🧬🛍 20 - Cryonics becomes plan A
Hello 👋 and welcome to Curation for Longevity by Laura Minquini. I am the founder of MYKIGAI - a discovery and recommendation platform for longevity.
In this newsletter, I look into what could help make longevity the next big consumer health & lifestyle category. 🚀
When headlines tell a good story 📰
I have devoted many posts to the problematic branding and storytelling of longevity. The potential of the research tackling age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s lost due to sensationalist headlines is frustrating, to say the least.
That’s why it is important to highlight a great example of the style of storytelling we need to advance the field.
The headline:
Read the article: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60991675
The science:
ReikLab used an iPSC reprogramming technique on 53-year-old skin cells and rejuvenated them into skin cells that looked and behaved as if they came from a 23-year old. It’s actually much more technical than that, but you get the idea.
Why It Works:
First of all, women are obsessed with skincare. Even the most fervent pro-aging and anti-anti-aging advocates actively take care of their skin. It is also something people can see.
Associating rejuvenation to get rid of the disease of aging - something NO ONE wants to have - is a great way to spark interest from mere mortals who are not seeking immortality.
I have never had so many different people send me a piece of news they saw about longevity research.
Is it true to the exact science - no, they did not rejuvenate a woman’s skin per se. However, it is much more accurate than the headlines touting that we are close to living up to 150 years.
Let’s Talk Immortality
Speaking of immortality, Europeans are winning when it comes to exploring what actually happens if we do get to live forever.
They tend to be more philosophical about life - suffice to watch any of the Nouvelle Vague films of the 60s, where they quote philosophers and make reference to Greek tragedies in mainstream films. In America, these are considered Art House.
I was doing a deep dive into cryonics and sci-fi when I remembered that the cult film “Vanilla Sky” was actually a remake of the Spanish Film “Abre Los Ojos”. Penelope Cruz graces both movies.
They have been doing it for a while; The Makropulos Affair a play about a woman who is tired of eternity was written in 1922.
And for the moment, the French are having the most interesting takes on what happens if and when we do end up living forever: the ennui, cults of death, revivals gone wrong.
I highly recommend Ad Vitam, and a more recent discovery, Oxygen staring Mélanie Laurent.
Someone at Netflix must not be into immortality as all of these productions, alongside Altered Carbon, a very dystopian take on living forever, are produced by them.
Cryonics has become plan A 🧊
When some of the biggest names in the industry are going into this area, the signaling is clear, cryonics is plan A.
I had a feeling of this when I heard Laura Deming was launching a startup focused on cryonics: Lorentz.bio. Deming is one of the better known mainstream names in longevity. She is quite young and could have chosen to go into many different areas, but decided on cryopreservation.
Ironically, and for those who know the story between these two personalities, the equally well-known Aubrey de Grey seems to be going full time into something related to cryonics, once he stops the dramatic exit from SENS the research foundation he started.
I have learned from insider sources that another well-known scientist, Dr. João Pedro Magalhães, has also left all his appointments to focus on cryopreservation as well. It’s worth watching his Tedx video about why cryonics is worth it. In it he said “I can't spend the money to cryopreserve myself” so I guess instead he is going to build a company.
Finally, my friend Kai Micah Mills, who is 23 years old and already a serial founder, spent some time deciding what he wanted to tackle in longevity as a challenge and decided in this area as well. He is focusing on pets first at Cryopets. Below is his reasoning:
“Cryonics is the only route that directly targets the death problem. Even if we solve senescence in our lifetimes, which is highly improbable, the chances of dying from injury, poison, disease, environment, etc. is simply too high over any extended time period. There is no radical life extension without cryonics.’’
My read is: the geniuses decided we are not going to achieve “Longevity Escape Velocity” (hypothetical situation in which life expectancy is extended longer than the time that is passing) anytime soon so let’s make sure we are properly preserved as plan A.
The Egyptians thought of it first - sort of
If you are not deep into longevity, you might not have heard of the name Aaron King - Aaron is like a living encyclopedia of longevity. He is the Research Director at Foresight Institute (I would describe it as a Think Tank for the future) and is currently developing an interactive longevity tree with all the research, companies, and theories within the field. It is a massive undertaking, and because of this, he knows EVERYTHING.
Well, maybe he does not, but I have not been in a chat or conversation where Aaron could not reference a study or a theory, or you get the idea.
I recently asked him what he thought about cryonics and he told me of the analogy he always thinks of - the Egyptian mummies.
