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Comment by anon26 on [LINK] blog on cryonics by someone who freezes things in a cell bio lab · 2012-10-23T04:10:48.238Z · LW · GW

I don't know, but he was/is involved with a stillborn cryoincs startup called Timeship. Also, he spoke at a cryonics and life extension conference recently with people like Ralph Merkle, and does seem to endorse present vitrification-based cryopreservation as "good enough." Search youtube for "fahy" and you should be able to find it.

Comment by anon26 on [LINK] blog on cryonics by someone who freezes things in a cell bio lab · 2012-10-22T08:41:34.150Z · LW · GW

Most cryobiologists don't know or care about cryonics, because it is the purview of a tiny (< 3000 peple) and eccentric minority.

However, there certainly are cryobiologists, even prominent ones, who have shown a great willingness to work with cryonics organizations and publicly associate with them.

Take Gregory Fahy as an example. He is an eminent cryobiologist who authored the seminal paper on vitrification of human embryos for reproductive medicine: http://www.biolreprod.org/content/67/6/1671.full

His company, 21st Century Medicine, created the M22 cryoprotectant compound used by Alcor, and he also led the team that successfully re-implanted a rabbit kidney that had been removed, vitrified, and thawed back into the rabbit from which it was removed, and then after removing the rabbit's other, unvitrified kidney, the rabbit survived (with slightly diminished renal function) on the formerly vitrified kidney. Fahy hopes that this technology will one day be used to greatly extend the "shelf life" of human organs for transplant.

Though Fahy is first and foremost a cryobiologist, he has spoken at life extension and cryonics conferences, and he is not at all opposed to seeing his technology used to improve cryonics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Fahy