X-Message-Number: 17642
From: Jessica Lemler <>
Subject: This Week at Alcor
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 16:39:19 -0700 (PST)
The following can also be found on our website, at
www.alcor.org
DR. JERRY LEMLER, PRESIDENT/CEO
Settling in and settling down is how I'd
describe my week at Alcor. On Monday, I met with new
Alcor member, Joe Waynick, who will shortly be
updating and revamping our database. This promises
to be a most encompassing project!
Tuesday afternoon I paid a visit to our local
hospice, and met with their Medical Director and his
staff. We had a pleasant exchange of ideas and
concerns, which should culminate in improving an
already excellent cooperative situation for our
terminal care members.
I've been getting ready for this weekend's
anatomical surgical workshop. Grant Dahmer is coming
up from Tucson with the specimen. In attendance will
be Howard Gleichman and Todd Soard from Ft.
Lauderdale, Dr. Jose Kanshepolsky, Russell Cheney
from Torrence, California, and myself.
Later today we're conducting a meeting on the
optimal mechanisms for changing our telephone system
to a more user-friendly, live person format!
JENNIFER CHAPMAN, MEMBERSHIP ADMINISTRATOR
The majority of my time this week was devoted to
performing research for various projects. Primarily,
this refers to upgrades for our phone system, which
will include a live operator to be available during
regular business hours. Changes to the overall
format will make it much easier for callers to
navigate through the system and quickly access the
desired individual or information. Preliminary
correspondence with the programmers indicates that
our proposal is feasible and can be achieved with
minimal expenditure. Although maintaining the system
will be an ongoing project, initial improvements may
be accomplished as early as next week.
Another vital project requiring considerable review
is that of international relations. According to my
understanding, Alcor is currently seeking ways to
ease restrictions previously placed on international
applicants. In particular, the funding mechanisms
proposed by these clients must be given careful
consideration to determine whether the relevant
insurance policies satisfy Alcor’s funding
requirements. My current objective is to compile
sufficient information for the Board of Directors to
make a policy decision during the Meeting of October
7, 2001.
As expected for Membership Administration, many
routine efforts were made to assist members and
applicants with various requests. Among the less
typical of my tasks, this week I performed research
regarding how to file a missing person claim for an
Alcor member who may have been lost in the recent
World Trade Center bombing. This occurrence
emphasizes the importance of having our members
clearly explain their suspension preferences. In
this case, the individual requested that Alcor
preserve any recoverable remains, regardless of the
severity of damage. Efforts are being made to honor
this request by our rescue personnel.
JOE HOVEY, ACCOUNTING MANAGER
Main event was the discovery that we probably
lost a member at the World Trade Center in New York
on Sept. 11. We found out about it through the
efforts of another member who was a friend of his.
There is nothing we can do for this member and even
if we had known at the instant of his death, there is
still nothing we could have done. We are all still
very much at the mercy of chance and statistics. He
was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We did however begin a canvas of all of our
members and signups in the affected areas of New York
and Washington, DC, mainly through the good offices
of one of our volunteers, Judy Muhlestein. As
expected, many of the phone numbers and email
addresses we had for these members turned out to be
no longer valid. Even though it is clearly stated in
our contracts, too many members simply do not inform
us of changes in their phone numbers or email
addresses. We have to do a better job of impressing
on our members just how important this contact
information is.
There is a tendency of many of our members to
think that once they have completed the membership
process that they can relax and that somehow Alcor
will take care of everything. That is a very false
idea. Cryonics is very much a joint venture between
Alcor Central and the member. Membership does not
relieve the individual of taking responsibility for
their own lives and particularly of the circumstances
surrounding their possible deanimation. As noted in
the case of the member in the World Trade Center,
sometimes it simply isn't possible to protect
oneself, but this is no excuse for not trying. We
have had members in the past who went into the
hospital for major surgery under a general
anesthetic, and didn't inform us about it until well
after thefact. This is inexcusable.
I am going to propose that we include a standard
notice in all of our publications in BIG BLACK
LETTERS reminding people that whenever they move,
change phones, acquire additional phones, change
email addresses, etc. that they inform us
immediately!
