Since many years ago, I was thinking about spontaneous "biostasis" of some plants species like Myrothamnus flabellifolius, Selaginella leptophylla (the "Jericho Rose, or Fern") and other, so called "resurrection plants", whose leaves dry out turning brown as if dead, then turn green again when water is available; there are even animal organisms able to do that, like well-known Tardigrada. It's very important because all of them are Eucaryota, not Procaryota (Bacteria etc), so their cell structure is very alike ours. This process should be different from bacterial "encystment", I mean. And I thought of course, that perhaps the same biochemical mechanisms could been exploited for keeping in "suspended animation" humans too, maybe even in a simpler way than cryonics, provided it were possible. I wondered about why, thorough researches weren't extensively carried out about that; a first, simple use could have concerned safety of crops, by making crop plants able to dry out in a reversible way, by gene transfer; in such case, a genetic modification could be a direct way to get the effect, yet I would be much more interested in the possibility for us, to directly resort to the codified enzymes. I believe such "self-drying" organisms, rather than being radically different from us as to overall proteic structures, perhaps have some enzymes, that "protect" from denaturation their proteic molecules, no matter if they're "normal" ones. I'm not a biologist nor a biochemist, yet I suppose that one of the major cellular damages caused by straigh dehydration, could be represented by a higher "salt" density in the cytoplasma, resulting in the denaturation of proteins (the same I suppose should happen with -unprotected- refrigeration, as ice growth within the cell would result not only in mechanical damages, but even in over-concentrated water remains, that would denaturate proteins about the same way. And at this regard, I would ask Biochemists, if "protein denaturation" is always and absolutely an irreversible process -that is, fundamental "information" is lost-, or it's at least conceivable, that it could be made reversible, theorically if not in practice yet).
In the first way, it should be adscertained if neural cells, then neural tissue can be cajoled to behave that way; if this turns out to be possible, then whole "dry-preservation" of the brain would be almost surely possible; and then, whole body's too, even if the latter could be of secundary importance, at this point.
Denaturation -meant as loss of "structural information"- would have the utmost importance for neurons, as proteic chains could have a role in encoding our "memories".
And I guess that usual "chemio-preservation", e.g. with Formaldehyde, would imply a denaturation as well; ethanol does the same, as long as I know; I strongly doubt, that even a single cell preserved under formaldehyd could ever be made live again; but perhaps there are chemio-preservatives that don't disrupt proteic structure in an irreversible way?

Fabrizio Lucente

[Posted by: Fabrizio at March 4, 2008 3:24 PM]