6 ms·

Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of the whole body

124 points by harel 4y ago

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
This reads like the plot to Flatliners.
thriftwy 4y ago
I imagine how this is important for clinical immortality / human hibernation which would eventually revolutionize life as we know it.
Pixelbrick 4y ago
Well this is a pretty big deal if it works. Ischemic injury being the thing that actually kills alot of trauma patients.
- nikkwong 4y ago
  More than just that; ischemic injury is one of the largest contributors to developing chronic kidney disease as well as the general decline of kidney function over time. So this would be relevant for the general populace as well.
  - ThePhantom 4y ago
    Ischemia results in significant pathology to all organ systems. A few examples: ischemic infarction of brain tissue is what causes stroke. Ischemia caused by blockage of coronary arteries is what causes myocardial infarction (heart attacks). This type of cellular injury is omnipresent with many different pathways leading to it.
towaway15463 4y ago
Very curious about how much equipment and expertise is necessary for this. If it could be deployed in an ambulance it would be a game changer. Having a pause button on treatment after the heat has stopped would buy precious time for transportation or for the necessary personnel to get there.
Andy_G11 4y ago
I wonder if we could get AI to code biological outcomes using biomolecular objects (as in object oriented programming), and what level of computing technology / how comprehensive a database of biochemical reactions would be needed to do this. Could this be something that is achievable in 20 yrs, perhaps speeded up with the aid of quantum computing?
- dgowte 4y ago
  What is this nonsensical buzzword soup?
  - Andy_G11 4y ago
    What don't you understand?
    - messe 4y ago
      How each word in your paragraph connects to the next. Your question is something that could be described as “not-even-wrong”[1]. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
      - Andy_G11 4y ago
        Seems pretty straightforward to me: 1) programming objects have properties and methods; 2) within cells it is probably possible to have analagous entities (perhaps various types such as molecules, organelles, etc) which have defined properties and predictable behaviours; 3) could we soon have a computer and a sufficiently comprehensive database of these objects and their behaviours for an AI to start correlating how they are combined and how they would need to act to produce a cellular effect (e.g. regenerate a damaged cell); 4) could this be speeded up with the advent of quantum computing?
        thaumaturgy 4y ago
        No, because biology's developer didn't use OOP. Less flippantly: biological processes don't behave similarly to a big network of discrete objects with specific traits (methods and properties in OOP parlance). The domain of biology is composed of lots of molecules that combine to form bigger molecules that in turn get classified into hormones and proteins and amino acids and other organic compounds, and these all interact in super complex ways that are very difficult to model. For example, protein folding is a big area of research that is attempting to model the behaviors of just one set of molecules [1], and it is proving to be a really difficult problem to solve despite throwing enormous amounts of computing power at it [2]. And, we don't even know what we don't know yet in broader biological terms. It's not like we have a pretty good model for biology at macroscopic scales and we're just working out details -- this isn't civil engineering. The details that we're still missing matter a lot in how biological systems behave. Quantum computing likewise is not a magic pill that will suddenly make all of this easier. Quantum computing is good at solving certain kinds of problems a little bit faster, but expectations for quantum computing have so far greatly outpaced its actual development. As a side note, "systems thinking" in programmers often leads down dark dead-end alleys full of misunderstandings and wrong questions. Modern science is pretty darn advanced, and today's PhD candidates are introduced to programming as part of their education. It's usually safe to assume that if an advancement in a given field were possible through rudimentary programming, then someone would be working on it; programmers who are curious about specific fields should first start at the basics in those fields and put the time in to become familiar with them. That process will eventually lead to the right questions to ask in those fields. [1]: "What is protein folding? A brief explanation", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25261591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25261591 [2]: "Protein folding: Much more intricate than we though", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25284998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25284998
eminence32 4y ago
I read the abstract, and I understood only about 2% of it...
- dgowte 4y ago
  Basically, they embalmed a pig. But in a way that is potentially reversible because there was minimal damage caused by a lack of oxygen.
ape4 4y ago
OrganEx and BrainEx sound like something right out of a sci-fi
- hh3k0 4y ago
  FedEx is taking service diversification quite seriously.
  - EarlKing 4y ago
    BrainEx: When it absolutely, positively has to be BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS
  - VectorLock 4y ago
    Given their inability to deliver packages the first try, I'm not sure I'd trust them with transporting vital organs.
    - taneq 4y ago
      But that’s their business case! “You will remain comfortably in suspended animation until our shipment of lemon-scented napkins arrives!”
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
wyldfire 4y ago
Ok now we have to amend it: "You're not dead until you're warm [, not treated with OrganEx] and dead."
ptsneves 4y ago
In the short story series “the egg” by Andy Weir there is a similar breakthrough that leads to a zombie apocalypse:)
- dennyabraham 4y ago
  I believe you're thinking of "Antihypoxiant," a very different story by the same author
- tangjurine 4y ago
  http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/antihypoxiant.html http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/antihypoxiant.html
  - sbierwagen 4y ago
    For the purposes of the story it's a "vaccination against death", keeping an unconscious person in cardiac arrest alive. But why are they unconscious in the first place? Because the brain ran out of oxygen! If it worked, you would be awake and mobile through asystole. Cardiac arrest would be a medical emergency-- solved by the patient getting in a car and driving to the ER. (Maybe not a good idea, though: the big locomotor muscles would run out of oxygen first, so you'd probably lose the ability to steer or press the brake pedal halfway there...) Even more boring of a nitpick: if the molecule provided oxygen without binding to the resulting CO2, then loss of blood flow would result in rapid carbolic acid buildup and ischemic injury from pH imbalance. You'd die from metabolic acidosis before you would die from lack of oxygen. The "respirocyte" artificial blood cell concept from 1998 had two internal tanks for that purpose, one metering out O2 and one collecting CO2: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/10731199809117682 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/1073119980911768...
    - R0b0t1 4y ago
      Even more boring of a nitpick: There's no good reason to assume there's extra space in cells. Where does this stuff go in the quantities suggested? As well, could you simply not notice a malfunction and keep going until you ran out of stored oxygen?
frellus 4y ago
This reminds me of a line from the TV show "Fringe" Pilot episode, which freaks me out to this day: "How long has he been dead?" "About five hours." "...Question him."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- teraflop 4y ago
  Or the opening line of Greg Egan's 1995 novel Distress: > “All right. He’s dead. Go ahead and talk to him.” https://www.gregegan.net/DISTRESS/Excerpt/DistressExcerpt.html https://www.gregegan.net/DISTRESS/Excerpt/DistressExcerpt.ht...
ENOTTY 4y ago
Here's an article written for more of a layperson's audience. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02112-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02112-0

