Freezing People and Organs
Previously I mentioned nanowarming as a method to thaw out frozen cells or organs. [1][2] Generally the idea is to put in antifreeze and a thawing material ahead of time. The antifreeze keeps ice crystals from forming and breaking cell walls as the item is frozen, and the thawing material allows microwaves to warm everything quickly and evenly during the warming process.
This could be useful for preserving organs for transplant, or in space travel to remote planets or stars. If a person or animal or zygote is frozen, then they don’t consume oxygen and food, and don’t create wastes. So it’s a pretty efficient idea for traveling far, and the journey could take years or centuries, before arrival and thawing out.
This used to be just science fiction, but science is moving on. Recently at AARD 2024 (Aging Research and Drug Discovery) João Pedro Magalhães spoke about Cryopreservation as an emerging longevity technology. This could be used to preserve organs, in organ banks, increasing the organ supply. But could also be used to preserve entire humans awaiting life saving applications.
And of course we all hope that it could be used for long space journeys, which would allow travel to remote planets or even other stars.
