An American company, Bioquark, says they may soon be able to “reverse death” through “reanimation” of the brain. The company notes that to be legally declared dead in the majority of the world, you must experience complete and irreversible loss of brain function. This is known as “brain death.” While “brain death” is different from “cardiac death,” in the eyes of the medical community, death of the brain is as final as death of the heart. However, Bioquark is hoping to change that by using brain “repair” or “reanimation” technologies to bring patients back from brain death.

The Daily Mail reports that American healthcare company Bioquark is working on a project called ReAnima. The project is designed to “push the envelope” of what is possible with medical technology by bringing patients back from the dead. The company notes that while death used to be black and white, it is no longer such as medical devices can keep a patient’s heart beating indefinitely despite the brain experiencing “death” of its own. Therefore, it is widely accepted in the medical community that death occurs when the brain experiences “complete and irreversible loss of function.” However, what would happen if a company designed a way to “reanimate” a supposedly “dead” brain?

Bioquark Inc. Receives IRB Approval for First-In-Human Brain Death Study – https://t.co/NrO3Fqsfn9 pic.twitter.com/sE4yojqYEc — IraSamuel Pastor (@IraSamuelPastor) April 20, 2016

That is exactly what Bioquark hopes to accomplish with the ReAnima project. The company is looking at possible technologies that can “repair” damage done to the brain in death. The technology could potentially change the way we look at death by proving that brain damage is not “irreversible.” The company believes that the brain and brain stem can be “regenerated” much like that of certain reptiles, fish, and amphibians.

The company says they will focus their efforts on patients who have been deemed a “living cadaver” in a bid to prove that those with brain damage deemed “irreversible” can recover brain functions previously believed to be lost forever.

“The mission of the ReAnima Project is to focus on clinical research in the state of brain death, or irreversible coma, in subjects who have recently met the Uniform Determination of Death Act criteria, but who are still on cardio-pulmonary or trophic support – a classification in many countries around the world known as a ‘living cadaver.'”

The company will begin human trials next year and will be utilizing “certain biologic regenerative tools” along with current medical technology to test the brain “repair” abilities of the project. In the first series of tests, the company will be allowed to experiment on 20 patients. Bioquark says they are currently recruiting patients for the trials and are hopeful about potential outcomes.

“To undertake such a complex initiative, we are combining certain biologic regenerative tools, with other existing medical devices typically used for stimulation of patients with other severe disorders of consciousness. We just received Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for our first 20 subjects and we hope to start recruiting patients immediately.”

https://t.co/0t352vCuh4

Human Regeneration, Repair & Rejuvenation –

Ira Pastor is the Chief Executive Officer at Bioquark Inc. — Sherri Horner (@sherrihorner) April 17, 2016

The project leaders note that the company is not trying to prevent death altogether — only premature death not due to aging. Though death due to aging is not the focus of project ReAnima, the group reports that some 50,000 to 150,000 people daily could potentially be saved from “death” thanks to the technology if it is successful.

“Because 50,000 of the 150,000 people who die daily do not die from aging, but from various acute traumas that lead rapidly to brain death, we think even this modest dynamic will have a major impact.”

Bioquark Inc. and Spinal Cord Injury – https://t.co/16dVZ9e68R — Bioquark Inc. (@irat1onal) January 7, 2016

Could the company potentially open new doors as to how we define death as a society? If the ReAnima project is successful, what does that mean for individuals who have been deemed “brain dead” by healthcare workers? If an individual could be placed on life support following traumatic injuries and potentially “regenerated” via the new technology, could the project spell the end of trauma death as we know it?

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