Can We Engineer Superhuman Genetics Ryan Rosner, PhD

Ryan Rosner (0:00)

The promise of gene therapy is like X-Men. We're just at the infancy of this technology. We know a bunch of superhuman mutations that are almost consequence free. The real fear is leaving this data on the table. Whether it's you or honestly your family, in 10 years, I think it's gonna be nuts to not sequence kids at birth, to not have sequencing be the first thing you do when you go to a doctor, because trying to treat difficult conditions without that code that you run on is like you're just grasping in the dark. I can think of 10 ways to improve cognition through genetics that could be rolled out within a year. There are some known variants, and for physical performance too, there are known superhuman protective variants. I think sequencing is the most neglected piece by far.

Mark Bell (0:47)

All right, if you can give us a little synopsis here on what you're learning from genetics, that'd be really cool, because we can get into the history of how you got into genetics and stuff too, but maybe give us a little bit of background on like what's fascinating you about this and then maybe later we can get into the particulars on what people can do if they start to learn about what kind of genetics they have.

Ryan Rosner (1:10)

Yeah, absolutely.

There's so many fascinating things. I think there's a few sources of fascination. One is looking at the genetics of extremely elite performers. So Devin Larratt is a great example of this. Tier 1 Spec Ops guy, world champion in arm wrestling for 20 years.

Mark Bell (1:32)

I got to interrupt for one second. That guy is amazing.

Me and Nsima have been watching his stuff for a while and just seeing him like he's like in interviews and he's just sitting there like training his hands. We're pretty nuts that way. We love training all the time. Right now we're standing on these things and like digging into our feet. That's awesome. So props to Devin for being a savage.

Ryan Rosner (1:50)

Oh yeah. Devin is definitely a savage. Yeah, so we sequenced him like maybe two and a half years ago at this point and that was that combined with, you know, hanging around with Devin, it pushes me to hold such a high standard. I can't like complain about stuff around him. So if he's like, yeah, get that done. I'm going to get it done.

But yeah, we, it also, it pushes us to dig really super hard in his genome and we absolutely have found stuff that is, I think, new and unexpected and really interesting. So like, this is kind of complimentary to the way science is often done, which is like big studies, really hesitant to go out on a limb and suggest conclusions. We're digging in super hard to exceptional people and not being afraid to say stuff. So that's one source of fascination. Another is trying to understand genetics like the back of my hand. So that means, yeah, understanding the history of human genetic evolution, understanding those 23 chromosomes, insisting that they are understandable. And this has led to a lot of actionable understanding that's fascinating in its own way.

So yeah, those are two of the main sources of fascination.

Mark Bell (3:10)

Something I think is interesting is like, I just was thinking about this the other day, just the thought of, you know, did we all evolve sort of separately, you know, and apart from each other? Yeah. Or did we all come from like one origin, you know, it's like, it seems like we're, I don't know, it's hard to figure out. I don't think anybody knows it, I think is the hard part.

Ryan Rosner (3:35)

It's one of the, so I've been learning, I actually had a big cluster of learning this a few weeks ago, and the field of archaeogenetics, I think David Reich at Harvard is one of the leading guys, this field is emerging in real time. Because the sequencing technology we can apply to ourselves is the same technology that's applied to neanderthal remains that we find things like this. So that's being pieced together in real time in academia, and it's a fascinating and emerging story, absolutely. Yeah, it's super surprising too, just remarkable, yeah.

Andrew Zaragoza (4:05)

I have a question for you, and I think, you know, the conversation of genetics, I think, is super cool, but at the same time, it can get very dark when you go into sectors of talking about genetics.

One thing I'm curious about is, you know, as someone's listening to this, what is your advice on looking at one's own genetics, getting it tested, et cetera? Because I think that what happens here is just like what happens in fitness, except it's at a deeper level because it's inside of you. So you're seeing something about somebody's genetics, and they're like, oh, that's so amazing. There's genetics for intelligence. They have genetics for this, and I suck, right? So like, because what's your maybe advice on just how to look at this, how to take just face value at this stuff?