X-Message-Number: 14802
From: Brent Thomas <>
Subject: complete cryonic suspension/revival demonstrated
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 14:50:40 -0500
ok...now I've got your attention...has anyone heard of this ken storey (from
the article)
and any references on these particular frogs? nothing revolutionary about
glucose here (common cryoprotectant) but
how much is expressed in the frog cells? why do they obtain complete
protection and typical glucose loaded systems (i.e. you and me after alcor
is finished with us) do not?
can it all be due to the cells producing it instead of trying to load the
system with it after death?
here is an interesting article about a viable organic system (a whole frog)
which freezes solid and
recovers...how does it do it? not in the manner of cryonicists (by applying
cryoprotectant to a system) but
by genetic systems which *PRODUCE* and load cyroprotectant as part of the
freezing process.
The key thing here (and i hope research and investigation will focus on this
as the human genome and genetic
modification/manipulation techniques becomes better understood) is that
instead of loading the system with chemicals and
hoping they diffuse correctly into the cells after death its much much
better to ALTER the cells while still alive to produce the
cryoprotectant as part of the freezing process.
this is a huge paradigm shift but retains the same essential goal. All that
is needed for development is a isolation of the genetic factors that
produce these cryoprotectant loading sequences and a mechanism to integrate
them into the human genetic code (already similar efforts are showing
success with other gene splicing of one species into another)
seems very very promising to me that we could see a near future (5-10 year)
demonstration of this in test animals (say dogs or pigs)
Key point!! the frogs are already doing what we want...a complete system,
blood, bones, organs, neurons etc is freezing solid and reviving!
http://www.globeandmail.com/gam/Science/20001030/UFROGN.html
--- all below cut and pasted from the link --
Buying time with frozen frogs
Chilled-out amphibians may allow MDs to preserve human organs
longer and avoid the rush to transplant, ANNE McILROY writes
ANNE McILROY
Monday, October 30, 2000
The frogs, nestled in Tupperware, are chilling out in the
fridge next to somebody's lunch.
Soon, Ken Storey of Carleton University will put them in the
freezer and they will
become curvy, amphibian mounds of ice, hard as rock, with no
heartbeat, no other sign
of life.
Yet the frozen woodland frogs are still very much alive. They
thaw out after about 20
minutes at room temperature, sit for a while, then are ready
to ribbett. This seemingly
miraculous ability, it turns out, is perfectly natural.
Wood frogs, spring peepers and several other species of
terrestrial frog survive the
Canadian winter by becoming part of the frozen landscape. Dr.
Storey is trying to figure
out exactly how they do it, but his quest is about more than
understanding one of
nature's curiosities. He believes the molecular secrets of his
frozen frogs will one day
allow human organs to be safely frozen, and doctors won't have
to race against time to
transplant livers and hearts once they are taken from the
donor.
He has been freezing frogs in his Ottawa lab for about 15
years. Early on in his research
he discovered that some species have a natural cryoprotectant,
something that protects
their cells from being killed when frozen.
"It is glucose. The same blood glucose you use as fuel, the
same blood glucose you get
from a chocolate bar or any food," he explained.
When ice starts forming on their rubbery skin, frogs start
filling each cell in their body
with glucose, which stops the life-killing ice from forming
within each cell.
Alas, chocolate bars will not save human beings from freezing
to death. If humans had as
much blood sugar in their cells as frozen frogs, they would be
diabetic and extremely
sick. What saves the frogs from freezing to death would never
work for us. But it just
might work for individual human organs.
Identifying glucose as the mystery cryoprotectant was only the
first step. In the years
that followed, Dr. Storey has also isolated more than 20 genes
out of the 10,000 in frog
chromosomes that are turned on when the animal starts to
freeze. It appears those genes
shut down the frog's metabolism and pack its cells with sugar.
The idea is to get those same genes working in human organs.
"Here is the joy of biochemistry. The basic structure and
function of all cells of all
vertebrates are the same. You have the same types enzymes and
proteins as a frog and a
fish. You have genes of similar sequence and you have the same
control of genes over
all. All you have to do is learn what genes and enzymes to
regulate, then learn how to
turn them on or off. All we have to do is learn to twiddle
them," Dr. Storey said.
He has a jumpy, manic energy, explaining that his field is
called cryobiology, which
differs from cryonics, the practice of preserving the whole
body, head, or brain of
persons recently declared legally dead, in the hope of revival
at some time in the future.
Cryonics is on the scientific fringe, and not largely accepted
by the research community.
Cryobiology, on the other hand, gets significant government
funding and provides insight
into how living cells work.
Human livers taken from donors for transplant can last six to
eight hours after death, a
heart and lung only four to five hours. If, by freezing
organs, doctors could avoid the
mad rush to transplant, they could wait for the perfect match.
In the Second World War
scientists did experiments and figured out how to safely
freeze blood. After the war, they
tried the same approach with organs, but failed to freeze them
without destroying them.
In the late seventies and early eighties, Dr. Storey says, the
research community realized
they had to start looking for a natural mechanism that would
allow for freezing. A
scientist in Minnesota froze frog specimens he left in his
trunk overnight and realized
they could survive. Dr. Storey, who in 1984 was recognized
with a Steacie Award as one
of Canada's most promising scientists, began what would become
his life's work with
funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council.
He works in a laboratory decorated with pictures of frogs,
frog magnets, frog toys, frog
cartoons, frog stickers and frog posters. But he has branched
out since he first started his
frog research 15 years ago, and researchers in his lab now
study ground squirrels, bats,
snails and turtles. (Some turtles can hibernate for three or
four months under water
without breathing.)
The process is not identical in each species, but it does seem
to involve similar
mechanisms and processes.
Hibernating ground squirrels, for example, don't freeze solid
as do frogs, but they do turn
off their metabolism.
"The genes in a hibernating ground squirrel largely shut off,
just like in a frozen frog,"
Dr. Storey said.
If he could figure out how, he could get livers or other
organs for transplants to do the
same thing. That would mean they would last hundreds of times
longer.
"These animals are living in a state of suspended animation,
and if you think about
suspended animation, that is exactly what you want for organs
for transplant. Squirrels
aren't dead at 5 degrees. We want mammalian organs to act like
that in fridges
everywhere."
But that, he says, could take years. This kind of science
works slowly, solving one piece
of the mystery at a time.
Each new discovery shows how complicated a hibernating
squirrel or a frozen frog really
is.
When Dr. Storey started out freezing frogs, he was pretty much
alone in his field. Now
scientists around the world have begun studying unusual animal
models to understand
basic cell function.
He's still the leading expert in frozen frogs, however, and
seems genuinely fond of his
specimens, some as small as a thumbnail.
Brent Thomas
Optio Software
407-774-7800 (phone)
407-774-7801 (fax)
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