26 replies to this topic

[livelong]

Apparently this technique eliminates ice crystal formation?

http://www.forbes.co...8/0602/076.html

Forty-seven researchers are experimenting with Owada's technology to preserve human organs. A group at Tokyo University is freezing mouse hearts with a technology similar to Owada's. Another group at Keio University is preserving nerve fibers. Owada predicts that the first defrosted organ transplant could happen within a decade.

Toshitsugu Kawata, an associate professor of dentistry at Hiroshima University, is using Owada's system to run a commercial cryogenic tooth bank, with 1,600 teeth in stock. Under a tooth's hard enamel are softer layers with enough water in them to form harmful ice crystals when frozen. For $1,200 he'll keep your wisdom teeth safely on ice for 20 years. You can have them transplanted back for less than the cost of artificial implants. "It's like having a spare tire," he jokes.

[niner]

Wow, that's amazing. Are any cryonicists looking at this?

[forever freedom]

Good stuff. I hope when this technique is perfected they replace vitrification for this one at cryonics. I never trusted vitrification very much, but unfortunately it's our best current option.

[Live Forever]

I'd like to hear Dr. Wowk chime in on this. I know that he says there are always stories being written on technological breakthroughs that have been discovered before. (sometimes several years before)

[Shannon Vyff]

I'm sure cryonicist researchers have heard of this, so it will be nice if they get the time to talk about it. Aschwin of course has his blog, if I see something up at Depressed Metabolism (name of the blog if you want to book mark it), then I'll post a link here. Dr. Wowk may be able to comment upon any comparative work that 21st Century Medicine is doing. Next time I talk to Ben Best, I'll ask him what he has heard about this it is interesting to see this in Forbes !

[bgwowk]

Every couple of years there is a cryopreservation breakthrough claimed in the popular press that is either misrepresented or never heard about again. Better frozen food preservation is great, but without at least one journal article showing that this technology can preserve cell viability during freezing without cryoprotectants better than controls, it is impossible to comment on the claims.

[bgwowk]

I never trusted vitrification very much, but unfortunately it's our best current option.

I'm not sure in what sense you are using the word "trust" in a field that is still far from demonstrable success. Do you mean that you don't trust that vitrification is doing a good enough job of preserving enough information for cryonics to work? Do you just distrust vitrification as currently applied in cryonics, or distrust vitrification as a general approach? I think the former is prudent skepticism, but the latter would be hard to defend. The basic meaning of vitrification is cryopreservation without crystallization, which certainly seems to be a step in the right direction knowing all that we do about the damaging effects of ice in biological systems.

Edited by bgwowk, 31 May 2008 - 06:48 AM.

[Mind]

So far his privately held company, ABI, has sold 230 freezer systems to food processors, restaurants, hotels and hospitals in and outside Japan. Sales were $14 million last year.

If this is true, then it can't be a complete hoax. Somebody must have tested it and found it worthy of investment.

[forever freedom]

I never trusted vitrification very much, but unfortunately it's our best current option.

I'm not sure in what sense you are using the word "trust" in a field that is still far from demonstrable success. Do you mean that you don't trust that vitrification is doing a good enough job of preserving enough information for cryonics to work? Do you just distrust vitrification as currently applied in cryonics, or distrust vitrification as a general approach? I think the former is prudent skepticism, but the latter would be hard to defend. The basic meaning of vitrification is cryopreservation without crystallization, which certainly seems to be a step in the right direction knowing all that we do about the damaging effects of ice in biological systems.

Don't worry, it's the former

I understand the proccess and the principle behind vitrification and i'm aware that it's completely logical and indeed the best we can currently do. I just don't know if it preserves enough information about us to make it possible to bring us back to life in the future. But of course it beats the alternative of just plain freezing us and completely destroying us with the ice crystals.

[VictorBjoerk]

Just a question,maybe a little offtopic,ut why do they use liquid nitrogen instead of eg liquid hydrogen or helium when performing cryonics?

[eternaltraveler]

Just a question,maybe a little offtopic,ut why do they use liquid nitrogen instead of eg liquid hydrogen or helium when performing cryonics?

liquid nitrogen is cheap, and hydrogen explodes. Also forgeting that liquid helium is really expensive, it is too cold (read: more cracking, no additional benefit of the lower temp. in any practical sense).

Edited by elrond, 31 May 2008 - 05:46 PM.

[VictorBjoerk]

That would explain it...

