2026
122years
The age barrier
No verified human has lived beyond 122. This year we began the first serious attempt to move that line — and to give back a decade of healthy life on the way.
Experimental human safety work underway
We refuseto wait.
Mitonauts is a volunteer coalition of scientists, physicians, CEOs and investors aged 60 to 91, exploring experimental mitochondrial transplantation and longevity research on ourselves. Not in fifteen years. Now.
- First human safety trials
- Dallas, April 2026
- Oldest volunteer
- 91 years
- Next cohort
- 12 members
01Human firsts
Human history is full of firsts.
Every barrier that looked permanent was broken by people willing to go before the evidence was in.
1947
Faster than sound
Chuck Yeager takes the Bell X-1 past Mach 1.
1953
The top of the world
Hillary and Tenzing reach the summit of Everest.
1969
The Moon
Apollo 11. One bootprint in the lunar dust.
02The clock
Billions of dollars flow into biotech startups, but most are decades away. I’m 91. I can’t wait that long, and my wife has dementia. I’d like to help her if I can.
John G. Cramer, PhDEmeritus Professor of Physics, University of Washington
03The wait
The industry is asking a generation to wait.
Most breakthroughs take 10 to 20 years to reach human trials. The leading longevity firms have postponed their full-body age-reversal trials by a decade or more, and the FDA still refuses to recognize aging as something to treat.
The conventional path
Human trials: 2036–204610–20 years to human trials
The Mitonauts
Human safety trials: April 2026Eight months
For those of us in our sixties, seventies and nineties, that is not a timeline. It is a write-off.
So we are going first.
04Who we are
Test pilots for everyone who comes after us.
A non-profit coalition of prominent senior citizens — scientists, physicians, CEOs and investors — testing new medical technology on themselves. The elderly have the most immediate needs, so we should be the ones pushing hardest.
- 60–91
- The ages of our members
- 2
- Volunteers through preliminary safety work, aged 71 and 91
- 12
- Members ready to continue in the next cohort
- 2026
- Full-body human trials begin, with Mitrix Bio
Working with scientists and physicians from
- Stanford
- UCLA
- Northwell Health
- University of Kentucky
- Laval University
- Mitrix Bio
05The science
Aging is an energy crisis.
“I think the key is energy. Aging is the decline in the energy generated in our bodies.”
- The power plants of your cells
- They turn food and oxygen into the energy every cell runs on, and each carries its own tiny ring of DNA.
- They travel
- They move between cells and through the bloodstream — which is what makes transplanting them possible.
- And they wear out
- With age their DNA accumulates errors and they make less energy. Much of what we call aging follows.
The platform
Bioreactor-grown mitochondrial transplantation
01
Start with you
Mitochondria are grown from the patient’s own cells, so what goes back in is theirs.
02
Grow them young
A bioreactor produces young, age-reset mitochondria in the volumes a whole body needs — stem cells in a box.
03
Restore the energy
Transfused back with exosome therapy, to restore cellular energetics and reverse decades of losses.
“If we can grow healthy mitochondria in external bioreactors and transplant them in large amounts, we will be doing something that nature and evolution have never done.”
The goal: industrial-scale production — enough to supplement every person over 55.
06One biology
Healing and rejuvenation are one biology.
The therapies needed to reverse aging are largely the same ones needed for chronic and disabling disease — which is why this reaches far beyond longevity.
Alzheimer’sPharmaceutical injuriesParkinson’sSepsisStrokeChemotherapy injuriesCardiac arrestWound healingSarcopenia
Long COVIDME/CFSCipro toxicityType 2 diabetesSevere burnsMilitary injuriesRare childhood diseases
Already in hospitals
Physicians at Northwell Health, New York’s largest health system, are testing mitochondrial transplant for cardiac arrest, stroke and wound healing.
Shared, not hoarded
Our trial data goes to the teams working on children’s diseases, chronic illness and neurodegeneration.
Measured in trillions
Address aging at scale and the savings to global health systems could be measured in trillions.
Covered in The Economist, Nature and Scientific American — and debated in the US Congress.
07The crew
Meet the crew.
Accomplished people who could simply have retired. Instead they volunteered to go first.
