X-Message-Number: 2619
Subject: CRYONICS CryoCare/CryoSpan news
From:  (Charles Platt)
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 94 02:19:50 EST

I'm currently visiting the Los Angeles area and am writing this in the
building owned by 21st Century Medicine, where BioPreservation (Mike
Darwin's company) and CryoSpan (supplier of long-term cryonics care to
CryoCare and ACS) are located. Since I'm using someone else's
computer, this will be a brief bulletin.

Last week, CryoSpan took delivery of its first four-patient whole-body
dewar. Also last week, Jerry White was cryopreserved (for the American
Cryonics Society) by BioPreservation. Last night I helped to move
Jerry into the new dewar, where he is now cooling in liquid nitrogen
vapor at a rate of approximately 10 degrees Centigrade per day. This
very slow cooling rate is believed to reduce the possibility and
magnitude of cracking at temperatures below the glass transition
point.

The computer-monitoring system set up by Paul Wakfer is working to
specification, and this seems to have been an especially trouble-free
cryopreservation.

Now that CryoSpan has its first patient, Paul Wakfer has decided to
take a break. Paul has devoted all his time and a great deal of money
(more than $100,000) to cryonics and cryonics research over the past
year-and-a-half. He established CryoSpan when no one else had the time
and energy to do so, and we're immensely grateful to him for that.
Paul's primary interest, however, has always been research, and he has
felt impatient, at times, that brain cryopreservation research has not
received sufficient funding. He plans to stay here until the end of
May, to make sure that there will be a reasonably smooth transition to
his successor, or successors--it will probably take more than one
person to replace him. After that, he intends to become much more
involved in research. At the same time, he intends to remain a
director of CryoSpan, and he will devote more time to his role as CEO
of Cryovita Laboratories. Indeed, the cryonics research that he has in
mind would be facilitated with equipment owned by Cryovita.

We're sorry that Paul is scaling back his involvement with CryoSpan,
but since the company has now been established, it no longer demands a
large investment of his time, and we can understand that he would feel
restless to do the work that matters to him most.

I'll have a much more comprehensive report on CryoCare, CryoSpan, and
BioPreservation next week, when I'm back in New York City.

--Charles Platt, Vice President, CryoCare Foundation..................

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