Death was long thought to be an unavoidable factor of life. Due to the inevitable process of death, many have pondered upon the concept of resurrection for centuries. Now with the help of advanced technology, humans are now able to play around with what was once thought to be irreversible and attempt to circumvent it. This technology is known as cryonic preservation, a procedure of freezing the human body with the aim of de-freezing it in the future. Although many view cryonics as a form of hibernation, the process of retaining and resurrecting the human body is not as clear-cut as advertised and needs far more research and development for it to be normalized in current society.

According to Cryonics Institute, the American non-profit foundation that provides cryonics services, cryonic preservation involves “cooling a recently deceased person to liquid nitrogen temperatures in order to keep the body preserved indefinitely.” The fundamental goal is to keep the person in a state of clinical death until adequate technology is created in the future. Cryonic preservation not only includes freezing a person’s whole body but also includes freezing partial body parts such as one’s brain. To keep the body in immaculate condition, cryonics is dependent on futuristic technology that will be considered state-of-the-art. Thus, cryonic preservation is incredibly expensive, amounting to around 180 million dollars in South Korea for a body to be preserved for 20 years. The decision to invest this much in something that is rather undeveloped is risky, and betting on an improbable future can be considered equivalent to playing with fire.

Currently, around 600 people are being cryonically preserved around the world, with two in South Korea. The company responsible for preserving these two Koreans is KrioAsia, the first cryonics company in South Korea. The company not only keeps these patients in their care but also claims to be conducting first-hand research on cryonics. Furthermore, it is the only company in South Korea that provides full-body preservation services. Both patients preserved in KrioAsia’s facilities died due to cancer-related issues, and their families were the ones that made the decision to freeze their remains. The desire to keep important individuals is the key purpose behind cryonics and is why people are insistent on further developing this technology.

While it has been proven that short-term stasis does not lead to death, bringing a person in extended stasis back to life has yet to yield results. The pressing concern is focused on how to resurrect a person without damaging their cells. When warming up a person back to standard temperatures, the heat used is received from the outside surroundings and transmitted to the inside, which is how most body cells die. As of now, KrioAsia has found ways to protect these cells by developing a uniform heat transmission process that allows the heat to be evenly distributed, but this invention has yet to yield success in protecting tissues and important organs.

Cryonic preservation is an incomplete science that should not be marketed as a final product. It has been proven that the intricate and complicated process of freezing and warming the human body cannot be sustained by modern technology. Although cryonic preservation and resurrection of organisms such as rabbit brains, frogs, and various insects have had success, it is crucial to realize that such accomplishments do not point towards a high success rate for humans as human bodies are not designed like other living organisms that are able to hibernate for a long period of time. Overall, cryonics as a branch of science still has a long way to go and needs sufficient research for it to be verified.