Freezing bodies for ‘reanimation’ in China and why the country’s cryonics tech has the potential to leapfrog the West

The Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute has 10 bodies on ice already with dozens more who have committed to its service

With its lack of religious obstacles – which hinder acceptance of ‘coming back to life’ in the West – China could quickly catch up and lead in the cryonics area

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Stainless-steel containers for freezing and storing bodies in super-cold liquid nitrogen at the Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute, China’s only cryonics centre. Photo: The Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute

Published: 10:15am, 27 Sep 2020Updated: 5:17pm, 27 Sep 2020

The Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute is the only cryonics research centre in China and one of only four such institutes in the world. The centres provide cryonic suspension: preserving bodies at extremely low temperatures with the hope of one day “reviving” them. But Yinfeng’s research goes further, and has the potential to revolutionise organ transplant, body-part reattachment and other medical treatments.

Cryonics covers the techniques of preserving a human body at extremely low temperatures with the aim of cheating death. It involves storing bodies in stainless-steel containers in super-cold liquid nitrogen.

Cryonics in China started in 2015. Du Hong, an author from Chongqing and an editor of Liu Cixin’s world-renowned science fiction title The Three-Body Problem, which revolves around cryonics, became the first person from China to undergo the suspension procedure after she died from pancreatic cancer that year.

Du’s remains were preserved at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a US cryonics service provider based in Phoenix, Arizona. In the same year, the Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute was set up in Jinan, in eastern China. (The other two global cryonics institutes are the Cryonics Institute in the US state of Michigan, and KrioRus in Russia.)

All four centres provide cryonic suspension and storage services for deceased humans and pets, expecting one day to use advanced technology to “reanimate” them. Yinfeng also partners with mainland Chinese hospitals and universities to conduct research in the area of cryobiology, which studies the effects of low temperatures on living things.