From: kqb@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (kevin.q.brown)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Culture cells from suspendees?
Date: 11 Oct 92 21:17:09 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
X-Crossposted-To: cryonics mailing list

[ I have appended below two recent messages from the cryonics mailing
  list on the topic "Culture cells from suspendees?". - KQB ]

    ------------------------ Forwarded Message ------------------------

> Message-Subject: CRYONICS Culture cells from suspendees?
> Date: Fri, 09 Oct 92 14:51:38 -0400
> From: Timothy_Freeman@U.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU

I recently fetched the cryonics article from the 26 September New
Scientist.  The choice of presentation was obviously made by someone
who thought they knew that cryonics wouldn't work and wanted to
manipulate the reader into believing the same.  The biologists get the
last word with irrelevant arguments about what sorts of damage can be
repaired now, and the rejoinder of the cryonicists that repair in the
future will work much better is not examined seriously.  The article
would have been very interesting to me if that claim of the
cryonicists were examined and then shown false (or true, for that
matter); instead, the claim is juxtaposed with the hamburger-into-cow
quote to discredit it by association, and then the subject changes.

Leaving the rhetoric aside, there is one alleged fact in the article
that disagrees with what I have heard elsewhere.  The article claims
that existing technology would be unable to culture living cells from
a suspendee, but I vaguely remember being told that this would be
possible and (shame on me) I have been repeating the hearsay without
verifying it.  Certainly one of the cryonics supporters in the sci.med
debates claimed that it was possible.  Has anyone tried?  Do the
existing cryonics organizations claim that live cells could be
cultured from suspendees, and do they have evidence to support this?

Tim Freeman

    ------------------------ Forwarded Message ------------------------

> Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 22:16:48 CDT
> From: Brian Wowk <wowk@ccu.UManitoba.CA>
> Message-Subject: CRYONICS:Culture cells from suspendees

Tim Freeman:
 
> Leaving the rhetoric aside, there is one alleged fact in the article
> that disagrees with what I have heard elsewhere.  The article claims
> that existing technology would be unable to culture living cells from
> a suspendee, but I vaguely remember being told that this would be
> possible and (shame on me) I have been repeating the hearsay without
> verifying it.  Certainly one of the cryonics supporters in the sci.med
> debates claimed that it was possible.  Has anyone tried?  Do the
> existing cryonics organizations claim that live cells could be
> cultured from suspendees, and do they have evidence to support this?
 
        Evidence indeed!  Almost every cell type in the body can be 
successfully frozen and thawed with protocols similar to those used by 
Alcor to suspend patients.  Large tracts of cryobiology literature are 
devoted to the successful LN2 freezing and thawing of cell cultures.  
Culturing of cells from properly frozen tissue is *not* a problem; 
recovery of integrated organ function is (due to damage of cell-to-cell 
relationships).
 
        An extensive summary of scientific literature documenting 
successful freezing and thawing of brain tissue can be found in the Alcor 
monograph, "The Cryobiological Case For Cryonics."  This monograph is 
reprinted in its entirety as Appendix A in "Cryonics, Reaching For 
Tomorrow"-- a book no cryonicist should be without :-)
 
        As far as I know, no one has attempted to culture brain cells 
from cryonics patients.  Then again, there is little scientific 
motivation to do so since existing cryobiology literature leaves almost 
no doubt it could be done.  Of course there is the PR aspect, but that is 
another question.  I personally have strong reservations about the use of 
out-of-context scientific facts in promoting cryonics.  (Survival of 
individual cells is neither necessary nor sufficient for cryonics to 
work.)  Then again, what do we do about an opposition tbat resorts to 
outright lies?
 
                                                --- Brian Wowk
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics