X-Message-Number: 14917
From: "Brook Norton" <>
Subject: how do cryoprotectants help?
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 13:13:49 -0800

Linda Chamberlain recent announced that vitrification procedures are soon to
be applied to patients and this got me thinking.  How do the currently
administered cryoprotectants help?  My understanding is that they lower the
freezing point of the solution they are added to.  But if the patient is
cooled to liquid nitrogen temperature, wouldn't all the material freeze,
cryoprotectant or not?  Does the cryoprotectant reduce the scale of
crystallization thereby maintaining better order in the tissue?

Thanks,
Brook Norton

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