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Scientists' Open Letter on Cryonics

To whom it may concern,

Cryonics is a legitimate scientific endeavor that seeks to preserve human beings, or their central nervous system, by the best technology available.

Future technologies for resuscitation can be envisioned that involve detailed control of cell growth, molecular repair by nanomedicine, and highly advanced computation. With a view toward these developments, there is a credible possibility that cryonics performed under the best conditions achievable today can preserve sufficient neurological information to permit eventual restoration of a person to full health.

The rights of people who choose cryonics are important, and should be respected.

Sincerely (46 Signatories)

Signatories encompass all disciplines relevant to cryonics, including Biology, Cryobiology, Neuroscience, Physical Science, Nanotechnology and Computing, and Ethics and Theology. [Signature date in brackets]   

• Gregory Benford, Ph.D. (Physics, UC San Diego)
  Professor of Physics; University of California; Irvine, CA [3/24/04]
• Alaxander Bolonkin, Ph.D. (Leningrad Politechnic University)
  Professor, Moscow Aviation Institute; Senior Research Associate NASA Dryden Flight Research Center; Lecturer, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ [3/24/04]
• Nick Bostrom, Ph.D.
  Research Fellow; University of Oxford; Oxford, United Kingdom [3/25/04]
• Kevin Q. Brown, Ph.D. (Computer Science, Carnegie-Mellon)
  Member of Technical Staff; Lucent Bell Laboratories (retired); Stanhope, NJ [3/23/04]
• Professor Manfred Clynes, Ph.D.
  Lombardi Cancer Center; Department of Oncology and Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Georgetown University; Washington, DC [3/28/04]
• Aubrey D.N.J. de Grey, Ph.D.
  Research Associate; University of Cambridge;Cambridge, United Kingdom [3/19/04]
• João Pedro de Magalhães, Ph.D.
  University of Namur; Namur, Belgium [3/22/04]
• Thomas Donaldson, PhD
  Editor, Periastron; Founder, Institute for Neural Cryobiology; Canberra, Australia [3/22/04]
• Christopher J. Dougherty, Ph.D.
  Chief Scientist; Suspended Animation Inc; Boca Raton, FL [3/19/04]
• K. Eric Drexler, Ph.D.
  Chairman of Foresight Institute; Palo Alto, CA [3/19/04]
• Gregory Fahy, Ph.D.
  Chief Scientific Officer, Vice President; 21st Century Medicine, Inc; Rancho Cucamonga, CA [3/25/04]
• Robert A. Freitas Jr., J.D.
  Author, Nanomedicine Vols. I & II; Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, Palo Alto, CA [3/27/04]
• Ben Goertzel, Ph.D. (Mathematics, Temple)
  Chief Scientific Officer, Biomind LLC; Columbia, MD [3/19/04]
• Peter Gouras, M.D.
  Professor of Ophthalmology, Columbia University; New York City, NY [3/19/04]
• Amara L. Graps, Ph.D.
  Researcher, Astrophysics; Adjunct Professor of Astronomy; Institute of Physics of the Interplanetary Space; American University of Rome (Italy) [3/22/04]
• Raphael Haftka, Ph.D. (UC San Diego)
  Distinguished Prof. U. of Florida; Dept. of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Gainesville, FL [3/22/04]
• J. Storrs Hall, PhD.
  Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, Los Altos, CA
  Fellow, Molecular Engineering Research Institute, Laporte, PA [3/26/04]
• Robin Hanson, Ph.D. (Social Science, Caltech)
  Assistant Professor (of Economics); George Mason University; Fairfax, VA [3/19/04]
• Steven B. Harris, M.D.
  President and Director of Research; Critical Care Research, Inc; Rancho Cucamonga, CA [3/19/04]
• Michael D. Hartl, Ph.D. (Physics, Harvard & Caltech)
  Visitor in Theoretical Astrophysics; California Institute of Technology; Pasadena, CA [3/19/04]
• James J. Hughes, Ph.D.
  Public Policy Studies Trinity College; Hartford, CT [3/25/04]
• James R. Hughes, M.D.,
  Director of Medical Research & Development, Hilton Head Longevity Center, Savanah, GA [4/05/04]
• Klaus W. B. Jaffé, Ph.D. (University of Southampton, England)
  Full Professor, Biology Department, Universidad Simón Bolívar; Caracas, Venezuela [3/24/04]
• Ravin Jain, M.D. (Baylor)
  Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Los Angeles, CA [3/31/04]
  Subhash C. Kak, Ph.D.
  Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA [3/24/04]
• Professor Bart Kosko, Ph.D.
  Electrical Engineering Department; University of Southern California [3/19/04]
• James B. Lewis, Ph.D. (Chemistry, Harvard)
  Senior Research Investigator (retired); Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute; Seattle, WA [3/19/04]
• John Warwick Montgomery, Ph.D. (Chicago)
  D.Théol. (Strasbourg), LL.D. (Cardiff) Professor Emeritus of Law and Humanities, University of Luton, England [3/28/04]
• Max More, Ph.D.
  Chairman, Extropy Institute, Austin, TX [3/31/04]
• Robert J. Morin, M.D.
  Professor of Pathology and Department Chairman, President, American Longevity Association, Los Angeles, CA [3/29/04]
• Brad F. Mellon, STM, Ph.D.
  Chair of the Ethics Committee; Frederick Mennonite Community; Frederick, PA [3/25/04]
• Ralph C. Merkle, Ph.D.
  Distinguished Professor of Computing; Georgia Tech College of Computing; Director, GTISC (GA Tech Information Security Center); VP, Technology Assessment, Foresight Institute [3/19/04]
• Marvin Minsky, Ph.D. (Mathematics, Harvard & Princeton)
  MIT Media Lab and MIT AI Lab; Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; Professor of E.E. and C.S., M.I.T [3/19/04]
• Mike O'Neal, Ph.D. (Computer Science)
  Assoc. Professor and Computer Science Program Chair; Louisiana Tech Univ.; Ruston, LA [3/19/04]
• Yuri Pichugin, Ph.D.
  Former Senior Researcher, Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine; Kharkov, Ukraine [3/19/04]
• Klaus H. Sames, M.D.
  University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Center of Experimental Medicine (CEM) Institute of Anatomy II: Experimental Morphology; Hamburg, Germany [3/25/04]
• Anders Sandberg, Ph.D. (Computational Neuroscience)
  Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm University; Stockholm, Sweden [3/19/04]
• Stanley Shostak, Ph.D.
  Associate Professor of Biological Sciences; University of Pittsburgh; Pittsburgh, PA [3/19/04]
• Rafal Smigrodzki, M.D., Ph.D.
  Clinical Instructor, University of Virginia; Chief Clinical Officer, Gencia Company; Charlottesville VA [3/19/04]
• Gregory Stock, Ph.D.
  Director, Program on Medicine, Technology, and Society UCLA School of Public Health; Los Angeles, CA [3/24/04]
• Mark A. Voelker, Ph.D. (Optical Sciences, U. Arizona)
  Director of Bioengineering; BioTime, Inc.; Berkeley, CA [3/19/04]
• Roy L Walford, MD
  Professor of Pathology, emeritus; UCLA School of Medicine; Los Angeles, CA [3/19/04]
• Mark Walker, Ph.D.
  Research Associate, Philosophy; Trinity College; University of Toronto (Canada) [3/19/04]
• Michael D. West, Ph.D.
  President, Chairman & Chief Executive Office; Advanced Cell Technology, Inc.; Worcester, MA [3/19/04]
• Ronald F. White, Ph.D.
  Professor of Philosophy; College of Mount St. Joseph; Cincinnati, OH [3/19/04]
• Brian Wowk, Ph.D.
  Senior Scientist 21st Century Medicine, Inc.; Rancho Cucamonga, CA [3/19/04]

