21st Century Medicine Frozen Rabbit Brain Has Brain Preservation Prize

Summary: The 21st Century Medicine frozen rabbit brain preserved by an innovative technique has won the $26,735 Brain Preservation Prize for Small Mammals.

21st Century Medicine's Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreserved (ASC) rabbit brain: Popular Science @PopSci, via Twitter Feb. 9, 2016

The 21st Century Medicine frozen rabbit brain, preserved intact via an innovative technique called aldehyde stabilized cryopreservation (ASC), has won the $26,735 Brain Preservation Prize for Small Mammals, according to the official announcement Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016, by the Brain Preservation Foundation.

Princeton, West Virginia-based 21st Century Medicine (21CM) has been in a tight race, since 2012, with Heidelberg, Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Medical Research for the Brain Preservation Prize for Small Mammals. The mammal brain banking competition now shifts to the $106,940 Brain Preservation Prize for Large Mammals.

“Every neuron and synapse looks beautifully preserved across the entire brain. Simply amazing given that I held in my hand this very same brain when it was vitrified glassy solid,” Dr. Kenneth Hayworth, Brain Preservation Foundation president and co-founder, noted in the official award announcement Tuesday, Feb. 9.

Dr. Hayworth, also a senior scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus (JFRC) in Ashburn, Virginia, and Michael Shermer, member of Brain Preservation Foundation’s advisory board, evaluated the 21st Century Medicine frozen rabbit for four months. The evaluation process began Sept. 25, 2015, with Hayworth and Shermer witnessing perfusions, or injections, of glutaraldehyde, a preserving and sterilizing agent, as the chemical fixative and of ethylene glycol as the cryoprotectant agent (CPA) into a live rabbit’s carotid arteries. The surgically removed brain was placed in storage at minus 135 degrees Celsius (minus 211 degrees Fahrenheit).

The four-month evaluation process involved checking the ultrastructure, or fine structure, of widely spaced regions of the 21st Century Medicine frozen rabbit brain via extensive electron microscope imaging to verify preservation. In January 2016, Dr. Hayworth concluded that the 21st Century Medicine frozen rabbit brain fulfilled the requirements for winning the Brain Preservation Prize for Small Mammals.

Robert Louis McIntyre, lead investigator on the Brain Preservation Prize project, and Dr. Gregory M. Fahy, 21st Century Medicine’s chief scientific officer, pioneered the aldehyde stabilized cryopreservation technique as key players in a larger team of special advisors and such specialists as microscopists and surgeons. The innovative technique combines chemical fixation and cryogenic, or very low temperature, cooling. The aldehyde stabilized cryopreservation protocol avoids brain shrinkage and preserves fine structures, including the critical totality of neural connections, called the connectome.

Discoverers McIntyre and Fahy presented their innovative technique in an article, “Aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation,” available online as of Sept. 25, 2015, in Cryobiology: International Journal of Low Temperature Biology and Medicine.

“ASC is a new brain-banking technique designed to facilitate neuroanatomic research such as connectomics research, and has the unique ability to combine stable long term ice-free sample storage with excellent anatomical resolution,” the two co-authors stated in the article’s abstract.

An anonymous donation of $100,000 fueled the establishment of the Brain Preservation Foundation’s prizes for small and large mammals in May 2010. The Brain Preservation Prize for Small Mammals applied to mice or other small mammals. Pig brains have been submitted by both 21st Century Medicine and the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research for consideration for the Brain Preservation Prize for Large Mammals.

Dr. Hayworth described the impressive results discerned in the 21st Century Medicine frozen rabbit brain as: “This is not your father’s cryonics.”

Brain Preservation Foundation's electron microscope images of 3DFIB-SEM (Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopy) volume of F2 coronal vibratome section for evaluation of preservation of 3D synaptic connectivity in 21st Century Medicine's Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreserved (ASC) rabbit brain: Brain Preservation @Lets_Upgrade, via Twitter Feb. 9, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

21st Century Medicine's Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreserved (ASC) rabbit brain: Popular Science @PopSci, via Twitter Feb. 9, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/PopSci/status/697183890054758401

Brain Preservation Foundation's electron microscope images of 3DFIB-SEM (Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopy) volume of F2 coronal vibratome section for evaluation of preservation of 3D synaptic connectivity in 21st Century Medicine's Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreserved (ASC) rabbit brain: Brain Preservation @Lets_Upgrade, via Twitter Feb. 9, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/Lets_Upgrade/status/697102715642580992

For further information:

"Frozen rabbit brain brought back in 'near perfect' condition in cryonics breakthrough." RT > News. Feb. 10, 2016.
Brain Preservation ‏@Lets_Upgrade. "We are excited to announce that the BPF prize has been won!." Twitter. Feb. 9, 2016.
Available @ https://twitter.com/Lets_Upgrade/status/697102715642580992

Available @ https://www.rt.com/news/332074-cryonics-rabbit-brain-regenerated/

Maldarelli, Claire. "Researchers Have Preserved An Entire Rabbit Brain." Popular Science > Science. Feb. 9, 2016.
Available @ http://www.popsci.com/researchers-have-preserved-an-entire-rabbit-brain

McIntyre, Robert L., and Gregory M. Fahy. "Aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation." Cryobiology, vol. 71, issue 3 (December 2015): 448 - 458. DOI: 10.1016/j.crybiol.2015.09.003
Available @ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001122401500245X

NewsBeat Social. "Scientists Make Brain Preservation Breakthrough." YouTube. Feb. 10, 2016.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L03doR1ow60

Popular Science @PopSci. "Researchers have preserved an entire rabbit brain." Twitter. Feb. 9, 2016.
Available @ https://twitter.com/PopSci/status/697183890054758401

"Small Mammal BPF Prize Winning Announcement." The Brain Preservation Foundation.
Available @ http://www.brainpreservation.org/small-mammal-announcement/

"Special Announcement: 21CM in the News - 21st Century Medicine Wins the Brain Preservation Prize for Small Mammals." 21st Century Medicine > Company News.
Available @ http://www.21cm.com/news.stm