What is it that makes our lives so valuable? Perhaps it’s that we only get one shot to do everything the right way, living fully until our vessels give out.
…But what if death was more of an option than finality?
Recent approvals from an Institutional Review Board at the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. and in India may finally bring us closer to not just cheating death, but actually reversing it.
Known as The ReAnima Project, Bioquark Inc. is set to conduct a series of reanimation experiments, the first of which is entitled:
“Non-randomized, Open-labeled, Interventional, Single Group, Proof of Concept Study With Multi-modality Approach in Cases of Brain Death Due to Traumatic Brain Injury Having Diffuse Axonal Injury.”
The Experiment:
In brief, researchers will employ several revival therapies for 20 clinically brain-dead patients after switching off their life-support. This will be attempted by injecting their brains with stem cells and various peptides so that new neural tissues can be regenerated. Next, laser and nerve stimulation techniques will target specific regions of this tissue to reactivate the various biologic regulatory processes needed for a functioning brain.
The result: A brain reanimated, back from beyond the void of death?!
Well, not quite…yet.
The first trials are merely looking at whether these patients’ brains, as well as portions of their central nervous system will be able to repair themselves. However, Bioquark Inc. is confident that death reversal will be possible within our lifetime.
Taking Cues from Nature
Image: Georgia Tech University
The ReAnima team is hopeful that these revived brain cells will be able to erase any past regulatory dysfunction, then restart their cycles based on surrounding tissues.
Similar regenerative qualities have already been observed in the amazing capabilities of amphibians, planarians, and certain fishes. For example, a salamander can regrow an entire limb, and even repair and remodel portions of its brain after a critical injury.
By replicating what we already know to be possible in nature, it’s only a matter of time before humans possess similar capabilities through medicine. This could provide breakthroughs for everything from Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s, depression, and other ailments of human consciousness.
In an official press release, Dr. Sergei Paylian, Founder, President, and Chief Science Officer of Bioquark Inc. stated that,
“Through our study, we will gain unique insights into the state of human brain death, which will have important connections to future therapeutic development for other severe disorders of consciousness…the vegetative and minimally conscious states, as well as a range of degenerative CNS conditions.”
The Implications of Immortality
Such a paradigmatic shift in our view of human death is bound to alter the very nature of our hospitals, our societies, and our philosophies of existence.
If these experiments are successful, will the effect be that of Lazarus or Frankenstein?
The possibility of complete human revival could potentially offset the risks associated with critical organ transplants – that is if we can’t already 3D print them. It wouldn’t be so much that patients were at risk of death, but instead whether or not their insurance covers their resurrection.
Just imagine an entire ward of your hospital devoted to the reanimation of patients freshly deceased… life will have no limit except for the technologies sustaining it. Finally, we may have a glimpse into the scientific reality of an afterlife, shedding light on the alleged journey of human souls.
Whether we’re prepared or not, the future is looking like a place of life, death, and many more options to come.
