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What if you could be reunited with a beloved former family pet?
That’s the goal of a new start-up backed by billionaire Peter Thiel that will freeze dead dogs, cats and even hamsters until a cure for aging or disease can be found.
Cryopets is open to the public, with plans to keep the first pet within one to two months, and there are currently 500 animals on the waiting list.
The Utah-based company plans to set up operations in vet hospitals across the US, where doctors cool the corpse to extremely low temperatures, drain the blood and administer cryoprotectants.
Kai Micah Mills founded Cryopets. He has an 11-year-old cat that he hopes to cryogenically freeze when the time comes
Cryopets uses sci-fi style technology to cool down the body, which is stored in a massive facility for future resurrections. Animals are stored in steel tanks filled with liquid nitrogen
The frozen animals are then placed in dewars filled with liquid nitrogen and stored in a warehouse – the location is unknown – until scientists discover cures for aging and disease.
Company founder Kai Micah Mills told DailyMail.com that Cryopets has 500 pets on its waiting list, including a labradoodle, horse, monkey and hamster.
And the price depends on size — the 80-pound labradoodle is listed at $30,000, while a cat costs $10,000.
Mills told DailyMail.com: “[Pricing for procedure] varies. For a cat, it will probably be about $10,000.
“We have an 80-pound labradoodle on the waiting list for which we put in a full quote of about $30,000.”
Mills gave an example of cryopreservation of a dog that died of old age or cancer.
Euthanasia is typically a planned event, which would be given a hefty dose of seizure medication that renders them unconscious.
“As soon as this happens, we immediately start cooling the body to prevent ischemic damage,” Mills said.
‘We want to prevent any damage to the brain structure.’
Once completed, the dog is moved to an ice bath and given a cocktail of drugs, including anesthesia, which prevents the animal from coming back to life when chest compressions are administered.
And when the body has cooled down, the animal undergoes breast surgery to circulate the blood.
An abundant circuit, similar to a heart-lung machine, is placed in the body to prevent blood from clotting so it can be filtered out and replaced with cryoprotectant.
Mills said the animal’s body is constantly cooled during this process.
“Once the animal had cooled down to a temperature that we want, we put them in what’s called a cool box,” he said.
Nitrogen is essential to the process, which is supplied as vapor and in liquid form
Cyropets is ready to begin cryogenically freezing pets thanks to the help of its investors, most notably Peter Thiel (pictured), a longtime fan of freezing himself for later revival
“There is no such thing in the world. It’s essentially like a controlled-speed freezer that’s much bigger because it has to fit human-sized dogs. Like very, very large animals up to a hamster.’
In the box, the animal is introduced to a nitrogen vapor that continues the cooling process.
Mills said Cyropets is aiming to eventually make its own nitrogen.
And then the animal is transferred into liquid nitrogen in a steel dewar.
The company plans to build a massive facility to house the frozen animals.
Mills said the process is similar to freezing people, but the amount of drugs administered would be different.
But Mills isn’t all about the money when it comes to his business, seeing it as a way to cheat death – and preserving people is his ultimate goal.
He told DailyMail.com that he was raised Mormon and was very religious as a child.
But the Utah native began to question his faith around the age of 13, which led him to the 2045 Initiative, founded by Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov, that works on human mortality, but in the form of cyborgs.
“In general, I like that idea of getting everything that religion promised me, but through science, you know, really tangible that we can achieve it,” Mills said.
“That fueled my obsession with life extension. We will all die and after that there will be nothing; that’s a big problem. This is the only problem and it must be solved.’
And that led to the start of Cyropets.
Mills has an 11-year-old cat, whom he calls “The Cat.”
“I thought if I want to freeze with my pet, there’s going to be at least some other crazy people who want to do that too,” he said.
Cyropets is ready to begin cryogenically freezing pets thanks to the help of its investors, most notably Thiel, who is a longtime fan of freezing himself to come back to life later.
Earlier this month, Thiel, who has an estimated net worth of $8.13 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, spoke about the technology on journalist Bari Weiss’ podcast.
Weiss asked, “Is it true that you’ve been signed up to be cryonic preserved when you die so that you can come back to life in the future?”
Thiel confirmed it and said: “Yes, but I see it more as an ideological statement.”
He continued, “I don’t necessarily expect it to work, but I think it’s something we should try.”
Thiel’s interest in cryogenics is well documented and he first revealed his plans in The Telegraph in 2014.
He said, ‘By telling you I signed up for it [cryogenics]there’s always the response that it’s really crazy, it’s disturbing.
“But my view is that it’s only troubling because it challenges our complacency.”
The company Thiel says he applied to, Alcor, describes their work as the “practice of saving life by interrupting the dying process using sub-zero temperatures with the intention of restoring good health in the future with medical technology’.
The minimum cost to be cryopreserved by the company is priced at $200,000, they also offer the option to have your brain frozen for $80,000.