In this article, Dr. Brian Wowk has provided us a well-informed reminder that cryopreserving organs is technically challenging, and that whole body reversible cryopreservation is still decades away. There was a time some 15 years ago when I would continually harrass my dear friend Brian each time we spoke with the phrase, "Where's my rat!?" Eventually, Brian set me straight on how difficult whole body cryopreservation below the glass transition temperature actually is, and reset my expectations as to when a large animal would be successfully revived from cryonic temperatures.
It was a bit depressing, to be candid, to find a leading researcher in the field identify multiple mechanisms that will have to be tweaked to enable whole body and brain resuscitation. As this article points out, each organ may need its own distinct and bespoke cryoprotection protocol. And we do not yet even have consistent in vitro organ cryopreservation protocols.
The detractors of cryonics seem to think the Cryonics community is naive about the technical difficulties of cryopreservation. Dr. Wowk has made it clear in this article that we are clear about the technical challenges that exist, and that these difficulties do not mean that Cryonics even in its current practice is not a reasonable, ethical, and scientific endeavor.
Of course, the brain. If you have an intact brain, then you can use some kind of synthetic biological process to regrow a new body around that brain. this is, of course, 22nd century stuff.
In this article, Dr. Brian Wowk has provided us a well-informed reminder that cryopreserving organs is technically challenging, and that whole body reversible cryopreservation is still decades away. There was a time some 15 years ago when I would continually harrass my dear friend Brian each time we spoke with the phrase, "Where's my rat!?" Eventually, Brian set me straight on how difficult whole body cryopreservation below the glass transition temperature actually is, and reset my expectations as to when a large animal would be successfully revived from cryonic temperatures.
It was a bit depressing, to be candid, to find a leading researcher in the field identify multiple mechanisms that will have to be tweaked to enable whole body and brain resuscitation. As this article points out, each organ may need its own distinct and bespoke cryoprotection protocol. And we do not yet even have consistent in vitro organ cryopreservation protocols.
The detractors of cryonics seem to think the Cryonics community is naive about the technical difficulties of cryopreservation. Dr. Wowk has made it clear in this article that we are clear about the technical challenges that exist, and that these difficulties do not mean that Cryonics even in its current practice is not a reasonable, ethical, and scientific endeavor.
Of course, the brain. If you have an intact brain, then you can use some kind of synthetic biological process to regrow a new body around that brain. this is, of course, 22nd century stuff.