Michael G. Darwin (born April 26, 1955), formerly known as Michael Federowicz, is a former president of

cryonics Cryonics (from ''kryos'', meaning "cold") is the low-temperature freezing (usually at ) and storage of human remains in the hope that resurrection may be possible in the future. Cryonics is regarded with skepticism by the mainstream scien ...

organization Alcor Life Extension Foundation. He was president from 1983 to 1988, and research director until 1992. He was also the founder and president of BioPreservation, Inc., and a cofounder, member of the board of directors, and director of research at Twenty-First Century Medicine (a cryobiological/

critical care medicine Intensive care medicine, usually called critical care medicine, is a medical specialty that deals with seriously or critically ill patients who have, are at risk of, or are recovering from conditions that may be life-threatening. It includes ...

research company) from 1993 to 1999.

Early life

He was born in

Indianapolis Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...

, Indiana. Because of his interest in

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

and rejection of

creationism Creationism is the faith, religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation, and is often Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific.#Gunn 2004, Gun ...

he earned himself the nickname " Darwin" among his schoolmates. Darwin had a fascination with

cryopreservation Cryopreservation or cryoconservation is a process where biological material - cells, tissues, or organs - are frozen to preserve the material for an extended period of time. At low temperatures (typically or using liquid nitrogen) any cell ...

as a child. In 1968, aged 12, he qualified for the

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

state science fair with his project " Suspended Animation in Animals and Plants." He dreamed of becoming an

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

and applying his research to space travel. His registration was lost and his project never judged, but he was given an honorable mention out of a sense of fair play. At the fair, however, he learned that a Dr. James Bedford had been frozen in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. This was the beginning of Darwin's lifelong interest in

Career in cryonics

Darwin contacted the Cryonics Society of New York (CSNY) and got from them a considerable amount of literature by Saul Kent, who became his patron. When he was 17, he got an invitation from Saul Kent to cryopreserve a cryonics patient for CSNY. Darwin had built his own cryonics equipment, which he found on his New York visit to be more sophisticated than that CSNY had actually used for cryopreservation. When he began his career as a dialysis technician, Michael adopted "Darwin" as his surname for his cryonics

persona A persona (plural personae or personas) is a strategic mask of identity in public, the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional Character (arts), character. It is also considered "an intermediary ...

, so as not to endanger his career by the association with cryonics. Darwin and Stephen Bridge co-founded the Institute for Advanced Biological Studies (IABS) in Indianapolis in 1977, which merged with the then-California-based Alcor Life Extension Foundation in 1982. Darwin served as the President of Alcor, and then as the Research Director from 1988 to 1992, leaving Alcor in 1992. About 50 former Alcor members joined in the founding of the CryoCare Foundation, an organization dedicated to cryonics which later went defunct. Darwin founded a company, BioPreservation, which contracted perfusion and transport services to CryoCare. He is the author of ''′History of DMSO and Glycerol in Cryonics′'', ''′How Dead is Dead Enough?′'' (2008), ''′Cryonics: Why it has failed, and possible ways to fix it′'' (2008).

Personal life

Darwin is a

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...

. His dog Mitzi is preserved at Alcor.

Technical accomplishments

Darwin was the first full-time cryonics researcher, for one year for Alcor in the 1970s. Darwin worked alongside

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

cardiothoracic researcher Jerry Leaf during the 1980s, and physician Dr. Steven B. Harris in the 1990s to create many of the key technologies and practices of modern

Published works

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References

External links

Interview with Mike DarwinChronosphere
-(collection of Darwin articles on cryonics, its techniques & medical aspects & history, and aging)
"Michael G. Darwin, a Biographical Précis"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darwin, Mike 1955 births Living people American male writers Businesspeople from Indianapolis Writers from Indianapolis Cryonicists