CI received its 76th patient at the end of 2006 - he deanimated on Christmas Day. Because he was only 44 years old and his death was unexpected as well as unexplained his brain was autopsied (dissected and placed in his abdomen). Attempts by his parents and CI to prevent the autopsy were of no avail. The patient deanimated in California, which has a Statute (California Code Section 27491.43) allowing religious objection to autopsy under such circumstances. But CI legal counsel advises me that only those having religious beliefs that have documented religious objection (Amish, Hmongs, Orthodox Jews) can justifiably use this objection. Nonetheless, I have been advised that we should get lawyers involved immediately if this happens again, and that we may prevail. The assurances of the coroner that he would be sensitive to our needs, the wishes of the patient and the wishes of the patient's parents concerning dissection of the brain during autopsy were apparently insincere. 1 am determined to fight hard against any future autopsy of a CI Member. CI Members who have a sincere religious objection to autopsy are encouraged to send a religious objection certificate to CI. We are making these forms available to our Members for this purpose.

We only know of seven states that have statutes allowing a religious objection to autopsy. CI Members who are concerned about the danger of autopsy should hire a local lawyer for legal advice concerning the jurisdiction in which they live and the legal options available to prevent autopsy, religious and otherwise.

Some coroners are more strict about autopsies than others and it could be useful to know how accommodating your local coroner would be.

In 2006 we received a $10,000 donation to the CI Research Fund from an anonymous donor as well as a very generous donation from David and Connie Ettinger. James Swayze (a CI Member who is paraplegic and of limited financial means) donates $20 per month through the PayPal subscription mechanism provided on the Research page of the CI website.

We thank these people and all the others who have supported CI and the research program through donations.

Unfortunately I cannot disclose details about our recent research, but I am hoping I will be able to do so within six months.

CI MEMBERSHIP REPORT 12-29-2006

Prior to 1994 annual growth of Membership was in the single digits, annually. There were 5 patients in 1992, but an average of less than one per year back to 1976, never more than 2 in one year. (The 2004 statistic excludes 10 patients from ACS that year).

CI GROWTH STATISTICS
(since 1994)

.....Patients.....Members

1994....3..........10
1995....2..........13
1996....4..........05
1997....2..........05
1998....5..........19
1999....1..........41
2000....5..........42
2001....4..........62
2002....5..........63
2003....5..........76
2004....7..........63
2005....3..........100
2006....5..........76

As of December 29, 2006 the Cryonics Institute has 639 Members, 281 of whom are fully funded with executed contracts. Of the latter, 20 have Suspended Animation contracts and funding. There was an increase of 76 CI Members and 36 fully funded Members during 2006. The majority of new fully-funded Members have contracts and funding with Suspended Animation.

The growth statistics represent net increase. Against that background the Cryonics Institute regularly loses Members, most often Option Two Members who stop paying their dues. In 2004 there were 12 terminated Option Two Memberships, there were 13 in 2005 and 21 in 2006. The increase in Option Two Membership terminations partly reflects the increase in total Membership.

As of December 29, 2006 the Cryonics Institute has 47 pets (mainly cats and dogs), 13 pet DNA samples and 105 human DNA samples being held in liquid nitrogen cryopreservation.

Ben Best

FRED HORN 83, CRYONCS PIONEER

A founding member of The Cryonics Society of New York, (CSNY) Fred was involved with the cryopreservation of Steven Mandell and  Ann Deblazio, CSNY’s first and second patients, among others. At the time he was the owner of The St. James Funeral Home in New York, and as such was indispensable in performing the cryopreservation.

From a NEWSDAY clipping sent us by Saul Kent: “Horn received national attention on July 28, 1968, when he led a team that placed a 24 year old Bronx student who had died of an intestinal infection and adrenal failure in a cryonic suspension - a first for the East Coast. Wrapped in aluminum foil, the body was eventually chilled to -321 degrees and stored at Washington Memorial Park in Coram.”

Fred sold the Funeral Home in 1978, and moved to Ft Lauderdale and started a charter boat business on his 50 foot cabin cruiser. His most memorable charter he always said was working with Director Ron Howard on “Cocoon,” a movie with an  immortalist theme.

