Vital interrogation of the science behind cryogenically freezing humans is being stifled because scientists fear being ostracised and ridiculed, according to a leading researcher in the field.



The cryobiologist Ramon Risco said scientists risked damaging their careers and being excluded from scientific societies if they worked on cryonics, the controversial science used last month to freeze the body of a 14-year-old cancer victim.

“There is an enormous ‘stigma bias’ to the conversation about cryonics among scientists,” said Risco, who works on the cryopreservation of large human organs and tumour biopsies at the CryoBioTech cryobiology laboratory at the University of Seville. “For scientists who would like to discuss it open-mindedly it tends to significantly hurt their career – in fact can potentially even get them kicked out of their scientific societies.”

The claim comes after the father of the teenage girl, who was granted her dying wish to have her body cryogenically frozen, accused those who provide the service of taking advantage of vulnerable people.



The high court upheld the wishes of the teenager, known only as JS, who decided before her death from cancer that she wanted her body to be preserved in the hope that she could be brought back to life at a later time. Her estranged father initially opposed her wishes but changed his mind saying it was “the last and only thing she has asked from me”.

But in an interview with the Mail on Sunday, he said that after discussions with the Cryonics Institute in Detroit, where his daughter’s body is stored, he remained strongly opposed.

“I believe they are selling false hope to those who are frightened of dying, taking advantage of vulnerable people,” he said. “When I asked if there was even a one in a million chance of my daughter being brought back to life, they could not say there was.”

But Risco argued that cryonics could not be dismissed solely as science fiction, and said it was likely that in five to 10 years experts would be able to revive a small mammal such as a mouse after it had been preserved in liquid nitrogen.

“It is very risky to say that anything is impossible in science or technology in the 21st century – people who use the word impossible are very brave,” he said. “If you are looking for the truth, why would you put barriers up?”



Risco also founded a start up, SafePreservation which enables customers to cryopreserve their biological material.

Prof Anders Sandberg, a research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, said scientists reliant on grants and looking for tenures might exercise self-censorship. “Many young scientists are afraid to hurt their careers,” he said. “Talking about the future can be very career-limiting. Being seen to be eccentric in the wrong way is frowned upon.”



Cryonics enthusiasts argue that the stigma surrounding the area could leave people vulnerable to unscrupulous companies ready to fill the void left by science.

Tim Gibson of the non-profit group Cryonics UK, which prepared the 14-year-old’s body for transportation to the freezing facility in Michigan, said the group, all of whose staff are volunteers, would welcome regulation.

“The danger for us is that as the idea gets more publicity, companies wanting to make a profit could spring up and damage us by [taking advantage of clients],” he said.

The judge who ruled on the 14-year-old’s case was critical of how the process had been carried out, stating: “The voluntary organisation is said to have been under-equipped and disorganised, resulting in pressure being placed on the hospital to allow procedures that had not been agreed.”

Gibson disputed that, saying body preparation and freezing had been done “within the law and required protcols” despite a “mechanical failure” which meant an ambulance used by the group was substituted by a van.



Gibson said the group’s Facebook page membership had increased by 25%, to around 400, since Friday. “The phone has not stopped ringing and I have about 200 emails to answer,” he said.



Clive Coen, a professor of neuroscience at King’s College London, has called for a ban on the marketing of cryonics. He said the idea of preserving a whole body was “ridiculous” and a whole brain “only slightly less ridiculous”.

The cosmologist and astrophysicist Martin Rees said he did not believe research was being stifled. “There are serious people working on it and they are aware that, though embryos can be preserved, it’s immensely unlikely that it would ever work for humans,” said Rees. “But even if it were a desirable development – and I actually think it wouldn’t be – most serious scientists would choose not to work on it because they don’t think the problem is timely or tractable.”

But those interested in the area who were hopeful that scientific developments could see the reanimation of humans who had been cryogenically frozen would continue to work under the radar, said Risco.



He added that “unconventional concepts” such as in vitro fertilisation, space travel and organ transplantation had all suffered “initial bias”.

“We don’t need to start making a big polemic,” he said. “We will keep on working on organ cryopreservation, no one will call us crazy and eventually we will end up with a solution for the whole body.”