X-Message-Number: 19738
From: 
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 21:36:03 EDT
Subject: 2002 patent

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Fahy's and Wowk's U.S. Patent # 6,395,467 is dated May 28, 2002, but it is 
confusing in part because it builds on earlier applications and some of the 
text refers to 1998 as present date. It is not clear to me what relationship, 
if any, this has to the patent by Wowk et al referring to alkoxylated 
compounds, which may or may not be the basis of the current Alcor procedure. 
If I remember correctly, the work by Wowk et al predated the collaboration of 
Fahy and Wowk.

Maybe I shouldn't say anything yet, especially since I haven't had a chance 
yet to talk to others about this. But jotting sometimes helps thinking, so 
I'll jot just a bit.

Claims made are remarkable, including the following:

They mention "new design principles" that should allow successful 
cryopreservation of most systems "by  freezing or by vitrification," 
involving "several new general principles in cryobiology" and "new 
theoretical insights." They say their invention provides specific solutes and 
combinations that have "wholly unforeseen beneficial effects." They have "new 
ways of, and new agents for, inhibiting the growth of ice crystals." They can 
scale up methods of vitrification from small specimens to large ones without 
increasing cryoprotectant concentration. They seem to imply that--unlike time 
past, which relied mainly on trial and error--they can now predict the 
effectiveness of cryoprotective agents on a theoretical basis. 

At the same time, they say that, after 17 years of effort, they can only 
achieve 50%  success with rabbit kidneys--I think this part was written in 
1998--and the toxicity problem has not been solved, although they have new 
approaches to it.

Too much more--I'll stop here for now. Meanwhile, of course, our own research 
goes on.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org
 


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