This startup was after immortality--then COVID killed it: The quest to cure aging requires a long-term strategy, but startups in the space have to survive short-term hurdles to get there.

• Author: Griffin, Elle

BRYAN BRANDENBURG WANTS TO INCREASE OUR LIFESPAN. "We recently filed for a patent on an anti-aging device that is basically a human gyroscope," he tells me.

"It's based on NASA technology--because when astronauts go into space they start seeing muscular atrophy, so they developed some technologies, vibrational things to restore muscles. We have taken that to the next level, combining it with a device to turn back your biological clock."

Brandenburg's idea is based on the twin paradox--the idea that if a set of twins are born on Earth, but one immediately gets in a spaceship and travels away at light speed, the traveling twin will return to find the remaining twin much much older. (If you've seen the movie Interstellar, it's based on these same principles of time dilation.)

Brandenburg believes he can recreate this backward time travel ... without leaving the planet. His invention is reminiscent of the Vitruvian Man. The user stands with arms outstretched, suspended in a set of orbs. The orbs rotate, turning the body upside-down, around, and in every possible direction. The motion exercises the body passively. The vibration decompresses the spine naturally.

"This human gyroscope has vibrational components, it has rotational components, it rotates you in three dimensions. So if the body is on a vibrational platform, and it's vibrating at 30 frames, 30 cycles per second. There's an action-reaction going on in the muscles that they're firing off at 30 times a second. This device can take somebody who is completely paralyzed and restore muscle. It will exercise for them passively."

Brandenburg imagines a future where humans attend the gyroscope regularly, the same way they might attend a cryotherapy center for their muscles or a meditation center for their minds. By spending ten minutes, or even hours per day in the gyroscope, that time is effectively eliminated from the body.

"We developed a range of technologies to use your body as a time machine and elevate the average energy level of your 99 percent empty space atomic structure," Brandenburg says. "And when you do that, time slows down."

THE QUEST TO CURE DEATH

The Fountain of Youth is nothing new to those who have been chasing after it. But once the sciences proved the human lifespan could be extended with advances in vaccinations and antibiotics, the tech set became determined to do so too.

In a lot of ways, they were perfectly primed for the quest having founded large companies, exited...