JEFF BENJAMIN, RESEARCH DIRECTOR
Now that the events at the WTC have been
digested, this week has been more productive than
last.
On Friday of last week I received a stack of
articles from Hugh Hixon concerning the previous
protocols/research written and performed by Mike
Darwin while he was here at Alcor; I spent several
days reviewing this material in order to understand
Alcor’s current methodology and scientific
rationale. Unfortunately, I now have serious
concerns regarding the validity of what we do, and
how we do it. Specifically, the use of a REPERFUSION
model is highly questionable, since attempts to
alleviate reperfusion injuries are not appropriate in
our scenario, where patients are NOT expected to be
reperfused (i.e., to revive our patients either
cloning with memory transfer will be performed or
cell level rebuilding with nanomachines; neither
situation would entail utilizing existing reperfusion
protocols, and so work that is focused in this
direction is scientifically invalid).
Along the same lines as the above, on Monday I
was given a stack of e-mails from Hugh regarding his
suggestions that we do not attempt to support
metabolism during our recovery attempts. In essence,
the response from the Alcor advisors was extremely
negative and degrading (with many comments made about
his perceived lack of understanding). Looking
closely at the responses, I have come to the
conclusion that their arguments are invalid, and that
they are using their credentials to support their
position, not solid scientific evidence. In fact, I
myself agree with Hugh regarding the error in
supporting metabolism, and have resolved to build a
solid argument why this should not be done.
Which leads me to the main thrust of my work
this week; namely, the establishment of a solid
working molecular model of the events that occur
during ischemia (versus reperfusion); I feel that
this effort will be necessary both to refute the
advisory members’ position in regard to Hugh’s
suggestion, and to write the best proposal possible
for the development of an in-house PKC essay that can
be used to answer several questions we have regarding
the time-course and effectiveness of our suspension
efforts. To do this, I have gathered about 35
articles specific to the signal transduction events
involved in ischemia, and retrieved seven books from
the library that proved both general and specific
reviews of the signal transduction pathways relevant
to neural functioning.
Needless-to say, the effort to read and digest
this material has taken up most of my time and
energy, and will likely do so for the next several
weeks.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday I re-wrote the program
that process the perfusion data we gather at run-
time, such that it now not only parses the data down
to one value for each parameter (per minute), but
also assigns specific times post pronouncement to
every data point. Now that this has been done, the
resulting data file can easily be imported into
graphing software packages for scientific analysis
and display.
Along these lines, I have found the time to
review a number of graphing packages (from Prism to
MetraGraph), and have concluded that the most cost
productive, easily utilized package is KaelidoGraph.
This package was available on the web for $152 (a $90
discount), and has been order by Joe Hovey upon my
recommendation and Dr. Lemler’s authority.
JESSICA LEMLER, WEBMASTER/ ADMINISTRATIVE ASSOCIATE
This week has been a little less hectic than
last week, but has been steady nonetheless. I have
been working on making numerous updates to the
website, inclusive of moving the "This Week at Alcor"
to its own page, away from the "News/Events" page. I
have spent most of today making updates to the
website, including the additions to this page.
The Board Meeting Minutes and the letterhead are
still waiting for finalization. I plan to review the
minutes over the weekend, as I have Charles Platt's
minutes to look over now as well. The letterhead,
which I revised and changed the font on, is doing
some strange things when transferred to other
computers in the building, so I think it may have to
go "back to the drawing board" as well.
On a lighter note... ALEFI, our re-write of
CRFT, Alcor's introductory manual, is no longer
looming over my head! Yes, that is correct, after
more than a year of painstaking typing, editing, and
revising, ALEFI has left the building... We cannot
wait to see what Lisa Lock does with it now!
PAULA LEMLER, VOLUNTEER
Despite not feeling well during the beginning of
this week, volunteer Paula Lemler, working as an
accounts payable clerk, continues to write check and
file the related receipts. The business cards she
ordered for some of our staff have come in, and they
look fantastic! She continues to coordinate with
Russell Cheney regarding the details of our initial
Outreach party at the home of Dave and Kat Kekich on
September 29. (To interested readers, this get-
together, for the Alcor Outreach to Southern
California, will include discussion of Project Future
Bound, starts at 7:00, and is open to everyone.