Selected Journal Articles Supporting Cryonics:

Paper showing recovery of brain electrical activity after freezing to -20°C. Suda I, Kito K, Adachi C, in: Nature (1966, vol. 212), "Viability of long term frozen cat brain in vitro", pg. 268-270.


• First paper to propose cryonics by neuropreservation: Martin G, in: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (1971, vol. 14), “Brief proposal on (life extension): an interim solution”, pg. 339.
   
• First paper showing recovery of a mammalian organ after cooling to -196°C (liquid nitrogen temperature) and subsequent transplantation: Hamilton R, Holst HI, Lehr HB, in: Journal of Surgical Research (1973, vol 14), "Successful preservation of canine small intestine by freezing", pg. 527-531.
  
  
• Followup paper showing partial recovery of brain electrical activity after 7 years of frozen storage: Suda I, Kito K, Adachi C, in: Brain Research (1974, vol. 70), “Bioelectric discharges of isolated cat brain after revival from years of frozen storage", pg. 527-531.
  
  
• First paper suggesting that nanotechnology could reverse freezing injury: Drexler KE, in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1981, vol. 78), "Molecular engineering: An approach to the development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation", pg. 5275-5278.
  
  
• First paper showing that large organs can be cryopreserved without structural damage from ice: Fahy GM, MacFarlane DR, Angell CA, Meryman HT, in: Cryobiology (1984, vol. 21), "Vitrification as an approach to cryopreservation", pg. 407-426.
  
  
• Paper showing that dogs can be recovered after three hours of total circulatory arrest (“clinical death”) at 0°C (32°F). This supports the reversibility of the hypothermic phase of cryonics: Haneda K, Thomas R, Sands MP, Breazeale DG, Dillard DH, in: Cryobiology (1986, vol. 23), "Whole body protection during three hours of total circulatory arrest: an experimental study", pg. 483-494.
  
  
• First detailed discussion of the application of nanotechnology to reverse human cryopreservation: Merkle RC, in: Medical Hypotheses (1992, vol. 39), "The technical feasibility of cryonics", pg. 6-16.
  
  
• First successful application of vitrification to a relatively large tissue of medical interest: Song YC, Khirabadi BS, Lightfoot F, Brockbank KG, Taylor MJ, in: Nature Biotechnology (2000, vol. 18), "Vitreous cryopreservation maintains the function of vascular grafts", pg. 296-299.
  
  
• Brief discussion of the complete technical problem of cryonics, including application after cardiac arrest, and the high quality of brain preservation now achievable with vitrification: Lemler J, Harris SB, Platt C, Huffman T, in: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, (in press), “The Arrest of Biological Time as a Bridge to Engineered Negligible Senescence".
  

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