X-Message-Number: 9577
Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 03:48:48 -0400
From: Saul Kent <>
Subject: About RCWE's comments on 21CM Research

From:   Gregory M. Fahy, [72124,1173]
RE:     About RCWE's comments on 21CM Research

(  The following comments are made in response to Robert Ettinger's
comments (9562) concerning  Twenty-First Century Medicine's Research  )

     Saul Kent asked me to respond to your concerns regarding the likely 
value of  Twenty-First Century Medicine's planned research.

     Your first concern had to do with the interaction between the
university-based hippocampal slice research and research being undertaken
at 21st Century Medicine.  Without going into details, an agreement in
principle exists between 21CM and the university-based research that
eliminates conflicts of interest between 21CM and the university and the
Institute for Neural Cryobiology.   The only reason it is an agreement in
principle and not in practice is that certain pending documents between the
university and INC have not yet been signed.

     With regard to supporting 21CM research itself, you make essentially
two negative points, as follows. 
 
    First you say "our own research here-and-now is not necessarily the
be-all and end-all."  The fact is that present day research is the key to
future results.  You have to start somewhere.  Here-and-now is prelude, not
the end in itself.  Maybe we will be disappointed in some ways by
short-term results, but whatever we learn will build a stronger foundation
for what follows.  If 21CM research is not to be the be-all and the
end-all, what research will?  There is no comparable group of researchers
on the planet.  There is no one on this world with a better chance of
success with whole organ cryopreservation than the 21CM staff, and this is
based on published results, not conjecture.  Further, there is no other
horse to bet on, because, to my knowledge, 21CM is the only laboratory in
the world that even intends to do viable whole organ cryopreservation
research.  As Ronald Reagan said, if not us, who?  If not now, when?

     Your second point was essentially  that early breakthroughs can't be
guaranteed.  This is true.  But how fast will breakthroughs be made if
nobody tries to attain them?  The chance of a major breakthrough is related
to the amount of work that is done, which is to say, to the level of
funding that is available.  If you want to benefit from breakthroughs, the
work that will lead to them has to be funded.  It's that simple.

     You based your worry that  "small results may well continue for
decades"  on your interpretation of global historical events rather than on
 actual information pertinent to where we are today and why we believe
substantial progress is possible in the near term.

     For example, you mention that  "some cryobiologists" in the early
1960's thought "major organ cryopreservation was just around the corner."  =

But we now have a much better understanding of organ cryobiology than did
those early cryobiologists, and we have much more promising approaches than
they did.  Furthermore, many of those cryobiologists *succeeded* in
cryopreserving major organs!  It was lack of sustainable funding and lack
of interest on the part of the transplantation and cryobiological
communities in cryopreserved intestines, cryopreserved spleens,
cryopreserved ureters, cryopreserved uteri, cryopreserved frog hearts, and
cryopreserved fetal hearts, rather than  failure on the part of the
cryobiologists doing the work, that prevented those successfully-preserved
organs from coming into widespread use and stimulating more work on organ
cryopreservation. 

      You also mentioned that "ten years ago, leaders thought major organ
vitrification was just around the corner."   But  the problems that arose =

with vitrifying organs 10 years ago have nearly been overcome since then,
as documented in many published abstracts, and, as I mentioned in Phoenix, =

very direct avenues are now available for attacking the few remaining
problems. 

     You implied that 21CM researchers are unlikely to be able to
accomplish much because even the totality of the work that has been done in
the entire field of cryobiology to date has led to only "relatively small
results."   In contrast, the general cryobiological community has
consistently attained numerous major successes in all areas of
cryobiological endeavor that the community has been interested in.   You
simply appear to consider these successes to be "relatively small" because
they don't generally involve cryopreservation of something as dramatic as
an organ.   The problem is, the general cryobiological community is simply
not going to pursue organ cryopreservation.   If you want "big results,"
you have to recognize that they won't come from summing up a lot of  "small
results" in unrelated (or even in related) areas, no matter how excellent
those "small results" may be.  Instead, "big results" can come only from
direct attempts to attain "big results,"  and only 21CM will pursue this. =

It does no good to say that oranges can't be accomplished by some people
because other people have only sought to accomplish apples in the past.

     My final and perhaps most important point is that you can't judge
21CM's research prospects unless you listen to 21CM's research staff
describe its past accomplishments and its present and future plans.  You
had a chance to do this for several hours in Phoenix, but you did not avail
yourself of this chance.  Others I spoke to at the meeting indicated that
21CM's results and plans were highly exciting and promising, and far beyond
anything they had seen in the past.   I suggest you familiarize yourself
with 21CM's research capabilities and track record before you judge them. =

If you would like to visit the 21CM laboratories, I am sure the staff and
management would be happy to welcome you and discuss research issues with
you in detail.

 -- Greg Fahy, Ph.D.

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