Meet the 29-year-old doctor leading Bryan Johnson’s $2 million per year reverse aging process

Pulling the strings behind Johnson’s reportedly $2 million longevity craze is a team of 30-plus doctors and health experts, led by 29-year-old Oliver Zolman—a millennial doctor obsessed with turning back the clock. He charges upwards of $1,000 an hour for intensive age-related testing, or nothing if his clients don’t see results, according to Bloomberg’s profile.  

Zolman, who seems to split his time between Cambridge, London, and Spain, based on his Instagram bio, is a “professional evidence-based rejuvenation coach and clinician trainer,” as he introduced himself during a lecture at the Longevity Summit Dublin last year. He’s been fascinated with longevity and regenerative medicine—modalities that aim to combat age-related changes—since he was young. (Zolman didn’t return Fortune’s request for an interview.)

“I learnt about growing new ears on the side of mice, and making frogs grow eyes in their stomachs, or just 3D- printing replacement organs,” Zolman told The Times UK earlier this year, which reported he was raised by a father who is a museum manager and mother who is a ballerina and ballet teacher. “It seemed kind of like a video game.” 

He began attending longevity conferences on the topic when he was an undergraduate studying medicine at King’s College London, according to an interview conducted by British magazine The New Statesman; he was routinely the youngest person at the events.

Injuring himself while playing basketball during his first year of medical school there propelled him further into the longevity field, per Bloomberg; after struggling to walk for a year despite working with doctors, he took matters into his own hands and treated himself through physical therapy. He later graduated with a degree in Regenerative Medicine & Biology and now teaches longevity school for doctors looking to branch into regenerative medicine while working in his Cambridge lab. And, of course, he works with Johnson as part of “Project Blueprint,” which encompasses over 200 longevity related protocols to help Johnson reverse his biological age.

For Zolman, it’s always been about innovation; frankly, the pace of science is too slow for him, he told The New Statesman. 

“I was, like, what if I try to do every single possible age- and disease-modifying therapy, whether that’s a regenerative medicine therapy or a preventative therapy or a lifestyle therapy or an advanced therapy, whether that’s genome therapy or stem cell therapy—do that all on one person and see what happens?” he said in the interview. 

Zolman and Johnson seem to crave the gamifying nature of rejuvenation and reverse aging—it’s what led the duo to spearhead the Rejuvenation Olympics, which ranks people’s biological age on a leaderboard when they adhere to certain reverse aging protocol, like Johnson’s Blueprint. Of course, Johnson tops the list. Zolman also abides by similar protocols and shares his results on the leaderboard. 

“I love competition, and turning rejuvenation into a scientifically valid competition is very exciting,” Zolman said at Longevity Summit Dublin. “Longevity school can help you do this safely.” 

Zolman’s longevity protocol 

Zolman’s longevity goal is no easy feat. By 2030, he aims to discover how to reverse the age of each of the 78 organs encompassing both genders by 25%. 

The protocol is two-fold: measurements and therapies. First, instead of measuring someone’s aging by common modalities such as VO2 max alone, he focuses on measuring all 78 human organs to determine which ones are most in need of his therapies. “You want to be addressing aging from every angle that we have available,” he said at the conference. 

Using these measurements, Zolman goes to the next phase, the therapies. “You try and get all the markers below chronological age,” Zolman continued. “If your markers are older and more clinically relevant, then you want to target those organs first.”

Johnson says his work with Zolman reversed his lung capacity to that of an 18-year-old and heart capacity to that of a 37-year-old, according to Bloomberg.

Zolman’s approach has three levels, the first being the least invasive and mainly consisting of changes in lifestyle factors aimed at extending people’s health span and life span. Level 2 consists of non-age related modalites, while Level 3—where Johnson sits—contains organ rejuvenation protocols aimed at fully reverse aging (he has reportedly swapped blood with his 17-year-old son). 

In a talk hosted by The Oxford Society of Ageing and Longevity, Zolman said thousands of randomized trials in the que will inevitably grow the field of longevity research, especially as more people like Johnson serve as guinea pigs. Johnson, who reportedly speaks on the phone with Zolman for about an hour daily, isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

“I’ve never had so much fun in my entire life,” Johnson said at the talk hosted by Oxford.  “I love the pain. I love the difficulty. It’s just play.” 

Standing up in the face of critics

As the obsession to live longer continues, the research speaks for itself. Getting outdoors, moving (even a quick walk), eating a nutritious diet, sleeping well, and maintaining strong social connections can help us live longer and stay healthier while doing so. And due to epigenetics playing a role as a hallmark of aging, Dr. Moshe Szyf, professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at McGill University and founder of biotech company HKG EpiTherapeutics, says changes in lifestyle could indeed reverse aging. Still, he is cautious about Zolman and Johnson’s approach. 

“It is unclear however whether we have yet the knowledge on how to do this. It seems that Bryan Johnson is applying a tour deforce of anything suggested to affect longevity and uses a barrage of tests to examine functional changes,” he writes in a statement to Fortune. “It is also clear that changes need to be personalized.” 

Genetics also play an integral role in how we age. It’s a factor for identifying the so-called “SuperAgers” of the world—those in their 80s with the brain capacity akin to those 20 to 30 years younger.

“No amount of diet or exercise is gonna get you that magical combination of genes,” Dr. Andrew Steele, longevity scientist and author of Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old, previously told Fortune. 

As of January, Zolman told Bloomberg that despite Johnson’s determination, “We have not achieved any remarkable results.” He added: “In Bryan, we have achieved small, reasonable results, and it’s to be expected.”

It will take 10 years to see if Johnson’s protocol really turns back the clock, Dan Buettner, who studies the lifestyles of the world’s centenarians—those who live to 100 and beyond—previously told Fortune. After all, Johnson is “a walking experiment,” Buettner said, and no one has gone through this level of rigorous organ testing and routine habits in front of a national audience before.  

And while the critics question the validity behind Zolman’s rigid longevity approaches, Zolman says he prides himself on the rigorous safety testing of his endeavors. “The stupidest thing in the world… is to die from an experimental longevity therapy,” he said in Dublin.  

And for those fascinated by Zolman’s approach, it underscores another important factor in the race of longevity: the game to live longer is also deeply fueled by the amount of money you can invest to get there. Szyf questions how Johnson’s approach can be applied to the masses who do not have the means to undergo his expensive routine, let alone have a personalized team of doctors.

For Zolman, his work isn’t about the money, he tild The Times UK. Despite working with and benefiting from charging a successful Silicon Valley founder, Zolman says he invests what he makes into his lab and lives a modest lifestyle. 

“My income has been, like, £15,000 a year for the past seven years, and I live in the shittiest place and don’t take holidays,” he said.