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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.
The photos are legit. 50 ml is a sizeable thaw sample. My biochem circuits assesses this as a considerable advance for cryogenics. YES The trials stop at 50 ml, which these days means larger volumes failed. NO It does not allow a human brain mass to be thawed. But, smaller thaws are still great news. Basic research would see a tremendous boon if experiments can be performed with larger frozen sample sizes. A great number of potential medical treatments would become feasible with a 50x advance in cryogenic thawing. Some people here need an opinion reboot. This is exciting news!