Alcor cryonics distances themselves from would-be defrosting-head-transplant doc
Italian neurosurgeon and author Sergio Canavero isn’t shy of headlines. February 2015’s New Scientist cover promised human head transplants by 2017. Despite sustained technical criticism, Canavero has pressed on with increasingly bold claims, cumulating in a recent interview in German magazine OOOM:
Does this not pose serious problems for the human psyche? Are we even capable of cognitively grasping such a situation? Are we able to handle it?
It creates a new situation that will certainly not be easy, but think about what that means.What are you referring to?
Have you heard of the company Alcor?You mean the American company that specializes in deep freezing and storing bodies after death?
Exactly. You preserve either the entire body or just the brain. The process is called vitrification. First, your body is frozen at minus 196 degrees Celsius; then, it is submerged in liquid nitrogen. That said, Alcor does not know how many of the company’s clients will be brought back to life. In interviews, spokespeople of the company tend to state that this task is one for the doctors and scientists of the future to solve. It is nice, though, that someone will know what to do with these frozen brains in 100 or 200 years. I have good news for them.Namely?
We will try to bring the first of the company’s patients back to life, not in 100 years. As soon as the first human head transplant has taken place, i.e., no later than in 2018, we will be able to attempt to reawaken the first frozen head.That means you aim to transplant one of the frozen brains into a donor body?
Precisely. We can try out whether the method works and whether freezing brains actually makes sense or if we can forget that entire approach.More concretely, that means: after the (head) transplant is before the (brain) transplant. Once the first head is transplanted, you will turn to the brain?
The process is already under way. We are working on it in parallel.
The UK’s Telegraph ran with “Cryogenically frozen brains will be ‘woken up’ and transplanted in donor bodies within three years, claims surgeon”
Whist the science of cryonics still remains controversial, normalized only by a certain demographic of transhumanists and futurists, Alcor has constantly been conservative in their predictions and up-front about the few industry failures in the past.
I took the issue directly to Alcor for comment:
On one hand, bleeding edge (uh, literally) science is converging with the future/near-future science of cryonics revival. On the other hand — within 3 years, really?
Alcor PR were swift to respond:
The Alcor Life Extension has had no contact with Dr. Canavero.
It is not yet possible to revive human brains cryopreserved with present methods. Revival of today’s cryonics patients will require future repair by highly advanced future technology, such as molecular nanotechnology.
Technology that is advanced enough to repair a cryopreserved brain would by its nature also be able to regrow new tissues, organs, and a healthy body for the revived person. Therefore Alcor does not expect body donations or transplants to ever be necessary for revival of cryonics patients.
Until advanced tissue regeneration technology is developed, we wish Dr. Canavero well in his development of body transplant surgery for living patients today who might benefit.
I would recommend against any cryonics service that ignores the need for nano-technology to repair the neurological damage caused by the traditional death and vitrification process.
So there we have it. While Dr Canavero promises “no later than in 2018, we will be able to attempt to reawaken the first frozen head.” we can be pretty sure it won’t be any of Alcor’s patients.
Would discounted cryonics experimentation be welcomed in order to pioneer such reanimation procedures? The cryonicists recommend you play it cool.
