‘Brainless human clones’: Inside controversial startup building bodies for brain transfers

While animal cloning has been a reality since Dolly the sheep in 1996, cloning humans remain biologically difficult and ethically disputable.

But the topic has once again been in headlines as a billionaire-backed startup, named R3 Rio, has announced plans to develop “non-sentient monkey organ sacks.”

As reported by Wired, these non-sentient primate structures would contain all vital organs except the brain. The purpose of these structures would be to serve as a source for donor tissues and a suitable alternative to animal testing.

However, according to the MIT Technology Review which thoroughly investigated the startup and their motives, the findings are more disturbing.

As per investigative report, beyond organ harvesting the ultimate vision of startup is to reportedly create humans without brains, calling them “brainless clones.”

The primary objective of this project is to provide a biological vessel for brain transplants, allowing the old ones and terminally ill individuals to restore and rehouse their consciousness in a new youthful body.

By ensuring these clones never develop a brain, the company aims to evade the ethical and legal firestorms surrounding the creation of sentient life for harvesting, though the concept remains undeniably unsettling.

R3 Bio’s founder, John Schloendorn, and the company’s official statements deny active plans to develop brainless clones.

The company said its founder “never made any statement regarding hypothetical ‘non-sentient human clones’ that would be carried by surrogates” in a statement to Tech Review.

However, the company’s co-founder Alice Gilman said, “the team reserves the right to hold hypothetical futuristic discussions” about brainless human clones.”

But, the experts are highly sceptical of this concept as according to them human cloning is not only biologically impossible but also ethically highly contentious.