This principle has important applications in organ transplants. Today, standard organ preservation solutions allow a heart or a kidney to remain viable for less than 48 hours while it is outside the body. This brief window of opportunity forces surgeons to race against the clock, and often results in compromises, as an available organ has to be transplanted into an available donor even though tissue matching is less than ideal. This problem might be completely be eradicated if organs could be stored indefinitely at very low temperatures and then resuscitated for use only when precise matches became available. The primary goal at 21st Century Medicine has been to find ways of protecting cells from damage so that they will resume functioning after days or even months of storage.
Cryobiology is the science of preserving biological specimens at low temperatures.
This prevents ice from forming as the temperature drops.