Egyptians were obsessed with immortality and the passage of death.
“The ancient Egyptians' attitude towards death was influenced by their belief in immortality. They regarded death as a temporary interruption, rather than the cessation of life. To ensure the continuity of life after death, people paid homage to the gods, both during and after their life on earth.”
First of all, the passage to the afterlife needed justification and only kings could make this passage - yup only billionaires of that era were worthy. Lol “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”.
The Egyptians mastered mummification and put their belongings with them, for their rebirth. We know how that went…riches were looted, and we did not do too much with their bodies other than put them in museums and get inspired to make movies like The Mummy.
Cryopreservation - A brief history
In 1931, in the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, the first notion of freezing to be preserved for a later life appeared in the story The Jameson Satellite.
“The professor had looked for a means by which the body could be preserved perfectly forever.” The futuristic novel was set in the year 1958.
1958 came to pass and there was no freezing of the body just yet. But, taken with the story, professor Robert Ettinger wrote “The prospect of immortality” in 1962, and thanks to an endorsement by Isaac Asimov, the book and author became well known and became the father of modern cryonics. He is actually in cryopreservation at the Cryonics Institute.
The first person to actually be frozen happened in 1966 and now we are in the first era of cryopreservation in which Alcor, founded in 1972, is the leader. For now.
I recommend reading their website if you are very interested in the process, otherwise, read below.
Basics of the Science
Let’s start with the fact that we think it is the freezing of the body. It is the opposite of that. Freezing the cells damages them; cryopreservation is trying to preserve cells.
Your body is put in a state of vitrification - the rapid cooling of liquid in the absence of ice crystal formation.
All the water is taken out of your body and medical-grade antifreeze is put in.
Then, the body is wrapped and put in liquid nitrogen at a cool -196 degrees celsius.
For the record, a rabbit kidney has been cryopreserved, brought back to life and implanted back in the rabbit by the current father of Cryonics, cryobiologist Dr. Gregg Fahy.
Read more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781097/
Greg Fahy is not a well-known name in the mainstream but he is like a well-kept secret, that has a hand in many different areas of research.
For now, we have no clue how to perform a full-body revival, and be mindful that revival won’t be enough - we would also have had to resolve the potential diseases these bodies have like cancer, or dementia plus full rejuvenation. Coming back to live with the body of an 80-year-old would wear thin pretty fast.
The biggest challenge is the brain. How do you retain all data without damage, everything that makes you, you?
Every single theory of how resuscitation will happen is on nano-technology being the tech of the future that will repair the body.
Hopefully, these bodies will fair better than the Egyptians.
The cost
80k for the brain, 200k+ for the body.
Random factoids
Cryonics interests mostly men. ¾ of people in storage at Alcor are men.
Elon, who is not a big proponent or enthusiast of longevity, thinks Cryonics is possible.
It is illegal to do cryopreservation in France, but legal to ship abroad for it to be done.
The startups (I know about)
Cryopets - endorsed by my dog Mobile as he and his long-distance friend Cat the Cat will be chilling in the to-be-built facilities until someone figures out how we can bring them back to life. Hopefully, before I pass. Otherwise, I hope to leave a big inheritance like Choupette got from Karl Lagarled - a cool estimate of 200 million according to the List of Wealthiest Animals. For that money, Choupette should become a human. 🤣
My friend Stephen laughed so hard at me wanting to preserve my “crazy dog” instead of getting a new one. Alas, we do not choose who we love. When you think about it, we can already clone dogs, but that coco loco spirit is what must be preserved!
Lorentz Bio - Laura Deming’s startup
What happens when it happens
I have so many questions about what happens in the future - when you come back to life if you are legally dead, do you get to be a new person?
And what are the financial arrangements one puts in place for being woken up in the future? For instance, what if we end up only using cryptocurrencies and you only left USD? I know this is pedestrian. In the future we will live in some grand utopia and money does not even exist. And yet, I keep thinking of the Egyptians.
If longevity still seems fringe to some, cryonics is even more straight out of sci-fi but I do think will see an inflection point, much like the one longevity is having now. When you think that there are startups dedicated to mining asteroids in space, deep tech to do cryopreservation or hibernation is not that far off. With important names going into the space and a couple of serious articles on the technology, it will help make it seen less as snake oil and more as a possibility for a second life. I hope the French got it all wrong, in that case.
I watched videos on cryonics for my research, and I found this one to be the most touching, compelling, and human. This technological progress needs to exist. It’s not for everyone, but we need options.
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