>From The latest Sunday London Times:
Frozen baboons returned to life
by Lois Rogers
Medical Correspondent
SCIENTISTS have unlocked the secret of suspended animation by
successfully reviving baboons hours after their bodies were packed
into crates of ice.
The breakthrough, which holds huge implications for the battle
against disease and ageing, will allow humans to preserve their
ice-cold bodies in suspended animation and wake up years later in
the same physical condition.
It has aroused the interest of space scientists investigating the
possibility of interstellar travel, allowing human exploration of
galaxies many light years away.
Military clinicians are also attracted by the prospect of allowing
critically injured troops to be near-frozen on the battlefield and
preserved for later treatment.
The key to the technology is Hextend, a revolutionary plasma
replacement fluid which is poured into the body through a vein in
the upper thigh as blood is drained and the anaesthetised body is
cooled to 1C. As the clear fluid permeates the tissues, it prevents
the deterioration caused by extreme lowering of body temperature.
The results from the baboon studies, carried out at Biotime, a
California research company, were announced at the annual meeting
of the American Association of Anti-Ageing Medicine.
Hal Sternberg, Biotime's head of research, said work on the
mechanisms of animal hibernation had provided much of the basic
information on suspended animation.
One type of North American frog can partially freeze its body while
it shuts down during the winter months. Hamsters have been kept
alive at 1-2C with no heartbeat in Biotime laboratories for up to
seven hours before being successfully rewarmed.
The long-term objective is to add freeze-protectant chemicals to
the Hextend solution so human bodies can be stored at -196C, the
temperature of liquid nitrogen. The principal barrier, however, is
popular opinion.
"It is like the public attitude to early organ transplants," said
Sternberg. "Although everyone will love us when we announce we have
reversibly frozen a human being, at the moment this area is not
considered socially acceptable.
"There is a limit to how far people think you should go to save a
life: but we already have children being born from frozen embryos.
If you are extending the beginning of life, why shouldn't you also
extend it later on?"
Sternberg and his colleagues expect to use their new techniques to
put themselves into long-term hibernation while they await the
development of life-extending techniques to cure and prevent
cancer, heart failure and Alzheimer's disease.
Doctors believe the technique can immediately be used in complex
surgery, where best results can be obtained by cooling the body to
a level which would otherwise cause brain damage.
Clinical trials of Hextend led by Michael Mythen, a consultant
anaesthetist who worked on the project in America, are to begin at
University College hospital, London, this year.
It will be used in complex orthopaedic, gynaecological and stomach
operations where there is a danger of catastrophic blood loss and
where better results can be obtained at low temperatures.
Kelvin Brockbank, a British-born scientist in South Carolina who
has received funding from the American government for his research
work in the allied field of preserving transplant organs, said
deep-freezing of human tissue would be possible within a year.
"There will be a whole range of applications for the technology,"
he said. "It will be up to people to decide how to use them."
BioTime,Inc NASDAQ:BTIM
935 Pardee Street
Berkeley, CA 94710-0000
Phone 510.845.9535
Did we ever establish an Extropian Investor list?
Maybe an Extropian in the peoples republic could pay a visit and
report back?
Brian
Member,Extropy Institute