It is so great you are interested in this area! Thank you. Here are a few options for cryonics-relevant research:
- 21st Century Medicine: May be best to reach out to Brian Wowk (contact info here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25194588/) and/or Greg Fahy (possibly old contact info here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16706656/)
- Emil Kendziorra at Tomorrow Biostasis may know of opportunities. Contact info here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/authors?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0244980
- Robert McIntyre at Nectome may know of opportunities. Contact: http://aurellem.org/aurellem/html/about-rlm.html
- Chana Phaedra/Aschwin de Wolf at Advanced Neural Biosciences may know of opportunities. Contact info for Aschwin here: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/rej.2019.2225
- Brain Preservation Foundation: https://www.brainpreservation.org/. No lab, but space for discussions, especially related to neuroscience and related computational modeling.
- Robert Freitas at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing just published a book called Cryostasis Revival. I'm not sure, but it's possible people there may know of related computational modeling opportunities: http://www.imm.org/
As below, Laura Deming is also a good person to contact.
As you may know, there is a somewhat big divide in methodology these days between people who favor aldehydes as a part of the preservation procedure and those who do not. But there are good options either way.
With 3 months and I'm not sure of your location or geographic flexibility, the best option might be some sort of computational modeling experiment, such as a molecular dynamics simulation: https://www.brainpreservation.org/how-computational-researchers-can-contribute-to-brain-preservation-research/
Regarding discussions with your profs, I totally understand, but I suspect that people may be more open to discussing it on an intellectual level than you think.
You can also email me for further information/discussion, although this is not my personal area of research: amckenz at gmail dot com
I do not feel entirely comfortable talking the whole thing over with my profs.
If you're going to take a 3 month internship they will all know about anyway, it can't hurt to talk about it, right? Cryonics isn't really that taboo, especially if, as it appears, you will take the position that you don't expect current methods to work (but you would like to see about creating ones that might).
As part of my Biophysics Master, I am looking for a lab, to do a 3 months internship next winter.
I think one of the highest-impact applications of biophysics would be to research new&better methods for cryonic freezing, so I would love to get some insight into that field.
Do you, dear LW collective, have any groups you recommend doing exciting research in that area?
Due to the "pseudo-scientific" connotations of that whole topic, I do not feel entirely comfortable talking the whole thing over with my profs.