X-Message-Number: 15699
From: 
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 10:36:58 EST
Subject: Hixon

Thanks to Hugh Hixon for #15693 explaining Alcor's current procedure.

I am very much surprised. Since this procedure is based on glycerol, I 
thought it was just a left-over in a web segment that needed updating. All 
the excitement in recent years in Alcor's magazine had centered on "new" CPAs 
such as glycol ethers. We had heard suggestions that still newer research had 
already outmoded the glycol ethers, but I hadn't imagined that this meant 
back to glycerol.

If my understanding of Hugh's post is correct, then the current Alcor CPA is 
not secret, except for the formulation of "MHP-2," what we would call the 
"washout solution," or corresponding to the former use of Viaspan. Plus there 
remains secrecy about the details of the procedure used to attain rapid 
cooling, which presumably is related to the patent I mentioned a while back. 

Perhaps I have misunderstood or misinterpreted something, but if what I have 
written here is correct, then the only substantive change in the Alcor 
procedure has been the use of perfluorocarbons or some such to achieve rapid 
cool-down, hopefully allowing vitrification. 

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15699