X-Message-Number: 12501 Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 15:54:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Skrecky <> Subject: comments Darwin In Message #12475 wrote: >Again, he berates us for failing to recognize the magnitude of the >recent advances, or to act on that recognition. Yet again I note that >much information is still not available to us, > I don't usually like to go out of my way to agree with Mike myself, but in this case I think he does have a point. For example much information on the superiority of ethylene glycol over glycerol, particularly for organ preservation is available on the net. Just go to Pubmed at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed and do a combined search on ethylene glycol and cryopreservation. The main reason for the superiority of ethylene glycol is its much greater or faster penetration into tissue. Glycerol simply isn't in the same league, and for this reason is greatly inferior for cryopreservation purposes, at least when used as a single agent. A significant advance for cryonics was made a long time ago by cryobiologists, and their work is available in abstract form on Pubmed. The full research reports unfortunately are available only in medical journals, but these are an enlightening read as well. One significant disadvantage of ethylene glycol is that it is toxic to the person(s) doing work with it. However with respect to the patient the metabolic toxicity of ethylene glycol can be blocked, and this information is also available on Pubmed. It is interesting that a mixture of ethylene glycol and glycerol has proved to be less toxic than either ethylene glycol or glycerol alone. This seems to be a general phenomina, that combinations of cryoprotectants are better than single agents alone. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12501