X-Message-Number: 6878 Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 13:12:44 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles Platt <> Subject: Prometheus/Visser As a pledger to the Prometheus Project, I made my theoretical commitment merely because I want to see a job get done. I don't care who does it. I don't care how they do it. I believe all pledgers feel the same way, and I am quite bemused by Bob Ettinger's seeming assumption that this is an "either/or" proposition with one group of people on one side, another group on another side, and a big gap in between. Do you honestly suppose that any of us would refuse to use a life-saving technology simply because it emerged from research sponsored by a competing organization? I have absolutely no doubt that if Visser's work is applicable to the goal of reversible brain cryopreservation, the Prometheus Project will build on this foundation eagerly. Indeed, I wouldn't support the Project if it refused to take advantage of this opportunity. Having said that however I must add that so far, from where I sit, the Visser report does not give me reason, yet, to hope for a breakthrough. If I can see light-microscope and electron-microscope photographs of brains treated with her perfusate, showing less damage than was visible in the pictures supplied last year by Mike Darwin (published in CryoCare Report) which represent the current best achievement in this area, then I will be extremely excited. Till then, there is no way for me to evaluate the significance of the work on rat hearts. Since Luyet was able to restore pieces of rat hearts with really very primitive techniques more than 25 years ago, I have to assume that the rat heart happens to be (for whatever reason) a relatively easy organ to perfuse and revive. And that's about as far as my lay-person knowledge of cryobiology takes me. We must also remember that Suda managed to detect electrical activity in cat brains that had been frozen, some for as long as a year. These kinds of dramatic experiments demonstrated long ago that life processes in cells can restart after periods at low temperatures. The issue is now, as it was then, DAMAGE REDUCTION. I really want to believe that the Visser work promises damage reduction in the cryopreservation of human (or animal) brains. But in the absence of an appropriate experiment, properly documented, with accompanying photos, how can I believe this, except on faith? --CP Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6878