Building a Pause Button for Biology | Laura Deming (Until)

What if a donor organ could wait for the right patient—or a patient could gain enough time for a treatment to arrive? Until co-founder and CEO Laura Deming joins me for a conversation about building a pause button for biology. We start inside the cell, then explore vitrification, cryoprotectants, and the challenge of rewarming living tissue without damaging it. We discuss why donor organs need more time, the hardware Until builds in-house, and its parallel research on organ and whole-body preservation. Reversible whole-body cryopreservation remains unproven, and Laura explains the questions around memory, identity, and different tissue types that still need answers. She also shares the cold email that started her career and how she thinks about science and entrepreneurship. This conversation was recorded live at a World’s Fair Co. Pioneers evening at Impulse Labs in San Francisco on October 6, 2026. To hear about the next one, visit https://www.worldsfair.org/. Thanks to 1517 Fund and Impulse Labs for supporting this program. EPISODE PAGE + TRANSCRIPT https://www.worldsfair.org/programs/laura-deming WATCH ON YOUTUBE https://youtu.be/tqf4cOuzyjI CHAPTERS 00:00 A Pause Button for Biology 02:25 Inside the Cell 06:51 Temperature and Cryopreservation 10:18 Vitrification, Cryoprotectants, and Rewarming 16:17 Buying Time for Organ Transplants 18:22 Until’s Experiments and In-House Hardware 22:04 Medical Hibernation and Cryonics 23:38 Who Might Benefit First? 26:22 Memory, Identity, and Whole-Body Challenges 27:50 Why Laura Chose Cryopreservation 29:22 Cold Emails, Science, and Entrepreneurship LINKS & REFERENCES Until: https://www.untillabs.com/ Laura Deming and the Until team: https://www.untillabs.com/our-team Until’s science and technology: https://www.untillabs.com/science-technology Until’s roadmap: https://www.untillabs.com/roadmap Careers at Until: https://www.untillabs.com/careers The Machinery of Life — David Goodsell: https://ccsb.scripps.edu/goodsell/machinery-of-life/ Thanks for listening to this episode of the Build the Future Podcast. This is a project by World's Fair Co. You can learn more at worldsfair.org.