Ben Best

Ben Best is President/CEO of the Cryonics Institute, the world's second largest cryonics organization. He is a well-known activist in cryonics and life extension advocacy. He is often quoted in news media, and has been called one of the most knowledgable activists in the cryonics field. [cite web | title=The Cryonics Society | url=http://www.cryonicssociety.org/free_ebooks.html | accessdate=2007-01-01] Best holds undergraduate degrees in pharmacy from the University of British Columbia, and physics and computing science (BSc), and finance (BBA) from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.

Cryonics activities

For most of the 1990s, Best was President of the [http://www.cryocdn.org Cryonics Society of Canada (CSC)] and was Editor of "Canadian Cryonics News" (total circulation of about 60 copies) until the last issue was published in Spring of 2000. He is still a Director of CSC.

Along with many other cryonicists, in the mid 1990s Best left Alcor Life Extension Foundation to join [http://www.cryocare.org/index.cgi CryoCare Foundation] which had been formed by a small group of dissatisfied Alcor activists in late 1993. In March 1995, he became Secretary of CryoCare and in 1999 became Cryocare's President [http://cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=12900 for a short time] in an effort to prevent the termination of the organization. When CryoCare terminated in the year 2000, mainly as a result of the discontinuation of service in 1999 by its cryopreservation provider (Biopreservation), he helped negotiate the transfer of CryoCare's two cryonics patients from its long-term patient care provider, CryoSpan, to Alcor.

In 2001 at the request of the current President/CEO, Paul Wakfer, Best became President/CEO of [http://web.archive.org/web/20010517013209/http://www.neurocryo.org/ The Institute For Neural Cryobiology (INC)] . Ben thus helped to ensure the completion of the [http://web.archive.org/web/19990224171118/www.neurocryo.org/hippocampal.html Hippocampal Slice Cryopreservation Project (HSCP)] , which had begun in 1998, as a direct result of the [http://web.archive.org/web/19980524022025/http://www.prometheus-project.org/ The Prometheus Project] begun by Wakfer in 1996. HSCP, which was being funded jointly by INC and Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute. was a project focused on vitrification of rat brain hippocampal slices which involved cooling to −130 degrees Celsius, rewarming and testing for viability. Discoveries from this research have been incorporated into the vitrification formulations of Twenty-First Century Medicine. Dr. Yuri Pichugin (currently cryobiology researcher for the Cryonics Institute) was brought to the US from the Ukraine by Wakfer and Dr. Robert J. Morin, Research Professor of Pathology at REI and Chairman of the Department of Pathology at Harbor-UCLA, to conduct the research for this project at Harbor-UCLA under the direction of Morin as Principal Investigator and Dr. Gregory M. Fahy, Chief Scientific Officer of Twenty-First Century Medicine, as Consulting Investigator. The results of the HSPC were published in the April 2006 issue of the journal CRYOBIOLOGY [cite journal | author=Pichugin,Fahy,Morin | title=Cryopreservation of rat hippocampal slices by vitrification | journal=Cryobiology | month=April | year=2006 | volume=52 | pages=228–240 | doi=10.1016/j.cryobiol.2005.11.006 ] .

In September 2003, Best became President/CEO of the Cryonics Institute (CI), replacing Robert Ettinger who had been President since co-founding CI in 1976.

The most popular "Cryonics FAQ" [cite web | title=Cryonics − Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) | url=http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/CryoFAQ.html | accessdate=2006-04-14] (Frequently Asked Questions) currently on the web was authored by Best, and endorsed by Tim Freeman as a replacement for his own cryonics FAQ which was well-known during the 1990s. Best is also known for creating and maintaining personal web pages with extensive scientific and technical information about cryonics [cite web | title=Cryonics Topics | work=(cryonics section of Ben Best's website, many very technical essays) | url=http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/cryonics.html | accessdate=2006-04-14] .

Life extension activities

Best is active in the field of biogerontology. He regularly attends biogerontological conferences and has debated with Aubrey de Grey in the Community Bulletin Board of SAGE KE. His monograph "Mechanisms of Aging" was reprinted in the "Anti-Aging Clinical Protocols 2004-2005" of the A4M [cite book | year=2004 | title=Anti-Aging Clinical Protocols 2004-2005 | publisher=American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine(A4M) | url=http://www.worldhealth.net/p/cart;cart,add_to_cart,a4m48,1.html ] .

Writings

Best has published articles on [http://www.benbest.com/ his website] on more than 150 diverse topics ranging from science and medicine to history and philosophical musings. Articles include:

* Causes of Death [http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/causes.html]
* Brain Neurotransmitters [http://www.benbest.com/science/anatmind/anatmd10.html]
* Mechanisms of Aging [http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/aging.html]
* Cancer Death - Causes and Prevention [http://www.benbest.com/health/cancer.html]
* The History of Christmas [http://www.benbest.com/history/xmas.html]

References

ee also

* Protoscience

External links

* [http://www.benbest.com/ Ben Best's website homepage]
* [http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/08/06/interview-with-cryonics-institute-president-ben-best/ Interview of Ben Best]
* [http://www.cryonics.org/ Cryonics Institute]
* [http://www.cryocare.org/index.cgi CryoCare Foundation]
* [http://www.cryocdn.org/ Cryonics Society of Canada]
* [http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/hscp.html The Hippocampal Slice Cryopreservation Project]
* [http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/aging.html Mechanisms of Aging]
* [http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2006/feb2006_profile_01.htm Interview of Aubrey de Grey for Life Extension magazine]