Biostasis Newsletter July 2023
Tributes to Saul Kent. A breakthrough in organ preservation. What is liquid ventilation?
Tributes to Saul Kent
Life extension activist, and cryonics supporter, Saul Kent was cryopreserved in May 2023. His cryopreservation prompted a number of tributes from scientists and members from the cryonics community, including Brian Wowk’s article about Saul’s contributions to the field of organ cryopreservation, which could not have been more timely given a recent organ cryopreservation breakthrough (see below).
Additional tributes are now available on the biostasis.com website:
Charles Platt - Saul Kent’s Grand Obsession: A Personal Memoir
Michael Perry - Saul Kent: Some Recollections and Reflections
Aschwin de Wolf - Saul Kent’s Last Journey
Also available is on old interview transcript with Saul from April 1992.
Major Organ Cryopreservation Advance
The recent Nature Communications (June 9, 2023) paper describing reversible cryopreservation of a rat kidney shows that cryobiology continues to make strides toward cryopreserving larger organs and eventually larger organisms.
The researchers at the University of Minnesota combined their new technology of "nanowarming" with a vitrification solution called "VMP" that Greg Fahy and Brian Wowk of 21st Century Medicine, Inc., published in a 2004 paper. VMP solution includes X-1000 and Z-1000 ice blockers that 21st Century Medicine invented and exclusively produce.
It's notable that the cryoprotectant technology used in these advances (DMSO / formamide / ethylene glycol and ice blockers) was already being used in cryonics many years before it was used to reversibly cryopreserve rat kidneys. It's an example of cryonics being forward-looking.
It's also an example of the impact that cryonics interests can have on mainstream cryobiology research.
Liquid Ventilation
An important component of cryonics stabilization is to initiate rapid cooling immediately after pronouncement of legal death. In ideal circumstances the patient is placed in portable ice bath (PIB) where ice water is vigorously stirred over the body. A more efficient method of cooling is to access the patient’s vessels and circulate a cold organ preservation solution (i.e., “blood washout”). Because cardiopulmonary “internal” cooling does entail vascular surgery, this procedures is usually done when the patient is at a “safe” temperature (~ +20C) at a funeral home or a vehicle.
In the mid 1990s cryonics researcher Michael Darwin and Steven Harris pioneered a technology named “liquid ventilation” (or lung lavage) in which a cold fluid is introduced and removed from the lungs to further accelerate cooling. Since all of a patient’s blood moves through the lungs, the organ is basically transformed into an endogenous heat exchanger. One major advantage of liquid ventilation is that it only entails the placement of an endotracheal tube, and no vascular surgery. This feature permits starting procedure immediately after pronouncement of legal death.
Aside from a very basic, manual, application in one Alcor cryonics case, liquid ventilation research and development in cryonics has gone through periods of rapid progress, followed by stasis and competing design ideas, without yielding a single validated and practically deployable system for human casework. In 2023 Biostasis Technologies decided to break out of this impasse and started a collaboration with Charles Platt to build a new liquid ventilation prototype for human testing and cryonics cases. Significant progress on the building of a prototype has been made and we anticipate cadaver testing during the second half of this year.
Cryonics Videos on Vimeo
Vimeo.com has over 150 cryonics videos. Some are conference speeches or television interviews. Some are tours. Some appear to be films that look unrelated on the surface but have some cryonics connection.
You can get a free Vimeo membership, with a limit on the number of items watched, or various levels of paid membership for greater access.
Human Cryopreservation at the Longevity Summit Dublin
Our Director of Communications, Max More, will speak about human cryopreservation at the Longevity Summit Dublin (August 17-20). We also aim to organize a satellite cryonics event for attendees during this weekend. Contact us for more information.
Cryonics Career Survey
If you are interested in working in cryonics, there have never been more job openings than today. You can fill out a career survey to match you with an existing opportunity and/or see current job openings on the Less Wrong website.