Biostasis

A cryonics standby, stabilization and transport team, based in Calgary.

Preservation is a race against time. We stand by at the bedside, begin stabilization the moment legal death is pronounced, and transport the patient to their provider.

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Status
Standing by
Base
Calgary, Alberta
Facilities
Operations near YYC AirportDowntown build-out underway
Vehicle
Van, fitted for cold transport
Equipment
Ice bathStabilization and perfusion kit

The film

This is the team from the film.

Relax, Open Your Eyes follows Carrie and Witek Radomski as they build cryonics capability in Calgary. If you came here from a card handed out at a screening, you are in the right place.

What we have

The response team seated together in the open back of the response vehicle

Local Response Team

People in Calgary who take the call and go, and who have worked on other organizations' cryonics cases in the United States.

The response van with its lift gate, parked outside the operations facility in winter

A response vehicle

Equipped for standby and cold transport.

The ice bath raised above a Stryker stretcher in the operations facility

Ice bath, stabilization and perfusion equipment

Cooling, circulation, perfusion and transport equipment, with the medications and checklists that go with it.

Looking down on the downtown Calgary block where the facility is

An operations facility, and a building in progress

Near YYC Airport, where the equipment is kept and checked. Downtown, the club's building at 128 7 Ave SE is being built out as the future home of a biostasis facility.

What we are trying to be

We are trying to be boring.

Cryonics has never been short of ambition. What it has lacked is the dull machinery of a reliable service: rehearsals, equipment with dates against it, a written record of what happened — including the parts that went badly — and numbers published whether or not they flatter us. That is what we are building.

On the worst day of your family's life, the most valuable thing we can be is predictable.

Rehearsed
Unannounced call-outs, full wet runs, and an equipment calendar.
Measured
Time to mobilise, time to first cooling, ischemic exposure, complications.
Published
Per case to the receiving organization, and in summary to everyone else.

What we do

Five steps, from body temperature to liquid nitrogen.

The number in the corner follows the patient's temperature as you read.

1 · Standby

37°C

Body temperature

We go to the bedside.

When a member is critically ill, the team deploys and waits with the equipment ready, so stabilization can start the moment it is needed.

2 · Stabilization

20°C

Ice-water bath

We cool the patient and keep blood moving.

Immediately after legal death: cooling in an ice-water bath, cardiopulmonary support, and medications that protect the brain.

3 · Surgery

4°C

Perfusion

We perfuse the body with cold cryoprotectants.

The blood is first replaced with a cold carrier solution, and only then is cryoprotectant introduced — in stages, in a solution that circulates through the body, cooling it rapidly and protecting the tissue from ice damage.

4 · Transport

−79°C

Dry ice

We transport the patient to their provider.

Cold transport to the member's long-term cryopreservation provider. We handle the documentation and coordination.

Illustration: a row of cryogenic storage dewars wrapped in liquid-nitrogen fog

5 · Long-term care

−196°C

Liquid nitrogen

The provider takes over.

Long-term storage happens at the member's chosen cryonics organization, in liquid nitrogen.

Getting coverage

  1. Step 1

    Tell us where you are

    Name, email, province. That is the whole form.

  2. Step 2

    We talk

    Your provider, your health, your family. We tell you what we can do today.

  3. Step 3

    We make a plan

    Contacts, paperwork, and the standby plan for your situation.

Questions

What is biostasis?
Biostasis — better known as cryonics — preserves a person at very low temperature after legal death, in case future medicine can restore them. No one can promise that it will work. People choose it because they would rather have the chance than not.
Why does a standby team matter?
The quality of a cryopreservation depends on how quickly cooling and stabilization begin after legal death. Most long-term providers are in the United States. Without a local team, Canadians wait hours or days.
Is Biostasis Response operating today?
Yes, in the sense that matters for a standby team: the people, the vehicle and the equipment are here and ready, and we take members. We have not yet led a human case of our own — we are new — but we have taken part in, and helped on, other organizations' cryonics cases in the United States. Coverage is arranged case by case. Tell us where you are and we will be straight with you about what we can do.
Do I need a separate cryonics provider?
Yes. We do not store patients. You arrange long-term preservation with a provider — Alcor, the Cryonics Institute, Tomorrow Biostasis or another — and we handle the first hours: standby at the bedside, stabilization, and transport to them. If you have not chosen one yet, we can talk you through the options.
How do we reach you when it matters?
Members receive the team's urgent contact number when they enrol, along with the paperwork for their hospital file. It belongs in a wallet and on a chart, not on a web page.
Who do you work with?
Whichever long-term provider holds the member's contract, and the local people a case depends on: hospital and hospice staff, physicians, and funeral directors.
I'm not in Alberta. Can you help?
Tell us your province. Where people are decides where we build capacity next, and we will be honest about what we can do for you today.
I'm a journalist. Who do I talk to?
Choose the press option on the form and someone from the team will reply directly.

Interested in coverage in Canada?

Join the list and tell us your province. We will reach out.

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Temp

37.0°C