X-Message-Number: 2517
From:  (Nick Szabo)
Subject: CRYONICS: Good research to fund
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 1994 01:01:24 -0800 (PST)


Stephen J. Van Sickle:
> I would like to pose a question.  Given the current state of the art, what
> is the most promising avenue of research given a limited budget (no more 
> than 200,000 to 300,000 dollars)?  

The best use for this level of funding might be to enable
cryonics-aware cryobiologists like Dr. Greg Fahy to target
cryonics-specific neuropreservation problems.  It also might
be quite valuable to fund grad student cryobiologists,
and target cryobiology students with focused outreach.  Develop
a larger, smarter, and more cryonics-freindly group of young
cryobiologists to improve the cryonics state of the art over the 
coming decades. 

We might not have funding available at the moment for this, but
research into the theoretical applied science of reanimation 
(nanotechnology, biotechnology, brain research, etc.), to come up 
with feasible, if currently unmanufacturable, designs for cell repair 
machines, would give us more confident estimates of the feasibility 
of cryonics, and also guide current cryonics techniques in terms
of determining which brain structures and chemicals are the
most and least important targets for preseveration.  Greg Fahy
has done some interesting thinking in this area, on top of his
prolific organ preservation work.

If I had donor $$$ of any significance, I'd divide them evenly
between the Foresight Institute (targeting specifically
cell repair machine design) and cryonics-freindly cryobiology
research.

Nick Szabo				

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