Funding for ALS patient Aaron Winborn’s cryopreservation meets goal

June 22, 2013

The Society For Venturism has received the remaining $28,000 funding needed for cryopreservation of ALS patient Aaron Winborn at Cryonics Institute, according to Shannon Vyff, a director of the society (see “ALS patient hopes to be cryopreserved“).

In addition to funding from individuals, the Life Extension Foundation (LEF) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida is donating $10,000 toward Winborn’s cryopreservation costs and LongeCity has raised $2,000 through a matching campaign drive by the William O’Rights Memorial Cryonics Charity Fund.

“Cryonics is the ultimate charity in that its success is wholly dependent on the benevolence of individuals who may not yet have been born,” said LEF owner William Faloon.

“Life Extension Foundation is dedicated to eliminating the scourges of aging, disease, and death that have plagued mankind since its inception. Life Extension’s charitable activities revolve around its funding of biomedical research. It is through the generosity of our 220,000 members that we are able to provide humanitarian assistance to individuals like Aaron Winborn.”

The Life Extension Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose long-range goal is to radically extend the healthy human lifespan by discovering scientific methods to control aging and eradicate disease. LongeCity is an international, not-for-profit membership-based organization whose mission is to “conquer the blight of involuntary death.”

The Society for Venturism is a nonprofit organization committed to “advocating and promoting the worldwide conquest of death through technological means.” Based in Arizona, the Society has raised funds for needy people who were terminally ill and wished to be cryopreserved after clinical death, including William O’Rights, Kim Suozzi, and Aaron Winborn.

What is cryonics?

Liquid-nitrogen dewars (credit: Alcor)

Cryonics is an experimental cryopreservation procedure using cryoprotectants and temperatures so cold that a person beyond help by today’s medicine might be preserved for decades or centuries until a future medical technology can restore that person to full health.

According to Vyff, more than 200 people have been cryopreserved since the first case in 1967, and more than 2,000 people have made legal and financial arrangements for cryonics, usually by means of affordable life insurance.

There are cryonics facilities at Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona; Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township, Michigan; and KrioRus in Moscow. Stasis Systems Australia plans to build the first facility in the southern hemisphere.