The Prometheus Project

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Prometheus Project?

The Prometheus Project is a major scientific research initiative with the goal of perfecting reversible long-term human suspended animation within 20 years. The overall cost of the Project can not be reliably estimated at this time. However, the Project is being "boot-strapped" by a simpler and less costly initial research effort which will demonstrate the feasibility of suspended animation and provide that goal with the credibility it needs in order to be funded. That first research effort is the accomplishment and demonstration of the reversible cryopreservation of the central nervous system. It is estimated to cost
$10 - 15 million over 10 years. Support in the form of donations to the Full Length Life Society and conditional pledges are currently being sought to establish the financial feasibility of this initial part of the Project. A $200,000 pilot project to begin initial brain cryopreservation research is just getting started.

Recently, preliminary research on this goal has been begun at 21st Century Medicine, Inc. a for-profit research and development corporation located in Southern California. Financing for that work is being provided by the Life Extension Foundation of Florida.

Why suspended animation?

Current technology only permits suspended animation of the body for about one hour (used during some types of neurosurgery). Recent hypothermia experiments with dogs give promise of extending this time to over 5 hours, allowing sufficient time for even lengthy reconstructive medical operations. Extending this time indefinitely would permit true medical time travel, allowing terminally ill people to wait for years or even decades until cures for their conditions are found. They would then be able to rejoin their loved ones and live the full healthy lives that their illness and premature death would have taken from them.

How is this technology different from cryonics?

Cryonics freezes people with highly damaging methods in the hope that future technologies (like nanotechnology) will be able to repair them, one molecule at a time if necessary. Whether memory or personality can survive such a process is currently unknown, and inherently unknowable as long as freezing injuries remain irreversible. Also, the size of the cryonics community is so small that it is unlikely that any cryonics organization will be able to maintain the frozen bodies for the lengthy span of time required to produce the necessary repair technologies.

True reversible suspended animation would mean an end to this uncertainty. People would be preserved with no injury, even by present medical criteria. Unknown future technologies would not be required for revival. All that would be required would be that medical research had developed a cure for their terminal condition. Revival would come much sooner than for those frozen by cryonics (if revival for them is even possible), greatly decreasing social displacement and "risk time" spent in storage.

Will this technology be legal?

The goal of the Project is to develop technology for keeping a human viable indefinitely. The technology must therefore be utilized while the person is still alive. Since the technology will be fully reversible, persons in this state of "stasis" will be clearly alive. Legally, this condition will be viewed as medically induced anesthesia. We fully expect that soon after its development and verification, the technology will become a widely available elective medical procedure. Clinical trials could be conducted for short term applications such as someone needing an organ transplant who would otherwise die because none is currently available.

What is the evidence the Project can succeed?

The science of organ cryopreservation is an established branch of cryobiology. Conventional medical research interests, such as the Red Cross, have made substantial investments over the past two decades to perfect cryopreservation of transplantable organs. This work has shown steady progress, with viable kidneys now recoverable from temperatures as low as -45 degrees Celsius. Much colder temperatures are expected soon, as the most difficult technical problems now seem to be solved. Recently, work by 21st Century Medicine shows promise of solving some of the fundamental problems of whole-body vitrification.

There is thus now a wealth of knowledge concerning organ cryopreservation that did not exist ten years ago. Much of this knowledge is directly translatable to the problems of cryopreserving any organ, including the central nervous system (CNS). For many years now, samples of the CNS have been cryopreserved and recovered for neuroscience investigative purposes.

The budget and time-scale of the first part of the Project is a conservative estimate of the effort necessary to successfully adapt existing organ cryopreservation knowledge to the specific issues of preservation of the CNS and to apply the neurobiological techniques necessary to show restoration of the memory and other mental attributes.

The budget and time-scale of the later part of the project cannot be made firm at this time. It is expected that work will be done by others in parallel with the Prometheus Project to reversibly cryopreserve all the currently transplantable organs. As these independent research efforts proceed during the first years of the Project, it should become possible to produce a firm budget and time-scale for the effort required to integrate all these results and apply them to a whole live animal.

What will be the milestones of the Project?

The Project will likely proceed in several stages, each requiring perhaps 2 to 3 years for completion. 
Part I:   Reversible cryopreservation of the central nervous
          system (CNS)

Stage 1:  Development and demonstration of good histologic preservation
          of the CNS by light and electron microscopy after rewarming
          from -140'C.

Stage 2:  Recovery of the mammalian CNS after rewarming from -140'C,
          with viability and restoration of memory demonstrated by
          electrophysiological study of the isolated CNS.

Stage 3:  Demonstration of complete neurological recovery in a
          human-scale animal model after transplantation of a rewarmed
          cryopreserved CNS.  

Stage 4:  Demonstration of complete neurological recovery in a
          human-scale animal model after in-situ cryopreservation of
          the CNS to low sub-zero temperatures.

Part II:  Parallel research to accomplish whole-body suspended
          animation

Stage 1:  Development of in-situ methods of perfusing multiple organs
          with different cryoprotectant mixtures.

Stage 1a: In parallel with Stage 1, attempt to unify successful organ
          cryopreservative mixtures to achieve a common whole-body CPA.

Stage 2:  Perfusion of a whole mammal with multiple CPAs, washout and
          recovery.

Stage 2a: If perfusion with multiple CPAs has problems, continue
          attempt to find a common CPA until all known possibilities
          are exhausted.

Stage 3:  Cool whole multiply perfused mammal to -140'C, rewarm,
          washout CPAs, and recover.