[VictorBjoerk]

A little more offtopic,I've heard that tardigrades can survive being frozen in liquid nitrogen.Does anyone know of any experiment freezing them for long periods of time eg a decade?Would they survive this too?

[VictorBjoerk]

As far as I've heard they've only frozen them for short periods of time but since they have no metabolism and the chemical imbalances would assuming being frozen in such cold temperatures be close to zero.Why shouldn't they survive "forever" until they are defrosted?

[bgwowk]

So far his privately held company, ABI, has sold 230 freezer systems to food processors, restaurants, hotels and hospitals in and outside Japan. Sales were $14 million last year.

If this is true, then it can't be a complete hoax. Somebody must have tested it and found it worthy of investment.

I wouldn't call something a hoax unless it is deliberate. I'm sure the company is completely sincere.

Although there doesn't seem to be any scientific literature about this process, I read the two patents involved. I don't believe the physics argument of the first patent (use of magnetic fields to increase thermal conduction in water), but the second patent is more credible (use of microwaves to enhance supercooling). There is precedence in the scientific literature showing that microwave irradiation can enhance the ability of water to avoid freezing during cooling (supercool).

http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/9200821

The idea has been on the backburner of cryobiology because it is technically difficult. The company may have successfully adapted this idea to reduce ice crystal size in frozen foods by supercooling several degrees before freezing. However I am very skeptical that the method can achieve viable tissue cryopreservation without cryoprotectants because of the amount of ice that's going to form at low temperatures, size or morphology notwithstanding.

Edited by bgwowk, 01 June 2008 - 06:32 PM.

[forever freedom]

The idea has been on the backburner of cryobiology because it is technically difficult. The company may have successfully adapted this idea to reduce ice crystal size in frozen foods by supercooling several degrees before freezing. However I am very skeptical that the method can achieve viable tissue cryopreservation without cryoprotectants because of the amount of ice that's going to form at low temperatures, size or morphology notwithstanding.

I think you're right, unfortunately.

[VictorBjoerk]

It sounded a bit too good to be true............

[livelong]

Although there doesn't seem to be any scientific literature about this process, I read the two patents involved. I don't believe the physics argument of the first patent (use of magnetic fields to increase thermal conduction in water), but the second patent is more credible (use of microwaves to enhance supercooling). There is precedence in the scientific literature showing that microwave irradiation can enhance the ability of water to avoid freezing during cooling (supercool).

Here's some more information about the process, with electron micrographs of material that's been through the process. It's called the Cells Alive System.
http://www.sakura.co...cas/feature.htm The website has quite a bit of information about it.

I'm not sure if the patent you're talking about is this same process or not. A portion of the caption below the electron micrograph reads, "The cell membranes are not destroyed because the water molecules are quickly frozen before they have a chance to move."

[VictorBjoerk]

certainly interesting......

[mathewsullivan]

The idea has been on the backburner of cryobiology because it is technically difficult. The company may have successfully adapted this idea to reduce ice crystal size in frozen foods by supercooling several degrees before freezing. However I am very skeptical that the method can achieve viable tissue cryopreservation without cryoprotectants because of the amount of ice that's going to form at low temperatures, size or morphology notwithstanding.

Do you have any thoughts on combining a magnetic field of significantly greater strength and cryoprotectants that are lower in toxicity?

[bgwowk]

The idea has been on the backburner of cryobiology because it is technically difficult. The company may have successfully adapted this idea to reduce ice crystal size in frozen foods by supercooling several degrees before freezing. However I am very skeptical that the method can achieve viable tissue cryopreservation without cryoprotectants because of the amount of ice that's going to form at low temperatures, size or morphology notwithstanding.

Do you have any thoughts on combining a magnetic field of significantly greater strength and cryoprotectants that are lower in toxicity?

Static electric fields are known to trigger (nucleate) ice formation. If it has any effect at all, I would expect a static magnetic field to do the same thing. According to the reference I posted earlier, time-varying fields are more promising.

[livelong]

Static electric fields are known to trigger (nucleate) ice formation. If it has any effect at all, I would expect a static magnetic field to do the same thing. According to the reference I posted earlier, time-varying fields are more promising.

Since the whole purpose of the Japanese device is to eliminate or greatly reduce ice crystal formation, which it apparently does quite well, it must not be a static field then.

