The future is now, as researchers just developed a new technique, which makes it possible for them to rapidly defrost cryopreserved human and pig tissue without damaging it.
Cryopreservation is a much sought after option for many a people now owing to popular culture; it is the ability to preserve tissues for long periods using liquid nitrogen with the intent of bringing the tissue potentially humans back to life without any damage; a feat the worlds science community has been aspiring to achieve for decades.
It is not only to extend our life spans but would enable hospitals to safely store organs for extended periods of time.
Research lead, John Bischof says, "If only half of these discarded organs were transplanted, then it has been estimated that wait lists for these organs could be extinguished within two to three years."
So the better resolve comes in the guise of cryopreservation, having the tissue be stored at temperatures around -80 to -190 degrees Celsius.
Instead of using already established ways of thawing that have proven to be unfortuitous, the team used nanoparticles to heat tissues at the same rate all at once, which means ice crystals which end up destroying the tissue in the process of defrosting - do not form and the tissue is unharmed.
"This is the first time that anyone has been able to scale up to a larger biological system and demonstrate successful, fast, and uniform warming of hundreds of degrees Celsius per minute of preserved tissue without damaging the tissue," Bischof added.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.