Finished High School at 8, PhD at 15 - Now Pushing Biology with AI
By 15, Belgian student Laurent Simons completed a PhD in theoretical physics and entered a second doctorate in medical science. His new focus: artificial intelligence for biological modeling, health, and aging. The track remains within accredited university programs with standard supervision and review.
Verified Milestones, No Shortcuts
Simons earned a doctorate at the University of Antwerp with a thesis on Bose polarons in superfluids and supersolids. The work examined impurity behavior in Bose-Einstein condensates near absolute zero, relevant to many-body physics and quantum systems. He also contributed to research at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics. His path included secondary school completion at eight, followed by accelerated undergraduate and master's degrees at Antwerp.
Visualization of Bose-Einstein condensate behavior. Credit: NIST/JILA/CU-Boulder
From Quantum Systems to AI Biology
In early 2026, Simons moved to Munich to begin a second PhD centered on AI in biomedical research. Public information points to computational work: biological modeling, diagnostic algorithms, and longevity-focused analytics. There is no evidence of clinical trials, wet-lab experimentation, or human-subject testing at this stage.
In a televised interview, he said his long-term ambition is to "create superhumans." Practically, that places his interests near healthspan extension, regenerative approaches, and performance enhancement-fields where AI now supports target discovery, biomarker detection, and risk prediction.
Why Researchers Should Care
Cross-disciplinary training matters. A physics background in many-body systems, noise, and inference translates well to biological modeling, where sparse data, causal questions, and high-dimensional signals are common. This skill mix is increasingly useful for work on multimodal omics, protein structure-function prediction, and disease progression modeling.
- Immediate opportunity: apply probabilistic modeling and simulation expertise to single-cell, proteomics, and longitudinal health data.
- Tooling to watch: generative models for sequences and structures, graph methods for molecular and cellular networks, and causal discovery for intervention prioritization.
- Standards that matter: reproducible pipelines, data governance, and clear reporting on uncertainty and bias-especially for clinical-adjacent use cases.
Ethics and Definitions Still in Flux
"Superhuman" is a loaded term. Enhancement spans therapeutic restoration, elective improvements, and transformational changes. Precision on definitions will be essential once research moves beyond modeling to real-world testing. For a rigorous overview of enhancement types and debates, see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on human enhancement: read more.
Institutional Oversight and Current Status
All confirmed activity sits within accredited doctoral programs. There are no published, peer-reviewed findings yet from the second PhD. Methodology, datasets, and code have not appeared in public repositories. The physics PhD is documented and verifiable; the medical science work is early and conceptual.
Context: AI Longevity Research
Major groups are investing in AI-assisted approaches to aging, cellular reprogramming, and tissue repair. Journals such as Nature Aging and Cell Reports Medicine continue to publish studies on AI-based prediction, biomarkers, and healthspan modeling. For a current snapshot of methods and applications, explore Nature Aging.
What to Watch Next
- Preprints with clear problem definitions, benchmarks, and uncertainty quantification.
- Code and data statements (licensing, lineage, demographic coverage, batch effects).
- External validation and clinical utility studies, if the work targets decision support.
- Ethics review activity and institutional approvals for any move beyond simulations.
Quick Background
- Completed secondary school at eight.
- Undergraduate and master's degrees at Antwerp in two years (records confirmed).
- PhD in theoretical physics on Bose polarons (University of Antwerp, 2025), with research time at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics.
- Second PhD in medical science started in 2026, focused on AI and biological modeling for health and aging.
Photo credit: VTM
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