X-Message-Number: 28071
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 06:48:21 -0700
From: Edgar Swank <>
Subject: Latest research supports possibility of cyropreservation

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-06/acs-sp062006.php

Public release date: 20-Jun-2006

Contact: Michael Bernstein

202-872-4400
American Chemical Society

Slow-frozen people? Latest research supports possibility of cyropreservation

WASHINGTON   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 cyropreserved 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 cyropreservation 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 cyroprotectant is created, cells in plants and living matter 
could withstand a large supercooling and survive," Bogdan explained. In 
present cyropreservation, 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."


-- 
Edgar W. Swank   <>
President - American Cryonics Society
http://AmericanCryonics.org
Phone: 408-227-3471
Cell:  408-605-4721
FAX:   810-277-7274

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