124 points by harel 4y ago

This reads like the plot to Flatliners.

I imagine how this is important for clinical immortality / human hibernation which would eventually revolutionize life as we know it.

Pixelbrick 4y ago

Well this is a pretty big deal if it works. Ischemic injury being the thing that actually kills alot of trauma patients.

nikkwong 4y ago
More than just that; ischemic injury is one of the largest contributors to developing chronic kidney disease as well as the general decline of kidney function over time. So this would be relevant for the general populace as well.
- ThePhantom 4y ago
  Ischemia results in significant pathology to all organ systems. A few examples: ischemic infarction of brain tissue is what causes stroke. Ischemia caused by blockage of coronary arteries is what causes myocardial infarction (heart attacks). This type of cellular injury is omnipresent with many different pathways leading to it.

towaway15463 4y ago

Very curious about how much equipment and expertise is necessary for this. If it could be deployed in an ambulance it would be a game changer. Having a pause button on treatment after the heat has stopped would buy precious time for transportation or for the necessary personnel to get there.

Andy_G11 4y ago

I wonder if we could get AI to code biological outcomes using biomolecular objects (as in object oriented programming), and what level of computing technology / how comprehensive a database of biochemical reactions would be needed to do this. Could this be something that is achievable in 20 yrs, perhaps speeded up with the aid of quantum computing?

