X-Message-Number: 28069
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 10:42:21 +0200
From: Eugen Leitl <>
Subject: latest research supports possibility of cryopreservation

This is not news, but notice the source.

http://www.physorg.com/news70025926.html

Slow-frozen people? Latest research supports possibility of cryopreservation


The latest research on water - still one of the least understood of all liquids 
despite a century of intensive study     seems to support the possibility that 
cells, tissues and even the entire human body could be cryopreserved without 
formation of damaging ice crystals, according to University of Helsinki 
researcher Anatoli Bogdan, Ph.D.


He conducted the study, scheduled for the July 6 issue of the ACS Journal of 
Physical Chemistry B, one of 34 peer-review journals published by the American 
Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.


In medicine, cryopreservation involves preserving organs and tissues for 
transplantation or other uses. Only certain kinds of cells and tissues, 
including sperm and embryos, currently can be frozen and successfully rewarmed. 
A major problem hindering wider use of cryopreservation is formation of ice 
crystals, which damage cell structures.


Cyropreservation may be most familiar, however, as the controversial idea that 
humans, stricken with incurable diseases, might be frozen and then revived years
or decades later when cures are available.


Bogdan's experiments involved a form of water termed "glassy water," or 
low-density amorphous ice (LDA), which is produced by slowly supercooling 
diluted aqueous droplets. LDA melts into highly viscous water (HVW). Bogdan 
reports that HVW is not a new form of water, as some scientists believed.


"That HVW is not a new form of water (i.e., normal and glassy water are 
thermodynamically connected) may have some interesting practical implications in
cryobiology, medicine, and cryonics." Bogdan said.


"It may seem fantastic, but the fact that in aqueous solution, [the] water 
component can be slowly supercooled to the glassy state and warmed back without 
the crystallization implies that, in principle, if the suitable cryoprotectant 
is created, cells in plants and living matter could withstand a large 
supercooling and survive," Bogdan explained. In present cryopreservation, the 
cells being preserved are often damaged due to freezing of water either on 
cooling or subsequent warming to room temperature.


"Damage of the cells occurs due to the extra-cellular and intra-cellular ice 
formation which leads to dehydration and separation into the ice and 
concentrated unfrozen solution. If we could, by slow cooling/warming, supercool 
and then warm the cells without the crystallization of water then the cells 
would be undamaged."

Source: American Chemical Society

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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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