NEW CLIENTS

Suspended Animation added eight new Standby clients in the last Quarter of 2007 and our 58th Standby client joined us in January.  Welcome aboard everyone!

NEW TRAINING AND SIMULATION DEVELOPMENT

In December, Suspended Animation began developing a porcine cadaver training model for cryonics procedures.  The first step toward developing the model was to test it using the human protocol.  The SA staff and three consultants used SA’s E450 transport vehicle to perform a 27-hour standby, stabilization and transport exercise about 400 miles from the SA facility.  After an overnight standby, “the patient” was pronounced in the late morning. He was then cooled with ice, intubated and ventilated, medications were administered through an IV line, chest compressions were provided by the AutoPulse, and the femoral artery and vein were cut-down and cannulated, followed by blood washout using the ATP. Total procedural time before washout and transport could begin was 45 minutes.  With more practice, we hope to reduce that time significantly.  A few hitches and glitches revealed that some different sized instruments and cannulae will be necessary to make the model practical to use.  Overall, working on a cadaver provides a more realistic, and therefore more valuable, training experience.  We are looking forward to our next test run in the first Quarter of 2008.

MORE TRAINING

Under our new training schedule, Suspended Animation held three training sessions: Basic Life Support (BLS) certification training, an Air Transportable Perfusion (ATP) kit training and a practical update clinic on intubation, IV line setting and medication administration.

SA staff member Kelly Kingston has begun her EMT training program and should finish up in May.

NEW CONSULTANTS

To help us with our training and porcine cadaver model development, Suspended Animation has recruited two new consultants:  Prudence Ogden, RN, a thirty year nursing veteran from a local hospital, and Dan Rothen, DVM, a local clinical veterinarian.  Michelle Fry, EMT, Standby Team member, and long-time cryonics professional, has also been working with SA on the vehicle requirements and training.

E450 TRANSPORT VEHICLE

After some design and specification reviews, work continues on the E450 transport vehicle.  Water and waste tanks have been installed for the sink.  A custom, sliding mount surgical light has been installed.  A new roll-up door and lift gate have been added at the rear of the vehicle for patient ingress and egress.  Specialty cabinets, designed for use in ambulances, are on order.

EZ IO® DEVICE

Suspended Animation has purchased a new interosseous infusion device for our Standby kits called the EZ IO®.  The device inserts a hollow needle into a bone in the lower leg (tibia) or the upper arm (humerus), that can be used to rapidly administer fluids and medications.   Many EMS departments and the EMT’s on our standby team now use the EZ IO® instead of, or in addition to, a standard, peripheral intravenous (IV) line to provide vascular access. The device is particularly helpful in people, like cryonics patients, who may have conditions that make placing a needle in a peripheral vein difficult.  The EZ IO® supplements our current complement of both F.A.S.T. sternal interosseous device and our standard peripheral IV kits.   Training on the use of EZ IO® will take place in March.

PORTABLE PARTIAL LIQUID VENTILATION (PPLV)

For more than a year, Suspended Animation has been developing and testing a portable partial liquid ventilation (PPLV) device for cryonics. The purpose of partial liquid ventilation is to cool the patient by using the lungs as a heat exchanger. A mixture of gas and chilled breathable liquid will be infused into the lungs of a human patient by the equipment we have developed, while cardiopulmonary support will continue to circulate the blood. The blood is cooled by the chilled liquid in the lungs, and then circulates up to the brain. A series of experiments (reported by Steve Harris MD at the 2007 Alcor Conference) has confirmed that our current cooling rates are more than twice as fast as those achieved previously by any configuration of liquid ventilation, and are much faster than rates achieved by any other type of cooling procedure, short of cooling the blood directly during extracorporeal bypass.

Version 2 of the equipment is a relatively bulky, wheeled standalone unit designed to be used alongside an ice bath, and its infusion reservoir and infusion pump are not sized for human lung capacity. For a local case, the unit could be used and would provide much faster cooling than simply packing the patient in ice, but the goal is to have a better, human-specific version for use in the field.

In October and November of 2007, work began on Version 3 of the equipment.  More streamlined, it’s now designed to rest on the side rails of a Suspended Animation ice bath but can also be used on a standalone basis. The control electronics have been compressed to fit inside the lid of a Pelican-brand transport container. The infusion and suction pumps have been relocated in a detachable, space-efficient compartment.  A new, compact pinch-valve design has been developed to simplify flow control.

With a capacity of 30 amp-hours, the onboard 12-volt batteries can run the pumps for as long as an hour. It can also run from any external 12-volt source such as a car battery.

Testing of the Version 3 is expected to begin in late February.

WEST COAST WORKSHOP

In addition to maintaining the Dodge Sprinter transport vehicle and an air transportable standby kit in California, in January 2008 Suspended Animation rented a 1500-square-foot workshop/office facility about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. This location is being used to build Version 3 of the PPLV.  It will also be important as we ramp up development of our capabilities related to field vitrification.

FIELD VITRIFICATION

In November a proposal was drafted and circulated among advisors as a first step toward establishing a development project for field vitrification. This is our most ambitious development project for 2008 but does not yet have a target date for completion.

Under SA’s current protocol, as soon as initial stabilization procedures have been completed, a patient is perfused with organ preservation solution and then transported on water ice to the cryonics organization for cryoprotective perfusion, vitrification and storage. The organ preservation solution used by Suspended Animation (which is the same as that used by Alcor) may not prevent brain injury over extended periods of time; consequently, the possibility of delays during transport has always been cause for concern. Transporting a patient at a much lower temperature should afford greater protection for the brain, but to enable this, vitrification of the patient is necessary to prevent formation of ice. This means that, in cases where the patient may have an extended transport to the cryonics facility, cryoprotective perfusion would have to be performed in the field, near the place of pronouncement, instead of later, at the cryonics facility.

This entails several challenges. In particular, cryoprotective perfusion has never been done outside of a properly equipped operating room, and intermediate-temperature transport (around -130 degrees Celsius) of a cryonics patient has not been attempted. (Transport of a patient immersed in liquid nitrogen after cryoprotective perfusion in a remote location is not currently considered practical mainly because cooling to liquid nitrogen temperature would require about one week. Therefore, intermediate-temperature transport will be necessary.)

SA proposes to develop field vitrification in stages. Initially, equipment will be designed and built for use in our facility in Florida and possibly in a participating laboratory in California. We expect to build a combined surgical/cooldown unit for this purpose. Subsequently, a new vehicle will be acquired for remote deployment of the equipment that has been developed for use in our facility.

Work associated with this project will be performed at our new workshop in California as well as at our facilities in Florida.