Cryopreservation—the science of preserving living tissues by cooling them to very low temperatures—may sound like something from a science fiction movie.
But researchers have been working on it for nearly a century.
The dream is to freeze and store organs long enough so they can be transported and transplanted when needed.
In 2023, scientists at the University of Minnesota made history by successfully transplanting a cryopreserved kidney into another rat. This breakthrough gave hope that human organ banks might one day become a reality.
But there’s still a major hurdle: when larger organs are frozen, they often crack, making them unusable.
A research team from Texas A&M University, led by mechanical engineering professor Dr. Matthew Powell-Palm, has taken a big step toward solving this problem.
Their recent study looks closely at why organs crack during cryopreservation—and how to stop it.
The key technique is called vitrification. Instead of allowing ice crystals to form, which damage cells, scientists place tissues into a special solution and cool them into a glass-like state. This process “freezes time” for the cells, keeping them intact. But the challenge is that glass-like materials are also brittle, so when temperatures change, they can crack.
Dr. Powell-Palm’s team focused on a property called the glass transition temperature. This is the point at which a solution becomes glass-like.
They found that solutions with a higher glass transition temperature were less likely to crack. In other words, tweaking the chemistry of the vitrification solution could make frozen organs tougher and more reliable.
“Cracking is only part of the problem,” Dr. Powell-Palm explained. “The solutions must also be safe for living tissue.” That means researchers now need to design formulas that both prevent cracks and protect cells.
The implications go far beyond organ transplants. Cryopreservation is already used in fertility treatments and could help in wildlife conservation, vaccine storage, and even reducing food waste.
With stronger, more stable solutions, the technology could expand to preserve many kinds of biological samples, from single cells to entire organs.
Dr. Guillermo Aguilar, head of the mechanical engineering department at Texas A&M and co-author of the study, described the work as a “seminal contribution” to understanding how glass-like materials behave in biology. He believes it could reshape the future of life sciences.
The project brought together students and researchers from multiple fields—mechanical engineering, chemistry, physics, and cryobiology. “At its core, mechanical engineering is about understanding how things work,” said Dr. Powell-Palm. “Our team applied that mindset to one of the biggest challenges in medicine.”
This research moves us one step closer to a future where organs can be preserved safely, giving countless patients a second chance at life.