dgowte 4y ago
What is this nonsensical buzzword soup?
- Andy_G11 4y ago
  What don't you understand?
  - messe 4y ago
    How each word in your paragraph connects to the next. Your question is something that could be described as “not-even-wrong”[1]. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
    - Andy_G11 4y ago
      Seems pretty straightforward to me: 1) programming objects have properties and methods; 2) within cells it is probably possible to have analagous entities (perhaps various types such as molecules, organelles, etc) which have defined properties and predictable behaviours; 3) could we soon have a computer and a sufficiently comprehensive database of these objects and their behaviours for an AI to start correlating how they are combined and how they would need to act to produce a cellular effect (e.g. regenerate a damaged cell); 4) could this be speeded up with the advent of quantum computing?
      - thaumaturgy 4y ago
        No, because biology's developer didn't use OOP. Less flippantly: biological processes don't behave similarly to a big network of discrete objects with specific traits (methods and properties in OOP parlance). The domain of biology is composed of lots of molecules that combine to form bigger molecules that in turn get classified into hormones and proteins and amino acids and other organic compounds, and these all interact in super complex ways that are very difficult to model. For example, protein folding is a big area of research that is attempting to model the behaviors of just one set of molecules [1], and it is proving to be a really difficult problem to solve despite throwing enormous amounts of computing power at it [2]. And, we don't even know what we don't know yet in broader biological terms. It's not like we have a pretty good model for biology at macroscopic scales and we're just working out details -- this isn't civil engineering. The details that we're still missing matter a lot in how biological systems behave. Quantum computing likewise is not a magic pill that will suddenly make all of this easier. Quantum computing is good at solving certain kinds of problems a little bit faster, but expectations for quantum computing have so far greatly outpaced its actual development. As a side note, "systems thinking" in programmers often leads down dark dead-end alleys full of misunderstandings and wrong questions. Modern science is pretty darn advanced, and today's PhD candidates are introduced to programming as part of their education. It's usually safe to assume that if an advancement in a given field were possible through rudimentary programming, then someone would be working on it; programmers who are curious about specific fields should first start at the basics in those fields and put the time in to become familiar with them. That process will eventually lead to the right questions to ask in those fields. [1]: "What is protein folding? A brief explanation", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25261591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25261591 [2]: "Protein folding: Much more intricate than we though", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25284998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25284998

eminence32 4y ago

I read the abstract, and I understood only about 2% of it...

dgowte 4y ago
Basically, they embalmed a pig. But in a way that is potentially reversible because there was minimal damage caused by a lack of oxygen.

ape4 4y ago

OrganEx and BrainEx sound like something right out of a sci-fi

hh3k0 4y ago
FedEx is taking service diversification quite seriously.
- EarlKing 4y ago
  BrainEx: When it absolutely, positively has to be BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS
- VectorLock 4y ago
  Given their inability to deliver packages the first try, I'm not sure I'd trust them with transporting vital organs.
  - taneq 4y ago
    But that’s their business case! “You will remain comfortably in suspended animation until our shipment of lemon-scented napkins arrives!”
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

wyldfire 4y ago

Ok now we have to amend it: "You're not dead until you're warm [, not treated with OrganEx] and dead."

ptsneves 4y ago

In the short story series “the egg” by Andy Weir there is a similar breakthrough that leads to a zombie apocalypse:)

dennyabraham 4y ago
I believe you're thinking of "Antihypoxiant," a very different story by the same author
tangjurine 4y ago
http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/antihypoxiant.html http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/antihypoxiant.html
- sbierwagen 4y ago
  For the purposes of the story it's a "vaccination against death", keeping an unconscious person in cardiac arrest alive. But why are they unconscious in the first place? Because the brain ran out of oxygen! If it worked, you would be awake and mobile through asystole. Cardiac arrest would be a medical emergency-- solved by the patient getting in a car and driving to the ER. (Maybe not a good idea, though: the big locomotor muscles would run out of oxygen first, so you'd probably lose the ability to steer or press the brake pedal halfway there...) Even more boring of a nitpick: if the molecule provided oxygen without binding to the resulting CO2, then loss of blood flow would result in rapid carbolic acid buildup and ischemic injury from pH imbalance. You'd die from metabolic acidosis before you would die from lack of oxygen. The "respirocyte" artificial blood cell concept from 1998 had two internal tanks for that purpose, one metering out O2 and one collecting CO2: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/10731199809117682 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/1073119980911768...
  - R0b0t1 4y ago
    Even more boring of a nitpick: There's no good reason to assume there's extra space in cells. Where does this stuff go in the quantities suggested? As well, could you simply not notice a malfunction and keep going until you ran out of stored oxygen?

frellus 4y ago

This reminds me of a line from the TV show "Fringe" Pilot episode, which freaks me out to this day: "How long has he been dead?" "About five hours." "...Question him."

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
teraflop 4y ago
Or the opening line of Greg Egan's 1995 novel Distress: > “All right. He’s dead. Go ahead and talk to him.” https://www.gregegan.net/DISTRESS/Excerpt/DistressExcerpt.html https://www.gregegan.net/DISTRESS/Excerpt/DistressExcerpt.ht...

ENOTTY 4y ago

Here's an article written for more of a layperson's audience. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02112-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02112-0