Scientists Have Found a Way To Rapidly Thaw Cryopreserved Tissue Without Damage (sciencealert.com)

schwit1 quotes a report from ScienceAlert: Researchers have developed a technique that allows them to rapidly thaw cryopreserved human and pig samples without damaging the tissue -- a development that could help get rid of organ transplant waiting lists. Cryopreservation is the ability to preserve tissues at liquid nitrogen temperatures for long periods of time and bring them back without damage, and it's something scientists have been dreaming about achieving with large tissue samples and organs for decades. Instead of using convection, the team used nanoparticles to heat tissues at the same rate all at once, which means ice crystals can't form, so they don't get damaged. To do this, the researchers mixed silica-coated iron oxide nanoparticles into a solution and generated uniform heat by applying an external magnetic field. They then warmed up several human and pig tissue samples ranging between 1 and 50 mL, using either their new nanowarming technique and traditional slow warming over ice. Each time, the tissues warmed up with nanoparticles displayed no signs of harm, unlike the control samples. Afterwards, they were able to successfully wash the nanoparticles away from the sample after thawing. The team also tested out the heating in an 80 mL system -- without tissue this time -- and showed that it achieved the same critical warming rates as in the smaller sample sizes, suggesting that the technique is scalable. You can view a video of tissue being thawed out in less than a minute here. The research has been published in Science Translational Medicine.

Comments

Restoring tissues and organs

[jdavidb]

I know it was demonstrated awhile back that a rabbit kidney could be cryopreserved and then restored to function.

Seriously, the longer I live, the more it seems plausible that one day it will be possible to cryopreserve a human brain and restore it to function later. One day human lifespan may be greatly extended in a way that looks like this:

McCoy: "He's dead, Jim."

Kirk: "Bones, do something!"

McCoy: "Sorry, Jim, there isn't anything I can do."

KirK: "Why?"

McCoy: "Because he's dead."

Kirk: "How do you know he's dead?"

McCoy: "Because there's nothing I can do."

Kirk: "Because he's dead?"

McCoy: "That's right."

Kirk: "But I was talking to him just one minute ago!"

McCoy: "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a spiritual medium! I can't bring back the dead anymore than I can cure a common cold."

Spock: "Doctor, we could take him back to the ship, dissolve any blood clots, restore circulation, and restore homeostasis by molecular repair. He could fully resume duty within days."

McCoy: "Spock, leave doctoring to doctors! What this man needs is a decent burial."

Re: Marinade

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it isn't "uniform", it is shaped something like A*sin(kx)*B*cos(my), that's why you have the rotating tray. Also, your ice crystal distribution is likely not very isotropic. Nanoparticles, on the other hand, may by magic or otherwise not form such clumps.