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"A new two-step process that safely rewarms frozen tissues using nanoscale magnetic rods could help preserve donor organs long-term. The procedure provides an alternative to current time-limited methods and paves the way for more life-saving transplantations. ...
Vitrification offers a means of long-term, damage-free preservation of organs. Unlike conventional freezing, which causes liquids to transition into a crystalline state, vitrification uses a cryoprotective agent to keep the fluids in a glass-like, amorphous state as the temperature drops and molecules slow down. The problem is that uniform and rapid heating is needed to prevent the formation of ice crystals. Now, researchers ... have devised a two-step method of safely and quickly thawing and rewarming organs using nanoscale magnetic rods. ..."
From the abstract:
"Rewarming cryopreserved samples requires fast heating to avoid devitrification, a challenge previously attempted by magnetic nanoparticle-mediated hyperthermia. Here, we introduce Fe3O4@SiO2 nanorods as the heating elements to manipulate the heating profile to ensure safe rewarming and address the issue of uneven heating due to inhomogeneous particle distribution. The magnetic anisotropy of the nanorods allows their prealignment in the cryoprotective agent (CPA) during cooling and promotes subsequent rapid rewarming in an alternating magnetic field with the same orientation to prevent devitrification. More importantly, applying an orthogonal static magnetic field at a later stage could decelerate heating, effectively mitigating local overheating and reducing CPA toxicity. Furthermore, this orientational configuration offers more substantial heating deceleration in areas of initially higher heating rates, therefore reducing temperature variations across the sample. The efficacy of this method in regulating heating rate and improving rewarming uniformity has been validated using both gel and porcine artery models."
The two-step process of rewarming vitrified organs using nanoscale magnetic rods
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