Stage 3a: If a common CPA is found, use it to cool, rewarm, washout and
          recover a whole mammal.

Stage 4:  Continue to optimize procedures and enhance both recovery
          probability and quality.

Stage 4a: Continue to optimize common CPA procedure and compare results
          with multiple CPA procedure.

Who will work on the Project?

The Project will seek to retain the most qualified scientists available. Scientists with specific and proven expertise in organ cryopreservation and neuroscience will be sought. A state-of-the-art laboratory dedicated to the full-time pursuit of the Project goal will be established. Managers, technicians, and administrators with proven experience in a biomedical research and development setting will be sought and employed.

How are funds being raised?

The Project, proposed by life extension activist Paul Wakfer in June, 1996, began with a promotional and conditional pledge stage. Before proceeding with detailed planning, it was necessary to determine whether sufficient support-in-principle existed for the Project. Paul decided a much better idea of support would be gained if he asked for serious pledges, but conditional on the entire amount being raised and approval of the final plans. Part way along, it was realized that a small pilot project would gain increased credibility and momentum for the Project and that there were some people willing to put in money to finance such a project before the larger total of pledges had been reached. In June 1997, a grant of $100,000 was offered by a research pathologist at a major university research medical center. This is grant is conditional upon the research that is done for it being completely divorced from cryonics and life extension. Funding for this is being collected in the form of donations to the Full Length Life Society, a charitable trust whose goal is to stop people from dying prematurely.

Recently, preliminary research on the Project goal has been begun at 21st Century Medicine, Inc. a for-profit research and development corporation located in Southern California. Financing for their work is being provided by the Life Extension Foundation of Florida.

Are Contributions being solicited?

Yes. All funding will be in the form or donations to a tax-exempt, charitable trust. However, the research will be conducted by a business trust, the Life On Hold Trust, which can issue Trust Certificate Units (TCUs) to those who it wishes to have as its beneficiaries and they will receive a distribution from its assets at some time in the future. Currently, $200,000 is being solicited from pledgers to finance the pilot project. As research gets underway, plans for a larger project are produced, and credibility is gaining from the research and from additional contributions and pledges, it is planned to enlarge the research effort to a level of $500,000 per year and then to over $1 million per year.

What if the Project is not successful?

If reversible cryopreservation of the central nervous system (CNS) is not demonstrated within 10 years of research commencement, additional funding will be sought, and the research will continue as long as necessary until this first part is accomplished. Only after the first part is successful, will we be ready or able to pursue our ultimate goal of perfected reversible long-term suspended animation.

Both suspended animation and CNS cryopreservation are largely virgin territory in cryobiology: The Prometheus Project will be directing 100 times more resources at this problem than has ever been directed at it before, under the anticipated direction of the best cryobiological minds in the world. Major publishable, and possibly patentable advances are certain. This will likely generate the interest necessary to speed completion of the first part of the Project and to finance the larger effort needed to perfect suspended animation.

If fully reversible cryopreservation of the CNS is successfully demonstrated but whole-body suspended animation cannot be perfected there is still a reasonable chance that medicine and law will allow patients to elect suspended animation of their CNS alone as a method of preventing them from dying. It is reasonable to assume that eventually biological science will unravel the mechanisms by which a human baby grows from a single cell. At that time these mechanisms might be applied to enable the growth of a new body around a rewarmed and reperfused brain.

What if the Project is successful?

Each research milestone will be published in a major scientific journal, with explicit mention of the profound medical implications. We believe that as a result even of reversible cryopreservation of the central nervous system (CNS), the idea of placing a person in stasis to await medical advances will receive unprecedented scientific attention, and ethical debates will rage. At first, the technology will be deployed only among cryonics service providers, and will only be available to persons after declaration of "legal" death by current criteria. However, we believe that it will then only be a matter of time before research hospitals begin developing the new technology and using it on their patients.

With the successful accomplishment of reversible CNS cryopreservation, the research effort should be able to attract additional funds to perfect whole-body suspended animation. This additional fundraising will capitalize on the publicity surrounding the Project's intermediate success and this clear implications for benefiting all terminal patients.

Once suspended animation is perfected, we believe that patient demand will induce established medicine to make this procedure available prior to legal death, which should ethically be able to be done since the process will be reversible. Once this happens, we believe that the criteria for legal death will be modified, so that those in a suspended state are still legally alive. At that time the procedure may also be made available as an elective for those who are severely disabled or otherwise have a highly reduced quality of life. They too may wish to be suspended to await the advances which may render them whole and healthy rather than continue their present incomplete existence.

Who will have access to the technology?

It is anticipated that much (perhaps most) of the Project research results will be available in the public domain. Indeed, regular publication in peer-reviewed journals is an important Project objective. However, patent protection will be sought for perfusate formulas and other innovations that permit reversible cryopreservation. This will be done to ensure that beneficiaries of the research organizations receive some value.

Project technology will be licensed to biomedical manufacturing and distribution companies who will make such things as pre-packaged perfusates available to the medical industry. Supporters of the research will receive discounted rates if they purchase technology produced from the research.

How can I help?

Tell everyone you know who is interested in a longer life about the Prometheus Project. If you are a member of a cryonics or life extension organization, encourage your organization to promote the Project and its goal.
If you wish to make a donation or pledge, or have comments or questions regarding the Prometheus Project, email the Project's Founder, Paul Wakfer or contact him by:

Voice/Fax: 909-481-9620, Numerical Pager: 800-805-2870,

or by postal mail at: