Jerry Leaf

Who was Jerry Leaf?

Jerry Donnell Leaf was Vice President and Director of the cryonics organization Alcor Life Extension Foundation, and President of the cryonics service firm Cryovita, Inc., until his cryopreservation by Alcor following a fatal heart attack in 1991.

Leaf fought in special operations during the Vietnam War. He also worked as a cardiothoracic surgery researcher at the UCLA School of Medicine, co-authoring more than 20 papers from the laboratory of Dr. Gerald Buckberg.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Leaf transformed the field of cryonics by bringing unprecedented medical expertise to the field and introducing technologies and procedures of thoracic surgery, especially heart-lung bypass, for improved blood vessel access and life support of cryonics patients. Leaf was involved in the first experiments done by a cryonics organization. He is most famous for developing with Mike Darwin a blood substitute shown capable of sustaining life in dogs for four hours at near-freezing temperatures. Leaf was the head of Alcor's suspension team and participated in many suspensions of Alcor patients.