How to Raise the Dead: Bioquark’s Astonishing Reanima Project

In April 2016, Ira Pastor of Bioquark Inc. received approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) – a committee with the authority to approve, monitor, and review biomedical research and practice in the United States – to try to bring people back from the dead. Now, Pastor and his team of scientists fully intend to take advantage of this opportunity.

Reanima: Straight Out of Science Fiction

Real zombies… cool emoji #ElviswillLive!

With the easy potential to be dubbed a non-fiction Frankenstein, Pastor and his Bioquark team plan to attempt to revive people who have been pronounced dead. Their method? They intend to use a complex set of translational therapeutic applications of autologous stem cells.

In an interview last year, Pastor explained, “We are very excited about the approval of our protocol. With the convergence of the disciplines of regenerative biology, cognitive neuroscience and clinical resuscitation, we are poised to delve into an area of scientific understanding previously inaccessible with existing technologies.”

It’s ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE!!

Bringing Back the Semi-Dead?

Unlike Mary Shelley’s mad scientist, Pastor and his team will not be unearthing coffins. There won’t be any piece-mealing of body parts, and there probably won’t be any lightning or rain inside the lab.

Instead, Pastor plans to revive the living dead.

What Pastor is proposing is the reversal of irreversible comas residing in hospitals. Pastor believes Bioquark Inc. has the capacity to revive hospital patients who have been pronounced brain dead.

Brain Dead: Semi-Dead or Dead-Dead?

The question of whether a person who is brain dead is really dead continues to be debated. In 1980, a Presidential Commission concluded that a brain-dead person is, “an individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards.”

The question still remains, is brain dead really dead? What if there are signs of life? For example, a large number of brain-dead patients retain function of the posterior pituitary. There is also the fact that a brain-dead body can be kept alive with life support.

Using stem cell and peptide injections, Pastor believes he can induce re-generational growth in the brain, development that may bring back involuntary functions and responses like heartbeat and breathing. The end goal, obviously, would be the reemergence of semi-voluntary and voluntary functions and responses, such as blinking or limb movement.

While human beings do not have powerful regenerative growth capabilities, such capacities are not uncommon in Mother Nature. Many invertebrates can regrow limbs and, “amphibians, planarians and certain fish can repair, regenerate and remodel substantial portions of their brain and brain stem even after critical life-threatening trauma,” as documented studies have shown.

While it is easy to dismiss Ira Pastor and Bioquark Inc. as a bunch of quacks, there is legitimacy to the science behind their ambitions.

Pastor Doesn’t Play Along with Walking Dead Connection

In an interview with Obit Magazine, Pastor denied any connection between his research and a fascination with zombie movies, although he does believe his mom would accredit some of his work to the fact that he read, “too many comic books growing up and watched too many science fiction films!”