Magnetic nanoparticles or allow organ frozen long-term preservation into reality

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"We have developed a unique technique for rapid heating of frozen tissue that does not compromise the activity of tissue cells," said John Bishop, professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota, who was interviewed by Science and Technology Daily. Will undoubtedly overcome a major obstacle in transplant medicine, or make the organ frozen to become a reality.
Bishop said that more than 60% of the heart and lung donations were discarded each year because they could not be kept on ice for more than four hours.
One of the main participants in the study, the University of Minnesota Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Chemistry postdoctoral researcher Gao Zhe told reporters that the current vitrification (the biological sample super-frozen into a glass-like state) is the only way to long-term preservation of tissue can be used to preserve cells Small biological samples such as sperm, eggs and umbilical cord blood.
Although the method can save the organ hypothermia, but unfortunately, in the process of thawing, organ tissue will be damaged due to the formation of ice crystals or even fragmentation, there is no effective long-term preservation of the organ method.
The team mixes the magnetic nanoparticles into the cryogenic cryogenic fluid and rapidly and uniformly heats the entire sample by applying an external electromagnetic field. They tested the technique with frozen human skin cells, part of the pig heart tissue and large capacity (up to 50 ml) of the pig artery, and the activity and functionality of the sample were fully restored. More importantly, after thawing, the nanoparticles can be completely eluted from the sample.
Although the technology can be used to quickly heat the entire frozen organ, but need to do further optimization, Bishao Fu said that the application prospects of the technology is very optimistic, at present, animal organ related experiments are in progress, most likely 7-10 years began to human organ preservation experiment. In addition, the technique can also be used to send cancer cells to make their fatal thermal pulse to treat cancer.
The results of this research have been published in the journal Science and Translational Medicine.