X-Message-Number: 14058
From: "Brian Wowk" <>
Subject: 21CM ice blockers
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2000 20:53:54 -0700

"Scott Badger" <> wrote:

> I was interested, however, in whether any real interest
> has been exhibited by cryobiologists in the X-1000 Ice Blocker created by
> 21CM.  I thought this was a tremendous breakthrough, yet I've heard
> virtually nothing more about it except within the confines of the
cryonics
> community.  Has this been a successful product for 21CM in the broader
> market?

     21st Century Medicine, Inc.'s "X-1000" ice blocker is indeed
a breakthrough for cryopreservation by vitrification.  However 95%
of cryobiology deals with cryopreservation of isolated cells, an
application for which vitrification is not particularly advantageous.
Vitrification is only used commercially in a small sector of the
agricultural embryo preservation market-- so small, in fact, that
a neighbor of mine who works in the field of agricultural cryopreservation
had never even heard of vitrification!

     The greatest commercial potential of vitrification lies in the quest
to preserve complex tissues (donated and engineered tissues) for
human transplant.  This is an active research field in cryobiology,
including in our own lab where we are agressively pursuing technology
for banking of kidneys for transplant.  Up until very recently, the
only exposure of the cryobiology community to our breakthrough
was a single ten-minute talk I gave at last year's Society for
Cryobiology meeting.  Subsequent to this talk, we developed two
outside collaborations with other vitrification labs to explore the
properties and potential of X-1000 for broader applications in
the tissue banking field.

     A full-length paper on X-1000 was just published in the latest
issue of the journal, Cryobiology.  There will also be three
presentations involving 21CM ice blockers at this summer's
Society for Cryobiology meeting.  On the strength of our data,
we hope to entice still more labs to work with us to develop
commerical applications, including labs that work in the field
of agricultural embryo cryopreservation, which is perhaps the
most immediate commercial opportunity available.

     In short, there is no "broad market" for 21CM ice blockers
because there is as yet no broad market for vitrification.  The
market must be created, which we and others are busy doing.
Synthetic ice blockers are to cryobiology what the laser was
in the 1960's-- a scientifically fascinating phenomenon, but
"a solution in search of a problem" for a number of years.
Lasers are now of course ubiquitous.

     I could comment on potential applications of ice blockers
outside of cryobiology, but that might jeopardize some
publications we have pending.

Brian Wowk
21st Century Medicine, Inc.

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