anything approved.
Could this be another Aaron Swartz?
Fortunately, the world is rather Darwinian. Experiment on yourself - if you do manage to create something useful / helpful, great. Otherwise you're likely dead, certainly ill.
Given how many humans are running around trying to do things, it is hardly surprising that wack noodle narcissists will get some media exposure, claim their 15 minutes of fame and then .... explode. Perhaps there will be some sort of middle ground that will use the new techniques and their own knowledge to advance things. Perhaps not.
I do fail to see why people think that just because you're doing something in your garage, you have a leg up on the tens of thousands of grad students and post docs who are working in better equipped labs with more intellectual support. If this stuff were that easy, there would be happy molecular biology departments throughout the world.
It's not easy at all, CRISPR or not.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!