Cryopreservation is the process of storing living systems in a viable condition at low temperatures for future use. Cryogenics is the branch of physics that studies the causes and effects of extremely low temperatures. Cryogenics usually relates to cryotechnologies such as producing liquefied gasses as well as to many other low temperature physical effects such as superfluidity and the behavior of Bose-Einstein condensates. Cryonics is the practice of keeping a clinically dead body at an extremely low temperature in hopes of restoring it to life later with the help of future medical advances. Although our research is of great interest to the cryonics community, 21st Century Medicine is not involved in cryonics.
Vitrification is preservation at extremely low temperatures without freezing.
Freezing causes ice crystal formation, which damages delicate structures such as blood vessels. Unlike freezing, vitrification is not harmful to even the most complicated of living systems. Vitrification creates a crystal-free immobilized liquid state also known as a glass.