Depressed Metabolism

One of the most common criticisms of cryonics is to argue that cryonics can only be a legitimate endeavor when there is (peer reviewed) demonstration of whole body suspended animation. Advocates of cryonics  point out that this is an unreasonable position because it sets a standard for rational decision making (certainty) that is rarely encountered, [...]

The biology-of-aging blog Ouroboros has posted a skeptical post about cryonics that is highly representative of how most biological scientists respond to questions about cryonics. The discussion of cryonics is largely reduced to a discussion of the technical feasibility of suspended animation and resuscitation requirements. But suspended animation is not cryonics. Cryonics should be discussed [...]

The Detroit News features a story about cryonics that is a good illustration of the upward battle that cryonics faces in the media. First and foremost, this story reinforces the idea that cryonics concerns the practice of freezing dead people: Preparation of the body is a five-day procedure. It begins with keeping the body as [...]

The biggest obstacle to the acceptance of cryonics is medical myopia; the idea that someone who has been pronounced dead by contemporary medical criteria will still be considered dead by future criteria. Advocates of human cryopreservation strongly argue against this. There are few things more discomforting than the idea that medical professionals of the future [...]

On the forum of the Immortality Institute there is an interesting exchange about the feasibility and time line for reversible cryopreservation. Cryobiologist Brian Wowk weighs in with some interesting observations: I think in the next 20 years more small animal organs, and perhaps some human organs, may be reversibly cryopreserved. The best scenario for cryonics [...]

Alcor’s recent news item about its 2009 Annual Board Meeting and Strategic Meeting contains a number of encouraging statements. On the front of institutional reform, however, there is not much news to report. The passage about the need to balance recruiting new Board members and preserving institutional memory reads as a rather uninspired defense of [...]

Once a year I try to attend at least one biogerontology conference. Although I attend biogerontology conferences out of personal interest, and at my own expense, they are the most fruitful grounds for promoting cryonics I have found, and this is especially true of SENS conferences. I have missed none of the four SENS conferences [...]

Basile J. Luyet (1897-1974) can be considered the father of modern cryobiology. His book “Life and Death at Low Temperatures” is a classic in the field and his journal “Biodynamica” evolved into a publication solely dedicated to the study of low temperature biology. Luyet identified the possibility of solidification without crystallization at low temperatures (vitrification) [...]

The cryonics organizations Alcor and the Cryonics Institute have taken great care to correct some of the persistent myths about cryonics. With so much widespread misinformation being circulated in the media it seems trivial to pay attention to some of the misconceptions that some people who are sympathetic to cryonics hold. But the price of [...]

Various approaches are available to investigate cryoprotectant toxicity, ranging from theoretical work in organic chemistry to  cryopreservation of complete animals. Because resuscitation of complex organisms after cryopreservation is not feasible at the moment, such investigations need to be confined to viability assays of individual cells and tissues or ultrastructural  studies. One simple model that allows [...]

Robert J. White is most known, or perhaps most notorious, for his work on primate head transplants. Less known, but more relevant to the practice of human cryopreservation, is his work in cerebral ischemia, hypothermia, and brain preservation. Most of White’s innovative work was published in the 1960s and 1970s. White also published a substantial [...]

Recent advances with the use of hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide and “hibernation induction triggers” to depress metabolism in animal models have  renewed interest  in the possibility of human hibernation.  The ability to drastically depress human metabolism without the use of cold (or in combination with cold) would have a number of important medical and scientific [...]

Japanese scientists have managed to clone a mouse that had been frozen without any cryoprotection for 16 years at minus 20 degrees Celsius. The researchers used the researchers used brain cell nuclei, and planted it into an egg of another living mouse, leading to the birth of the cloned mouse. Although the objective of cryonics [...]

In 2007, cryobiologist Armand M. Karow passed away. Unlike many contemporary cryobiologists, Karow offered cautious support for the objectives of cryonics. In the mid-1960s, Karow served on the Scientific Advisory Council of the Cryonics Societies of America (CSA). He also published a regular column titled “Scientifically Speaking” in Cryonics Reports, a publication by the Cryonics [...]

In an abstract in Cryobiology 55 (2007), 21st Century Medicine researcher Greg Fahy reports on the biological (pharmacological or “cryopharmacological”) effects of vitrification solutions. He identifies four different mechanisms of toxicity: 1. “Specific toxicity,” or the effects of vitrification agents on well-defined biological pathways or sites. 2. Adverse effects on the hydration of biomolecules as [...]

Can life exist without water? This is one of the questions that fascinates astrobiologists. The behavior of biomolecules in non-aqueous solutions is also of interest to cryobiologists and cryoenzymologists. Ice formation below zero degrees Celsius can be prevented by high concentrations of cryoprotective agents. But what are the effects of such vitrification agents on proteins? [...]

The major limiting obstacle to reversible cryopreservation of complex organs is cryoprotectant toxicity. Elimination of ice formation through vitrification requires high concentrations of cryoprotective agents. These high concentrations of cryoprotectants can be toxic to tissues. Over the years, major advances by the cryobiology research company 21st Centrury Medicine have been made to reduce the toxicity [...]

Now online is an old interview with Robert W. Prehoda. Prehoda was a prolific science writer who published on topics such as aging, life extension, and technological forecasting. In 1969 Prehoda published the book “Suspended Animation: The Research Possibility That May Allow Man to Conquer the Limiting Chains of Time.” In this visionary book, Prehoda [...]

Philip Ball, author of “Life’s Matrix: A Biography of Water”, and publisher of the excellent blog, Water in Biology,  reports on recent papers about the interaction of water and bio-molecules, including a recent study on trehalose: H. Nagase of Hoshi University in Tokyo and his coworkers have continued their exploration of the molecular mechanisms of [...]

Today’s post on 21st Century Medicine’s vitrification agent M22 completes the series on vitrification agents in cryonics. To date, three different vitrification agents have been used for cryopreservation of humans: B2C (at Alcor from 2001-2005), VM-1 (at the Cryonics Institute since 2005) and M22  (at Alcor since 2005). Perhaps the most encouraging development in cryonics [...]

The current generation of vitrification agents in cryonics permit elimination of ice formation using realistic cooling rates. But attempts to vitrify the brain require high concentrations of cryoprotective agents to inhibit ice formation. Such high concentrations of cryoprotectants can produce injury to tissues that is distinct from damage caused by ice formation. Vitrification of complex [...]

Because the current generation of vitrification agents permit cryopreservation of the brain without ice formation, the current objective of cryonics research is maintenance of viability of the brain during cryopreservation. The most popular viability assay that has been used in cryonics and cryonics-associated cryobiology research is the potassium/sodium ratio (K+/Na+ ratio). Because the ability of [...]

A major public misperception is that cryonics involves the freezing of dead people. The objective of cryonics is not to preserve dead people with the hope of future revival but to place critically ill patients in a state of biostasis until a time when more advanced medical technologies might be available to treat and cure [...]

A technical cryonics article to be published in the conference proceedings of a customarily peer-reviewed scientific journal, entitled “Scientific Justification of Cryonics Practice (pdf),” by Ben Best, President of the Cryonics Institute, will appear in the next issue (Volume 11, Issue 2) of Rejuvenation Research. (A previous article by Ralph Merkle, “The Technical Feasibility of [...]

An ongoing quest in cryonics is the successful demonstration of memory sustainment after cryopreservation of the brain and rewarming from cryogenic temperatures. To that end, landmark experiments were performed by Pichugin, et al. (2006) on rat hippocampal brain slices which indicate that the hippocampus retains excellent structural integrity and viability (as measured by Na+/K+ ion [...]