Regeron Foundation

The **Regeron Foundation** is an American company specializing in the research and performance of cryogenic suspension and cryonics. Founded in 2018 by Aleks Sejofi, Reggie Kendrick, and Jason Stills, the Foundation was the first to offer functionally viable commercial cryonics services for living human beings, and is one of only two facilities authorized to do so in the United States (the other being The Afterlife Company, located in Las Vegas, Nevada). As of 2090, the median duration which a human body can spend under Regenron cryonic suspension is 67.8 years, at which point cryodegradation effects begin to set in.

In the 2080 census, The Regenron Foundation reported 7,898 human 'residents'. Human beings under cryonic suspension are not considered dead, and are regarded legally in the same way as a person in a coma.

## Cryonic process

The Foundation distinguishes between 'resuscitation' and 'revival', with the former constituting a complete post-preservative return of normal biological and cognitive function, and the latter indicating that a person was biologically alive after being taken out of preservation. The term 'revival' would then usually refer to a person having sustained a significant level of damage as a result of the cryonic process. Regenron began preserving human beings in 2018, however, the Foundation is widely considered to have perfected non-detrimental cryonic preservation some time in the 2030s. As a result, there is at least a ten year period in which any human who underwent preservation at Regenron may not be able to be successfully resuscitated. The statistics of how many people that is remains unknown, as the Foundation was not required to disclose the number of people it had in stasis until the Cryonics Act was passed in 2033. The Foundation has refused to publicly disclose the details of who may fall into that category, and justifies retaining the nonviable 'residents'; the original contract for preservation at the Foundation specified that a person could only be removed from stasis at a date prespecified by the person themself, or earlier if they named a relative as a 'guardian', authorized to make determinations about their stay at the Foundation on their behalf during their stasis.

### Procedure for humans

A client of the Regenron Foundation must undergo a medical and criminal background check, along with disclosure of other unspecified personal information. For those who are approved, pre-preservation preparations are then undergone, a process which can take up to two months, but can be expedited at the request of the client, though this is with great risk. The Foundation offers contracted assistance with estate management and "absence management", in which arrangements are made for the client to retain their resources upon their resuscitation in the future.

Contracts made with the Foundation dictate the parameters of the clients preservation. As most clients are very wealthy, payments are most often arranged to be made yearly from external resources of the clients. Payments can also be made in advance, with the limit being 50 years. Clients can specify individuals as 'legal guardians', authorized to make certain decisions for them regarding their stay at the Foundation while they are in stasis. The guardian themselves can specify their own successor, should the clients stay at the Foundation exceed their own lifetime.

'Eviction' can occur of a client in preservation if they are found to have lied during the application process, or if payments cease prematurely.

A client is placed into cryonic stasis inside of a Stasis Dewar, a specialized double-walled container that also acts as the storage vessel for the client's body during their stay in cryonic stasis.

## Legal developments and viability

The operations of the Regenron Foundation have spurred much legal debate concerning death and the medical intervention thereof, with the Foundation and its clients as spurs for many legislative changes surrounding the practice.

Prior to *Kaustman v. Washington* in 2010, cryonics was not considered a legally valid method of medical treatment in the United States, and cryonic procedures could not be performed on a human body until after legal death. Cryonic preservation, however, was still not medically viable, and was effectively considered a form of euthanasia within the scientific community. Legally the status of preserved people was unresolved until the Cryonics Act in 2033, which designated that they were legally alive pending any medical evaluation that explicitly pronounced them dead.

The first human being to be successfully revived after cryonic stasis was 68 year old Annabelle Stafson in 2029 after seven months in stasis. Stafson had suffered severe brain damage during the cryonic process, and died of an aneurysm within a year of revival. The first successful resuscitation was performed in 2033: 56 year old Alex Anderson Scathorn was successfully resuscitated after one year, despite contracting some lasting complications.

## Facilities

The corporate headquarters of the Regeron Foundation is in Chicago, Illinois. The Stasis Dewars are also manufactured at the Chicago campus. The facility at which the cryonic process is conducted and the Stasis Dewars are stored is called the Deers Cryonic Center, which is located on the outskirts of Champaign, Illinois. The Deers Cryonic Center is provisioned as a fully operational hospital, with the Stasis Dewars located in an underground section of the facility.

## Incidents

Jason Stills, one of the founders of the Regeron Foundation, was killed in 2030 when North American Flight 89 crashed into Lake Superior, an accident which also destroyed four prototype Stasis Dewars.

On January 7, 2038, a truck carrying eight empty Stasis Dewars crashed on I-57 while traveling from the manufacturer in Chicago to the Deers Cryonic Clinic in Champaign due to a winter storm. The crash caused a five-car pileup on the highway, and the driver of the truck was killed in the accident. Only two of the Dewars were undamaged at the crash site, however according to a Regeron Foundation press release all eight Dewars were scrapped upon retrieval, as it was deemed inappropriate to place any client in a Stasis Dewar that experienced a crash during transport.

On August 28, 2041, a tornado touched down near the Deers Cryonic Center hospital, causing moderate damage to the outside of the facility and causing delays in processing several high-profile residents. No Stasis Dewars were affected by the tornado, and the facility was fully operational within the next month.

On April 10, 2042, a security breach occurred at the Foundation when Alexa Francetic, a Canadian hacker, gained access to the facility and activated the resuscitation process for one block, which contained 50 stasis dewars, though only 11 were occupied at the time of the incident. One of the residents who was resuscitated was Chuncheng Piao, the former head of a Chinese cybersecurity firm who had entered into stasis in 2041 due to a rapidly progressing brain cancer. Francetic killed Piao shortly after his resuscitation by stabbing him nineteen times, but left the other resuscitated residents unharmed and escaped the premises shortly after.