Oh boy! I’ve been waiting for this to become commercially available since I first heard the possibility discussed in Eric Drexler’s apartment in 1980! Sign me up!
Well, on second thought, sign me up after a few other people have signed up, and the organization has some proven longevity. I’m signed up for cryopreservation, even though I think it has only a 5% chance of working. I’m not going to drop that, because it protects me if I die unexpectedly. But presumably I could avail myself of Nectome’s services if I had a slow illness. I’d need enough time to sign up with Nectome, cancel my existing coverage, move to Vermont, convince two doctors of my seriousness, wait 15 days, and lightly kill myself.
It’s funny—when I first heard of this possibility, 45 years ago, gluteraldehyde was the cross-linking preservative that was mentioned. And it’s the one Nectome actually uses. Has chemistry not moved on in 45 years?
(Right now we’re only in Oregon but Vermont is top three for future expansion)
I love Engines of Creation! But somehow, I managed to invent ASC first and THEN I read about it in Drexler’s book. Might have saved me some time had I read about it earlier (though he’s missing the critical blood brain barrier permeabilization step so as written in that book it doesn’t work)!
What makes sense to do now?
If you want to prepare a bit now, I would keep your insurance and your cryonics membership and add a rider that makes your insurance pay out early if you’re diagnosed terminally ill. I can get you the language if you want, I have it on my insurance policy. Then you buy the preservation if and when you need it.
In the meantime, you might be interested in our pre-sales. They’re transferrable and as cheap as they’ll ever be.
The MAiD aspect of preservation might seem intimidating at first, but we’re committed to working with our clients to make it a smooth and positive experience. Our clients won’t be on their own when trying to navigate the logistics.
Why haven’t we found something better than glutaraldehyde?
You know it’s really funny: Here’s a quote from Hayat’s amazing book “Fixation for Electron Microscopy”, published in 1981:
> I appreciate that present-day methodology moves faster than any printing press and that the useful half-life of any tome dealing with preparatory methods may be depressingly brief.
45 years later, I STILL consider the Hayat book to be relevant and we’re still using approximately the same techniques. Hayat lived at a time that saw improvements to tissue preparation technology every few months, so much so that it seemed like his book would be out-of-date the moment it was published. So what gives?
Why do I think we’re still using glutaraldehyde? Basically I think we just found one of the most optimal preservation molecules early on, and it’s really hard to improve on it. Glutaraldehyde passes through membranes like they aren’t there and doesn’t cause osmotic effects, it reacts with proteins in seconds, it produces gels that are really tough both chemically and mechanically. In terms of (# of aldehyde groups / molecular weight) it’s hard to beat with two aldehydes, five total carbon atoms, and a MW of ~100. People have tried different carbon chain lengths and the alternatives are all basically the same.
The other factor here is that the search space for improving electron microscopy results is mostly flat. I’ve tried hundreds of little tweaks with carrier solutions, glutaraldehyde concentration, various additives, all kinds of stuff. The things that really matters is total ischemic time, and the osmolarity of the carrier solution. 1% glutaraldehyde vs 4% glutaraldehyde? No visible difference on the resulting electron micrographs. Cacodylate instead of phosphate buffer? No difference. Formaldehyde instead of glutaraldehyde? Basically no difference. 16 minutes vs 12 minutes ischemic time? Half the brain won’t perfuse at 16 minutes, but at 12 minutes it perfuses fine and the images look good (though with hallmarks of ischemic stress that don’t interfere with connectomic traceability).
Oh boy! I’ve been waiting for this to become commercially available since I first heard the possibility discussed in Eric Drexler’s apartment in 1980! Sign me up!
Well, on second thought, sign me up after a few other people have signed up, and the organization has some proven longevity. I’m signed up for cryopreservation, even though I think it has only a 5% chance of working. I’m not going to drop that, because it protects me if I die unexpectedly. But presumably I could avail myself of Nectome’s services if I had a slow illness. I’d need enough time to sign up with Nectome, cancel my existing coverage, move to Vermont, convince two doctors of my seriousness, wait 15 days, and lightly kill myself.
It’s funny—when I first heard of this possibility, 45 years ago, gluteraldehyde was the cross-linking preservative that was mentioned. And it’s the one Nectome actually uses. Has chemistry not moved on in 45 years?
(Right now we’re only in Oregon but Vermont is top three for future expansion)
I love Engines of Creation! But somehow, I managed to invent ASC first and THEN I read about it in Drexler’s book. Might have saved me some time had I read about it earlier (though he’s missing the critical blood brain barrier permeabilization step so as written in that book it doesn’t work)!
What makes sense to do now?
If you want to prepare a bit now, I would keep your insurance and your cryonics membership and add a rider that makes your insurance pay out early if you’re diagnosed terminally ill. I can get you the language if you want, I have it on my insurance policy. Then you buy the preservation if and when you need it.
In the meantime, you might be interested in our pre-sales. They’re transferrable and as cheap as they’ll ever be.
The MAiD aspect of preservation might seem intimidating at first, but we’re committed to working with our clients to make it a smooth and positive experience. Our clients won’t be on their own when trying to navigate the logistics.
Why haven’t we found something better than glutaraldehyde?
You know it’s really funny: Here’s a quote from Hayat’s amazing book “Fixation for Electron Microscopy”, published in 1981:
> I appreciate that present-day methodology moves faster than any printing press and that the useful half-life of any tome dealing with preparatory methods may be depressingly brief.
45 years later, I STILL consider the Hayat book to be relevant and we’re still using approximately the same techniques. Hayat lived at a time that saw improvements to tissue preparation technology every few months, so much so that it seemed like his book would be out-of-date the moment it was published. So what gives?
Why do I think we’re still using glutaraldehyde? Basically I think we just found one of the most optimal preservation molecules early on, and it’s really hard to improve on it. Glutaraldehyde passes through membranes like they aren’t there and doesn’t cause osmotic effects, it reacts with proteins in seconds, it produces gels that are really tough both chemically and mechanically. In terms of (# of aldehyde groups / molecular weight) it’s hard to beat with two aldehydes, five total carbon atoms, and a MW of ~100. People have tried different carbon chain lengths and the alternatives are all basically the same.
The other factor here is that the search space for improving electron microscopy results is mostly flat. I’ve tried hundreds of little tweaks with carrier solutions, glutaraldehyde concentration, various additives, all kinds of stuff. The things that really matters is total ischemic time, and the osmolarity of the carrier solution. 1% glutaraldehyde vs 4% glutaraldehyde? No visible difference on the resulting electron micrographs. Cacodylate instead of phosphate buffer? No difference. Formaldehyde instead of glutaraldehyde? Basically no difference. 16 minutes vs 12 minutes ischemic time? Half the brain won’t perfuse at 16 minutes, but at 12 minutes it perfuses fine and the images look good (though with hallmarks of ischemic stress that don’t interfere with connectomic traceability).
I’d love to read the language of the life insurance rider. That sounds very helpful (versus trying to figure it out on my own).
Feel free to drop us a line at hello@nectome and I’ll make sure that gets to you.