[bgwowk]

Static electric fields are known to trigger (nucleate) ice formation. If it has any effect at all, I would expect a static magnetic field to do the same thing. According to the reference I posted earlier, time-varying fields are more promising.

Since the whole purpose of the Japanese device is to eliminate or greatly reduce ice crystal formation, which it apparently does quite well, it must not be a static field then.

I agree. Actually, in the context of food freezing, the ice prevention happens only during the initial part of cooling. The technology is claimed to delay ice formation during cooling (i.e. promote supercooling) so that when water finally does freeze, it freezes quickly from the inside out. It still freezes. That's my understanding of their claims. It's hard to really understand what they are doing because they are engineers and they don't explain things the way that scientists would.

Edited by bgwowk, 12 June 2008 - 05:57 AM.

[Gary C]

I am new, so hello! I have some time on my hands nowadays and am spending it on things I have always wanted to explore- like cryonics. The story I read recently that really fired me up was about the dogs they cooled down for 3 hours and revived. No heart beat, chilled to near freezing, then revived. If they can do it to a dog they can do it to a person. The next step is to drop the temperature down a couple hundred more degrees and keep a dying person "on pause" for a couple decades or so till a cure is found for their sickness, be it cancer or the big one- old age. When I read a story like this it just blows my mind. Is there anyone putting a drained and chilled puppy in one of these freezers and trying to revive it? I was in the military and I am painfully familiar with the billions blown on junk that barely works and is never used- and there are things like this that could possibly fundamentally change the nature of human existence if someone would just see what happens. I have trouble understanding the way our species thinks sometimes. We are probably going to go extinct.

Edited by Gary C, 28 June 2008 - 01:06 AM.

[immorta]

Every couple of years there is a cryopreservation breakthrough claimed in the popular press that is either misrepresented or never heard about again. Better frozen food preservation is great, but without at least one journal article showing that this technology can preserve cell viability during freezing without cryoprotectants better than controls, it is impossible to comment on the claims.

Well look at that: http://www.japaninc.com/tt450 Their clame is clear -
"using CAS, Hiroshima University reckons that it can
increase the cell survival rate in teeth to a high of 83%.
This compares to 63% for liquid nitrogen (-196 degrees C),
45% for ultra-cold freezing (-80 degrees C), and just 21.5%
for a household freezer (-20 degrees C)."

In CryoFreedom.ru we're trying to build some Magnetic Freezing devices and test them. We've a small research group
testing magnetic and electric parameters on water and bio samples. We've found some others sources of proving information
that EM and others fields can modifyice formation process.

Do you know some people that can help us in some theoretical or practical point of so called "magnetic freezing"?

Edited by immorta, 29 March 2009 - 10:47 PM.

[immorta]

Since the whole purpose of the Japanese device is to eliminate or greatly reduce ice crystal formation, which it apparently does quite well, it must not be a static field then.

The technology is claimed to delay ice formation during cooling (i.e. promote supercooling) so that when water finally does freeze, it freezes quickly from the inside out. It still freezes. That's my understanding of their claims. It's hard to really understand what they are doing because they are engineers and they don't explain things the way that scientists would.

There's a controversial information on this subject.
1) Fast ice formation after supercooling effect (The Tempereature during ice formation lowering slow) The 2nd is oposite
2) Fast temperature fall after some point of parameters (The Tempereature during ice formation lowering fast)
https://cryofreedom....ature_chart.JPG

The fastest way to proove the ability of CAS is to find CAS system somewhere and measure cell and tissue survival rate.

Devices found:
ABI, has sold 230 freezer systems to food processors, restaurants, hotels and hospitals in and outside Japan
47 researchers are experimenting with Owada's technology to preserve human organs.
Tokyo University is freezing mouse hearts with a technology similar to Owada's.
Another group at Keio University is preserving nerve fibers.
Hiroshima University
Taipei Medical University
CAS is already being used in Alaska to preserve milt and roe of cod
Suppliers of ingredients for French cuisine preserve the catch of shrimp fishermen in Sierra Leone Sierra Leone another of his projects helps tuna fishermen in the Philippine
http://www.teethbank.jp/ - works on cas
SAKURA FOOD Co. Viet-Nam
http://www.sakura.co...ishaboutus.html



Who can help us to find accessible CAS freezer to test cells and tissue samples ?
I'm in Moscow, Russia and i can't go to Japan or Viet-nam =(

[immorta]

May be we can organize some research on this topic with cryonics purposes ?