Fred Horn Jr. said his father’s feelings toward cryonics changed, that he had lived a good life, and no longer wished to live in the future. He died from complications from a broken hip and  was cremated with his ashes spread at sea.

Fred and Curtis Henderson with an early model cryostat.

More on Fred Horn is in the Editor’s corner.

CAT BRAIN CRYOPRESERVED

We have just placed into liquid nitrogen the brain of the cat of one of our Members (he may identify himself if he so chooses). The brain had been preserved in a formaldehyde/glutaraldehyde solution prior to this cryopreservation. This was necessarily a "straight-freeze" (done without any cryoprotectants).

This was an unusual request (unusual requests are not unusual in cryonics) so it was hard to  know what the optimal cooling strategy would be. In the absence of experimental data we chose a protocol based on what we think are reasonable speculations from known facts.

A cooling rate of about 20șC per minute is  optimal for survival of sperm cells and a cooling rate of about 1șC per minute is optimal for survival of stem cells. Although viability is not relevant for this case, the principle of seeking to cool slowly enough to minimize ice formation inside cells (the most damaging place for ice to form), but fast enough to prevent membrane damage from concentrated salts is nonetheless relevant.

Getting ice to form outside of cells is probably much more relevant however, because the membranes should be  protected from salt damage by the formaldehyde/ glutaraldehyde protein cross-linking. Because there are so many more nucleators for ice crystal formation outside of cells than inside cells, the slow cooling means that water will migrate out of cells to freeze.

(For more background on the above, see http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/cooling.html#classical )

Nonetheless, extrapolating data from the cooling of living cells to the cooling of a brain that has been in formaldehyde/glutaraldehyde involves a lot of guesswork. Unlike the case with single cells samples, for a cat brain time must be allowed for the cooling to penetrate to the center of the brain and equilibrate in the brain.

Also, organs freeze differently than single-cell  samples because of the matrix holding the cells together. In addition, we don't know to what  extent cell membranes cross-linked by aldehydes might impede the movement of water from inside the cell to outside the cell.

For our human patients whom we are cooling at the maximum possible rate we see a time-lag of over an hour between the temperature at the surface of the brain and the temperature at the core of the brain (estimated by a nasopharyngeal thermocouple probe).  For a cat brain less than two inches in diameter (not in a skull) the time-lag for cooling from surface to core should be much less.

The cat brain had been at refrigerator temperature from the time we received it, so cooling began at around 15șC. As the first step we cooled the brain in the small cooling box down to dry ice temperature (about -80șC) in four hours and held it at -80șC in the cooling box for another two hours. For the  surface of the brain that represents a cooling rate of 95șC/240 minutes -- or about 0.4șC/minute. The  two hours at -80șC should have allowed plenty of  time for the temperature to become uniform throughout the brain. For good measure we stored the brain in dry ice overnight.

The next day we spent about 8 hours cooling from dry ice temperature to liquid nitrogen temperature which means 116șC/480 minutes -- about 0.24șC/minute.

Although cracking and thermal stress are not of the same significance for a frozen brain as for a  vitrified brain (a glassy vitrified brain has much more thermal stress), the slow cooling probably did prevent some cracking. Nonetheless, compared to the damage caused by freezing, any cracking that could have occurred would be of minimal significance toward total damage.

We had transferred the cat brain from the container in which we received it to a smaller strong plastic container. We kept the cat brain floating in the aldehyde solution (about 90% water) during the whole procedure. Hopefully, the freezing of the aldehyde solution was not too damaging to the cerebral cortex, but we were not wanting to expose the brain. An oil-based solution would probably have been just as damaging.

We were not even sure if the plastic container would withstand cooling to liquid nitrogen temperature without fracturing, but (possibly helped by the slow cooling) the container did not fracture.

The cat brain is now being stored in liquid nitrogen. I think that we did a reasonably good job of preserving it under the circumstances. Unfortunately, without feedback we learned very little from this experience which would prepare us to do a better job in the future if we should get another cat brain in formaldehyde/glutaraldehyde.