Brian Wowk

Brian G. Wowkis a Canadianmedical physicistandcryobiologistknown for the discovery and development of syntheticmoleculesthat mimic the activity of naturalantifreeze proteinsincryopreservationapplications, sometimes called "ice blockers". As a senior scientist at21st Century Medicine, Inc.,he was a co-developer withGreg Fahyof key technologies enablingcryopreservationof large and complextissues,including the first successfulvitrificationandtransplantationof amammalianorgan(kidney). Wowk is also known for early theoretical work on future applications ofmolecular nanotechnology,especiallycryonics,nanomedicine,andoptics.In the early 1990s he wrote thatnanotechnologywould revolutionize optics, making possiblevirtual realitydisplay systems optically indistinguishable from real scenery as in the fictitiousHolodeckofStar Trek.These systems were described by Wowk in the chapter "Phased Array Optics" in the 1996 anthologyNanotechnology: Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance^[1],and highlighted in the September 1998Technology Watchsection ofPopular Mechanicsmagazine.

Early life and education

He obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees from theUniversity of ManitobainWinnipeg,Canada. Dr. Wowk obtained his PhD in physics in 1997.His graduate studies included work in online portalimagingforradiotherapyat the Manitoba Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation (now Cancer Care Manitoba), and work on artifact reduction forfunctional magnetic resonance imagingat theNational Research Council of Canada.His work in the latter field is cited by several text books, including Functional MRI^[2]which includes an image he obtained ofmagnetic fieldchanges inside the human body caused byrespiration.

Notes

• 1.^Nanotechnology: Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance
• 2.^Functional MRI

External links

• 21st Century Medicine
• Cell Repair Technology
• Medical Time Travel