Cryonics is the low-temperature freezing and storage of human remains, with the speculative hope that resurrection may be possible in the future. Cryonics is regarded with skepticism within the mainstream scientific community. It is generally viewed as a pseudoscience, and its practice has been characterized as quackery.
The Alcor Life Extension Foundation, most often referred to as Alcor, is an American nonprofit, federally tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization based in Scottsdale, Arizona, United States. Alcor advocates for, researches, and performs cryonics, the freezing of human corpses and brains in liquid nitrogen after legal death, with hopes of resurrecting and restoring them to full health in the event some new technology can be developed in the future. Cryonics is regarded with skepticism within the mainstream scientific community and has been characterized as quackery and pseudoscience.
James Hiram Bedford was an American psychology professor at the University of California who wrote several books on occupational counseling. He is the first person whose body was cryopreserved after legal death, and who remains preserved at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.
The American Cryonics Society (ACS), also known as the Cryonics Society of America, is a member-run, California-based, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization that supports and promotes research and education into cryonics and cryobiology. Cryonics is the low-temperature freezing and storage of a human corpse or severed head, with the speculative hope that resurrection may be possible in the future.
Michael G. Darwin, formerly known as Michael Federowicz, was the president of the cryonics organization Alcor Life Extension Foundation from 1983 to 1988, and Research Director until 1992. He was also the founder and president of BioPreservation, Inc., and a cofounder, member of the Board of Directors, and Director of Research of Twenty-First Century Medicine from 1993 to 1999.
Jerry Donnell Leaf was Vice President and Director of the cryonics organization Alcor Life Extension Foundation, and President of the cryonics service firm Cryovita, Inc. until his death in 1991. He was subsequently cryopreserved by Alcor.
Thomas K. Donaldson was a mathematician and well-known cryonics advocate. He was born in the state of Kentucky in the United States, and took his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1969. He also lived in Sunnyvale, California, and for many years in Canberra, Australia, where he taught mathematics at Australian National University. He founded both the Cryonics Association of Australia and the Institute for Neural Cryobiology, which has funded ground-breaking research in cryopreservation of brain tissue.
Curtis Henderson was a pioneer in the practice of cryonics.
Saul Kent is a life extension activist, and co-founder of the Life Extension Foundation, a dietary supplement vendor and promoter of anti-aging research. He is also a pioneer in the practice of cryonics, and was a board member of the cryonics organization Alcor Life Extension Foundation.
Brian G. Wowk, Ph.D. is a medical physicist and cryobiologist known for the discovery and development of synthetic molecules that mimic the activity of natural antifreeze proteins in cryopreservation applications, sometimes called "ice blockers". As a senior scientist at 21st Century Medicine, Inc., he was a co-developer with Greg Fahy of key technologies enabling cryopreservation of large and complex tissues, including the first successful vitrification and transplantation of a mammalian organ (kidney). Wowk is also known for early theoretical work on future applications of molecular nanotechnology, especially cryonics, nanomedicine, and optics. In the early 1990s he wrote that nanotechnology would revolutionize optics, making possible virtual reality display systems optically indistinguishable from real scenery as in the fictitious Holodeck of Star Trek. These systems were described by Wowk in the chapter "Phased Array Optics" in the 1996 anthology Nanotechnology: Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance, and highlighted in the September 1998 Technology Watch section of Popular Mechanics magazine.
Frederick Rockwell Chamberlain III and Linda Chamberlain founded the cryonics organization Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Their long and continued history of activism in cryonics make them among the most well-known cryonics pioneers. David Pascal wrote in the November/December 2005 issue of the Mensa Bulletin that, second to the man credited with the original idea for cryonics, Robert Ettinger, the Chamberlains have contributed more than anyone to the field of cryonics.
KrioRus is the first cryonics company in Russia. It was founded in 2005 by the Russian Transhumanist Movement NGO. It's the only cryonic company in Europe to possess an own cryonic storage. The company offers the services of freezing the entire bodies or heads of clients in liquid nitrogen with a plan to revive them if such a technology is developed, but takes no legal obligations to do so.
Antonei Benjamin Csoka, Ph.D. is a biogerontologist at Howard University who works on the molecular biology of aging, regenerative medicine, and epigenetics.
Charles Platt is a British author, journalist and computer programmer. He relocated from England to the United States during 1970 and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He has one child, Rose Fox, who edits science-fiction, fantasy, and horror book reviews. Platt is the nephew of Robert Platt, Baron Platt of Grindleford.
Dora Kent was the object of a 1988 legal controversy about whether she had been murdered to facilitate her cryonic suspension. She was Alcor's eighth patient and the oldest at that time to ever be cryopreserved. She was the mother of Saul Kent, a board member of Alcor. In her earlier years, Kent worked as a dressmaker in New York City.
Cryo-preservation or cryo-conservation is a process where organelles, cells, tissues, extracellular matrix, organs, or any other biological constructs susceptible to damage caused by unregulated chemical kinetics are preserved by cooling to very low temperatures. At low enough temperatures, any enzymatic or chemical activity which might cause damage to the biological material in question is effectively stopped. Cryopreservation methods seek to reach low temperatures without causing additional damage caused by the formation of ice crystals during freezing. Traditional cryopreservation has relied on coating the material to be frozen with a class of molecules termed cryoprotectants. New methods are being investigated due to the inherent toxicity of many cryoprotectants. Cryoconservation of animal genetic resources is done with the intention of conservation of the breed.
Larry Johnson is an American author and former employee of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation (Alcor), a cryonics company for whom he once served as a paramedic. He received notoriety with the release of the August 13, 2003 issue of Sports Illustrated. Sports Illustrated sportswriter Tom Verducci, along with Johnson's input, published an article about “What Really Happened to Ted Williams?" Immediately following the Sports Illustrated article, Johnson agreed to an interview with Diane Sawyer of Good Morning America.
Cryonics Institute (CI) is an American nonprofit foundation that provides cryonics services. CI freezes dead humans and pets in liquid nitrogen with the hope of restoring them with technology in the future.
William “Bill” Faloon is an author, life extensionist, and co-founder of the Life Extension Foundation, the Church of Perpetual Life, and the FDA Holocaust Museum.
The Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute, is a life science research institute and a cryonics services provider in Jinan, Shandong, China. It was founded in 2015, and it is a division of Yinfeng Biological Group. The institute is the first organization providing cryonics services in China. In 2017, the institute made the first cryopreserved patient in China. The institute cryopreserves cells, tissues, people, and animals, including dogs. The institute cooperates closely with the Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Foundation that funds the institute.
