X-Message-Number: 6750
From:  (Irfan Kamal)
Subject: Re: Prometheus/press release & other
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 16:57:56 -0400

I'm a newcomer to this list and to cryonics in general, but have been
getting up to speed through this list and info from Cryocare and Alcor over
the last few weeks.

I believe Prometheus is a sound project; my strong personal desire would be
to see positive results on brain preservation and reanimation published in
a peer-reviewed medical or science journal, and later corroborated
independently by other researchers.  Publicity is worthless unless you have
something valuable to publicize, and cryonics can't afford to take the same
sort of hit that, for example, artificial intelligence took about a decade
ago through over-promotion and under-delivery.

Specifically on the press release below:
On the surface, the problem of growing a body for the brain to live in is
just as difficult a problem as perfecting nanotechnology, and I believe the
"general public" would feel the same way.  Can you either omit or rephrase
all mentions regarding the "growth" issue?  Or, more to the point, I feel
Prometheus needs to be placed in perspective (in this press release and
also in people's minds) as not an "end" but one step towards whole body
preservation. (Obviously, it has value in and of itself, but it needs to
also be put in perspective).  In fact, if the funding (and nature of the
procedure(s) used) allows, concomitant work should be begun on critical
organs such as the liver which apparently don't withstand conventional
freezing as well.

I also think you've done a remarkable job in securing the pledges you have
(I'm contemplating pledging myself, once I'm completely "oriented").

Irfan Kamal

> Message #6720
> Date: 09 Aug 96 03:47:55 EDT
> From: Paul Wakfer <>
> Subject: Prometheus News Release
> 
>      The following is a description of the Prometheus Project written in news
> release form. Athough it has not been sent to the press yet, this will appear
> in the next edition of Life Extension Magazine.
> 
> Prometheus Project Aims at Suspended Animation
> 
>      Begun in June on CryoCare Forum, a private email list and soon taken to
> the open Internet, The Prometheus Project seeks to achieve complete recovery
> from cryopreservation of a mammalian brain, and to convincingly demonstrate
> this feat to the scientific community, the media, and the public through
> papers published in scientific journals. The project scientists believe that
> with under a million dollars a year over a 10 year period, they can
> reversibly cryopreserve a mammal's brain and show that all memories and other
> mental faculties have returned. Since the brain will be cooled to cryogenic
> temperatures, such a brain could be stored for centuries without further
> deterioration if necessary before recovery is attempted.
> 
.... 
>      If the Project's goal of fully reversible suspended animation of the
> brain can be successfully accomplished, it could have an enormous impact on
> the practice of medicine. Doctors will have the option of placing the brains
> on their terminal patients into suspended animation until future technology
> can grow a body for the brain to live in. Since every baby grows a body as it
> develops from a single cell, it is clearly just a matter of time until such
> regrowth technology is developed. People with incurable and terminal
> conditions might well elect such a procedure with the reasonable expectation
> that by the time it becomes possible to regrow their bodies, cures will have
> been found for their diseases and they can go on to live full healthy lives.
> Another major application would be for those who wish to live longer, but
> will die of cancer, Alzheimer's or other diseases of old age before current
> research has found out how to stop and reverse the aging process.
> 
....


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