X-Message-Number: 15118 Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 06:25:13 -0500 (EST) From: Ben Best <> Subject: An assist to CPAs and Ice-Blockers An assist to CPAs and Ice-Blockers CryoProtective Agents (CPAs) and Ice-Blockers can prevent ice-formation and promote vitrification. But Ice-Blockers typically do not cross cell membranes. And CPAs are always challenging to perfuse/diffuse because both their toxicity and viscosity vary inversely with temperature. Arctic frogs have an adaptation that causes rapid liver glycogen breakdown and rapid glucose uptake by cells as ambient temperatures drop close to freezing. Glucose is not only an energy source, but is a non-toxic CPA. If such a form of insulin sensitivity could be engineered to function in mammals (notably humans) this could assist efforts to achieve cryonic suspended animation. The engineering would most likely take the form of modifying the insulin receptors -- either directly or through reprogramming of the genes that code for insulin receptors. The trigger for accelerated glucose uptake could be a rare/exotic molecule not normally found in physiological conditions. A cryonics patient with such modified insulin receptors could be perfused with glucose in the very first phases of cryonics rescue -- along with the trigger molecule. Thus, there could be rapid perfusion/diffusion/uptake of the glucose into cells at a temperature high enough to ensure that the process is both thorough and very rapid -- and without toxic effect. It will probably be at least a decade before such insulin-receptor modification is feasible (assuming that it will ever be feasible), but awareness of the possibility gives us something else to look forward to. -- Ben -------------------------------------------- Ben Best () http://www.benbest.com/ ICQ -- http://www.mirabilis.com/20636141 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15118