MATHEW SULLIVAN, FACILITY OPERATIONS MANAGER &
PATIENT CARE MANAGER
This week, I dropped off items at a charity drop
box. I also did a phone system review, and worked on
a broken telephone. I updated software and virus
protection on 2 computers, and networked the lobby
computer to a printer. I updated my to do and
activities list, and ordered and shopped for supplies.
In preparation for this weekend's training
session, I did some cleaning and organizing in the
lab. Dr. Lemler had also requested a 2nd ATP
training tubing pack for the class, and I started
this. Additionally, I completed a whole body tubing
pace (including sterilization), and finished
diagramming.
For Project Futurebound, I completed an ATP
training pack, worked on the ATP miscellaneous kit.
I'm in the process of constructing 8 neuro only
tubing backs. Reviewed instrument issues with Hugh
for cutdown tray. Added new hasps to ATP kit and
locked, and built 8 neuro only tubing arrays and had
them sterilized.
HUGH HIXON, FACILITIES ENGINEER
Friday, mounted perfusion load circuit in dummy
head. Ordered control cable to have a go at making a
pressure-regulated controller for the ATP pump.
Sketched circuit for LN2 a clatter-valve proportional
controller using a dual 555 timer (556 chip) and a
solid-state relay. Picked up some pieces for it.
Monday, answered to the Board, with Dr. Lemler, some
questions regarding Project Futurebound. More
circuit work.
Tuesday, sent out a surgical instrument tray for our
surgeon in southern California to look at. Annotated
the instrument list, since sometimes the utility of
an item is a bit obscure. Ordered some tubing and
suspension supplies.
Wednesday, tried to find out more about a member who
was in the World Trade Center and is still missing.
His contract has the "freeze anything you can find"
clause. We will probably wind up begging body
fragments from his relatives, who will probably be
shocked that he should ever think of such a thing. It
is quite uncertain that he ever wore any of our
stainless steel IDs, which would help a lot in
identification. Checked out a video camera that had
been stored, to see if it works and how to run it.
Thursday, some more trying to find out about our
missing member, about whom we have very little
information. Picked up some spare light bulbs for
some of the small surgical lights I got for
Futurebound. More work on the instrument tray list
to explain the use of different items.
MIKE PERRY, PhD., PATIENT CARE ASSISTANT
24-7 presence. At the weekly meeting on Tuesday
the 18th plans were adopted to continue Alcor's
policy of 24-hour coverage after the live-in staff
moves to newly-acquired, offsite housing. (This move
is expected to be finalized within days.) I will have
the primary responsibility to be here when others are
not, with Hugh Hixon as principal backup, followed by
Joe Hovey.
Patient reports. I have started data entry for
Alcor's latest suspension, which began Aug. 22, and
expect to complete this project next week.
Upgrading patient monitoring. At the Tuesday
meeting there was also discussion of some plans I
have for improved tracking of patient dewar
performance. This would involve electronic detection
and recording of important data such as liquid
nitrogen levels, and automated analysis to get an
accurate fix on boiloff performance. In this way we
could have ongoing checking and comparisons of
performance over long periods of time to anticipate
problems such as vacuum insulation failure. It was
agreed that automated monitoring and analysis should
be put into effect, but noted that it will take time
to acquire necessary hardware and complete the work.
Ischemic injury assessment. I am trying to
develop a procedure to quantitatively estimate the
amount of ischemic injury that occurs during our
suspensions. This will help in assessing the quality
of the procedures and facilitate the development of
better ones. The problem, however, is a difficult one
because the mechanisms of ischemic injury are complex
and hard to assess, as are the effects of ischemia on
components one is most interested in such as
information-bearing structure in the brain. I had a
good, short talk with Jeff Benjamin who is proposing
some experiments using a rat model to assess the
course of neuronal oxidative stress following
impairment or arrest of metabolic support. It's clear
that we are both interested in the same things, so
that, as great as the difficulties may be, I am
confident that something useful will emerge if
appropriate experimental work is carried through.
Other--I continue working on writing projects,
including in-house technical reports and articles for
the magazine.
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