Arizona Tribune - Sundial Initiative Advisor Boyang Wang Sponsors Nakauchi Lab's Work on "Bodyoids"

The concept reached a wide audience in March 2025, when Nakauchi and co-authors Carsten Charlesworth and Henry Greely laid it out in MIT Technology Review under the title "Ethically sourced 'spare' human bodies could revolutionize medicine." Bodyoids, as the authors described them, would be human bodies grown from pluripotent stem cells entirely outside a human body, and developed in a way that precludes sentience.

The case they made was one of scarcity. More than 100,000 patients in the United States alone are waiting for an organ transplant. Fewer than 15% of drugs entering clinical trials ever reach regulatory approval, in large part because animal models are poor proxies for human physiology. Bodyoids would, in principle, address both bottlenecks at once: a potentially unlimited supply of immunologically matched organs and tissues, and a genuinely human substrate on which to test drugs before they reach patients.

The science required remains years away, and the questions it raises will need to be worked through carefully and in public. Wang said that is an argument for funding the work early rather than late.

"Replacement is one of the central themes of our investment thesis," said Boyang Wang. "If research directions like bodyoids succeed, they offer a very good answer to problems the whole world shares, starting with organ shortage. That is why we are willing to support underfunded areas and help push scientific breakthroughs forward."

The Nakauchi Lab sponsorship is one of several research commitments Immortal Dragons has made in aging and neurodegeneration. The fund also supports Andy Tsai, a researcher in the Tony Wyss-Coray Lab and a director of the Sundial Initiative, whose work focuses on brain resilience mechanisms.

About Immortal Dragons

Immortal Dragons is a purpose-driven longevity fund headquartered in Singapore. The fund invests in cutting-edge, high-impact technologies and currently supports more than 15 portfolio companies. Beyond conventional investments, the fund advances longevity advocacy through book translation and publishing, translation of longevity leaders' talks, hosting a leading Chinese-language longevity podcast, and providing sponsorships and grants to longevity initiatives and conferences.

About the Sundial Initiative

Sundial Initiative is a California nonprofit building scientific infrastructure at the intersection of biological aging, human resilience genetics, and real-world lifestyle data.

For Press Inquiries

Boyang Wang
Founder, Immortal Dragons
[email protected]

SOURCE: Immortal Dragons

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

O.Ortiz--AT