Dear Members and Friends,
It’s been a lively stretch here at Alcor, packed with meaningful progress and new connections. From our recent debut at Vitalist Bay to the upcoming member meetups nationwide, the cryonics conversation is quietly reaching fresh audiences. Here’s what’s been happening behind the scenes at Alcor:
Taking Center Stage in the Longevity Conversation
Alcor made a strong showing at the Vitalist Bay Biostasis Conference in Berkeley, representing a positive step for cryonics in the broader longevity community. For the first time, cryonics took center stage rather than being treated as an outsider technology.
Our Team’s Impact:
Key Moments: A highlight was a warm sit‑down between Alcor CEO James Arrowood and futurist Peter Diamandis – founder of XPRIZE and Singularity University. James briefed Peter on Alcor’s progress across multiple fronts and invited his insights. The exchange underscored Alcor’s growing engagement with the influential voices in longevity.
The Bigger Picture: Having cryonics represented at a major longevity conference signals growing acceptance of preservation technologies as legitimate scientific pursuits. The conversations and connections made here will likely pay dividends as the longevity field continues expanding.
The Full Story: Deployment and Recovery: Inside Alcor’s DART Team (Parts 1 & 2)
Our comprehensive two-part podcast series with Shelby Calkins offers members the most detailed look yet at how Alcor’s medical response actually works. If you haven’t listened to both parts yet, this is essential education for every member.
Highlights:
These episodes cover a lot of ground, but there are fresh DART developments we weren’t able to share yet. Keep an eye on future podcasts and newsletters – much more good news is on the way.
Supporting DART Operations: Interested in supporting DART directly? Consider a directed donation to help expand emergency response teams. Every deployment requires extensive equipment and coordination – your support helps ensure we’re ready when members need us most.
The Kidney Connection
If you’ve been following our content, you’ve probably noticed we mention kidney experiments quite a bit. I’ve gotten multiple members asking me the same question: why are we focusing on kidneys when what cryonicists really care about is the brain? Fair question – here’s why this type of research is crucial for our goals.
It’s About Validation: One of the best test of any preservation protocol is whether the organ actually works after cryopreservation and thawing. With kidneys, we can do transplants to prove functionality. You can’t transplant a brain (yet), so kidneys give us the gold standard for testing our methods.
Perfect Starting Point: Kidneys have remarkably simple vascular architecture – one artery going in, one vein coming out. Compared to organs with multiple arteries, it’s a much simpler system to perfuse and cryoprotect. They also have challenging internal regions that are harder to preserve, making them an excellent testing ground for our techniques.
Size Matters: Other research groups work with mouse, rat, and rabbit kidneys, which are tiny. We’re using pig kidneys, which are human-sized. No one has ever successfully cryopreserved, thawed, and transplanted a human-sized organ. If we crack that, it’s a massive step for both cryonics and medicine in general – imagine being able to bank organs for transplant instead of the current system where kidneys must be transplanted within 24-36 hours or they’re lost forever.
The Logic: If you can’t successfully restore a preserved kidney, you can’t restore a whole organism. Every organ presents different challenges, but we’re starting with the most straightforward one and working our way up to more complex organs like liver, lungs, heart, and yes, brain.
We’re Not Ignoring Brains: The research team is actually working on brain tissue experiments in parallel. But the kidney work gives us publishable, credible results that provide both experience and legitimacy to Alcor while we develop protocols that apply across organ systems.
The bottom line: Better organ preservation research leads to better member outcomes. If you’d like to accelerate this work, please consider a donation to support our science. We’re working on multiple fronts simultaneously – kidney research that advances the field while building toward our aspirational goals.
Meet Cam: Our New Membership Coordinator
Cameryn Hoole brings a unique blend of education and design background. She graduated from Northern Arizona University with a bachelor’s in art education, taught high school for a year, then pivoted to graphic and UX/UI design. Fun fact: she designed those Alcor shirts for Frozen Dead Guy Days that everyone loved.
Cam’s day‑to‑day role involves troubleshooting membership issues and guiding new applicants through the membership process, and she’s brimming with ideas, including ways to boost membership by crafting visually engaging materials that draw in potential members. According to Cam, training with Diane has been “awesome.” They voluntarily share an office because they work so well together. Right now they’re deep in the thrilling world of reallocating member funding and updating contracts. Cam’s enthusiasm for this process is both admirable and slightly concerning.
Outside of work, you’ll find her skateboarding, making music on her digital synthesizer, or DJing (she’s available for your next party 🎉).
Cam is a valuable addition to Alcor’s member services, and you’ll likely interact with her as we continue improving our member experience.
🥂 Seattle Cryonics Meetup
Alcor CEO James Arrowood recently joined the Seattle Cryonics Group—an active community that gathers quarterly—for a lunch meetup at Purple Cafe & Winebar, sharing updates and sparking lively discussion. Just over ten cryonicists from various organizations attended. Want to get involved? Email [email protected] or visit the Meetup page.
🖥️ Website and Member Portal Upgrades Coming Soon
We know our current website – and especially our member portal – leave a bit to be desired, so we’re leveling up our online game. A fresh new public website, and a streamlined member portal are both on the way, so stay tuned for the big reveal in the upcoming months!
📋 Member Readiness Survey
If you haven’t completed your Member Readiness Survey yet, please take five minutes to fill it out. This isn’t bureaucratic busywork – your responses let us gauge readiness levels and fine‑tune our planning for different scenarios. Shelby notes in the recent Alcor podcast that having your details on file now helps the team move faster and smarter when it counts.
🤠 Alcor heads to Texas > June 27th -29th
Get ready, Texas members – James Arrowood is coming your way! From June 27th through 29th, our CEO will be making the rounds across the Lone Star State for a series of member meetups. This isn’t just a solo mission either – he’ll be joined by one of our veteran Texas-based DART members plus our new membership team members Cam and Amya.
The Schedule:
What to Expect: These gatherings are a great opportunity to meet fellow members over a shared meal, hear updates directly from leadership, ask questions about Alcor’s direction, and get face time with our CEO, membership staff and local DART team members.
RSVP: Planning to join us? Email [email protected] and she’ll send you the restaurant details and exact time, then add your name to the reservation.
🎰 Las Vegas Meetup > July 10‑11 (Time & Location TBD)
James will also swing through Las Vegas for an informal meetup with members. Want to attend? Shoot him a note at [email protected] so we can save you a seat.
Still warming up to the idea of cryonics? The science keeps getting better, our services keep improving, and that biological clock keeps on ticking. No pressure… but maybe it’s time to stop cryocrastinating on that whole future thing? Sign up here before your atoms decide to spontaneously rearrange themselves in a less-than-ideal configuration.
📬 Newsletter Delivery Issues Resolved
We discovered that some members weren’t receiving our monthly newsletters due to email delivery gremlins. If you’ve been wondering where we’ve been, you can catch up on recent editions or click any of the recent newsletters below:
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