Freezing your brain will soon be ‘cheaper than a funeral’
Freezing your head in the hope of being resurrected in the future will soon be cheaper than paying for a funeral, a cryogenics expert has claimed.
The price of “cryogenic technology” designed to preserve human bodies is falling by half every 18 months, said Mark Hall, founder of Stem Protect, Britain’s first “stem cell bank.”
If current trends continue, having your body frozen and reawakened in 250 years could cost less than being buried in a traditional ceremony.
Hall said: “We’re accustomed to making jokes about freezing heads when we die and of course everyone knows Walt Disney did it — often that’s their only point of reference.
“But soon we could see this practice becoming commonplace because advances in technology have made it much more affordable.”
“And of course, while we’re not at the point yet where we can bring someone back to life from this procedure, we believe it’s just around the corner.”
Hall works for a stem cell bank that stores the blank cells scientists use to recreate all kinds of tissue.
Stem cells are used for research and combating the effects of disease.
Stem Protect does not offer human cryogenics but uses the same technology to preserve 125,000 samples of stem cells for 75,000 families.
Hall based his prediction on an economic principle which suggests that all technology prices fall by half every 18 months.
He believes that cryogenic technology is about to become a mass market product.
Already, the Russian cryogenic company KrioRus is undercutting rival American labs with a special deal on freezing a human brain for $13,000. For $39,000 it will freeze and store a human body.
Hall believes prices will fall further. Currently, each thumb-sized vial of human stem cells costs $783 to store.
A human head would be the equivalent volume of 5,000 vials, according to Hall. At current prices and with economies of scale built in, Hall says a human head should cost around $650,000 to preserve for posterity.
Hall predicts that in five years cryogenic services could be offered at $6,500 for 250 years.
However, current UK legislation makes it unlikely that the British public will commit themselves to hibernation until economic conditions improve, according to Hall.
“You have to be dead before you can be cryogenically frozen and the body has to be frozen within 25 minutes of death,” says Hall. “We’re not at the point yet where we can bring someone back to life from this procedure, but we believe it’s just around the corner.”
However, there is growing confidence in the technology and KrioRus has several early adopters in the UK.
Its client list includes a pensioner, a medical professor and a scientist. Once dead, their frozen remains will be packed in dry ice and couriered to its large Dewar flask deep freezers warehoused 47 miles northeast of the Kremlin.
As any technology becomes a mass market product, its price halves every month, said Hall. In computing, a similar effect is known as Moore’s Law, after Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.
The principle is universally recognized by technology analysts on Wall Street and suggests that the power of microchips doubles every year, while the cost of the chips stays the same.