91Age
John G. Cramer, PhD
Physicist, novelist, volunteer
At 90 he announced the first attempt to break the human age barrier. Sixty years at the edge of physics, and he is not finished.
- Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Washington
- Experimentalist at CERN and Brookhaven National Laboratory
- More than 300 physics publications
- Originator of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics
- Author of three hard-science novels and a long-running Analog column
- Produced the first audio rendering of the sound of the Big Bang
“At the age of 90 I’m the oldest person set to try this technology, so if this works, nobody will be able to catch up. I’ll always be the oldest young person in history.”
“I have a huge list of things I want to work on: new books, new experiments, maybe another PhD. I could use another 30 years.”
71Age
Clay Rawlings
Attorney, futurist — patient zero
Author of Pardon the Disruption, and an advocate for new medical technology for decades. The first Mitonaut through early human trials.
“We are honored to serve as early test pilots for something that could eventually help vastly more people than ourselves.”
7Spacewalks
Scott Parazynski, MD
NASA astronaut, physician
Five Space Shuttle missions, seven spacewalks building the ISS, and the summit of Everest. Now a test pilot for the bioreactor.
“Of course, this is all on the edge of science, so there are no guarantees. But that’s what makes it so exciting.”
72Age
Duncan Davidson
Venture capitalist, founder
Co-founder of Bullpen Capital. Founded Covad Communications, which reached a $9B market value.
“It’s a real thrill to be part of something so utterly new, so utterly surprising, so utterly fundamental.”
80Age
Ron Rothenberg, MD
Physician, surfer
A pioneer of anti-aging medicine. Former Clinical Professor at UC San Diego; more than 45,000 physicians have attended his seminars.
“Mitochondrial transplantation is something I’d like to be able to prescribe to my older patients.”
08Mission log
Mission log.
From the first volunteer to the first human safety trials in eight months.
Preliminary safety work complete. Next cohort preparing.
Aug 2025
The first volunteers step forward
Ron Rothenberg, MD, 80, and venture capitalist Duncan Davidson, 72, volunteer to test bioreactor-grown mitochondria on themselves.
Nov 2025
A physicist takes aim at the age barrier
John G. Cramer, 90, announces his attempt to break the human age barrier of 122.
Dec 2025
The project begins
Physicians and scientists from Stanford, UCLA, Northwell Health and Mitrix Bio start work.
Apr 2026
First human safety trials — and an astronaut joins
Conducted at the Mitochondrial Transplantation Institute in Dallas, Texas, under Right to Try 2.0. The same month, five-time Space Shuttle astronaut Scott Parazynski, MD, becomes a test pilot for the bioreactor.
Jul 2026
The Mitonauts go public
Clay Rawlings, 71, is patient zero. Preliminary safety work is complete in two volunteers, aged 71 and 91.
Now
The next cohort
A dozen more members prepare to continue, under medical supervision.
Next
Beyond mitochondria
Epigenetic reprogramming, senescent-cell clearance and Klotho gene therapy join the program — and we take the case for patient choice to Washington.
09What we stand for
“We are the elders of this country, and we decline to be quietly retired from the project of medicine.”
01
Skin in the game
Only people over sixty, or living with disability, serve as our executives. We work with excellent young scientists, but the decisions are made by those with the most at stake.
02
Test pilots by choice
We accept personal medical risk to advance therapies that will help younger people too, including our children and grandchildren. We volunteer freely and happily.
03
A third way to prove it
Not only mice, not only biomarkers. Informed older adults testing round by round: do we feel meaningfully better? Do we function younger? If so we proceed. If not, we adjust.
04
No freeloaders
Access requires a contribution — financial, scientific or organizational — made while it still carries real risk. Those who wait for others join the back of the queue.
05
Service to others, and to the nation
The foundations of this work were laid in the United States and we would prefer to build it here. We will make the case to lawmakers for seniors controlling their own healthcare decisions.
10Join the mission
The work begins now.
Back the mission, join the next cohort, or come and listen first. The work begins now, and we do not have time to wait for laggards.
Start here
Tell us which part you want in on, who you are, and how to reach you. A real person reads every message.