The Primary Branches Relating to Cryotechnology

Aguila, May Therese

Cabahug Allan Gray

Carvajal, Karl Adrial

Elarcosa, Dennise

St. Paul University Dumaguete City

Abstract

Cryotechnology is a kind of techonology that is incorporate with low temperatures, for instance,

cryonics, cryoelectronics, cryosurgery, cryopumping, cryobiology and cryogenics. In this paper,

Cryosurgery, Cryopreservation and Cryosurgery will be the researchers' focus. Cryotechnology

is generally implied as the science and advancement of low-temperature condition for

applications. Cryotechnology is unending headway of very low temperatures and their impact on

different portion of our life. Cryotechnology intends to pass on cold, yet the term has built up an

evidently broad suggestion over broad stretches of utilization by experts and investigators.

Today, the word Cryotechnology is associated with the age and assessment of low-temperature
Branches of Cryotechnology 2

The Primary Branches Relating to Cryotechnology

Introduction

Cryotechnology is a type of techonology that is involve with low temperatures

such as cryonics, cryoelectronics, cryosurgery, cryopumping, cryobiology and

cryogenics. In this paper, Cryosurgery, Cryopreservation and Cryosurgery will be the

researchers’ focus. Cryogenics is generally referred as the science and innovation of low-

temperature condition for applications. The word cryo has its source in the Greek

language where "kryos" signifies ice or cold. Cryotecnology is unending development of

extremely low temperatures and their impact on different aspect of our day to day basis.

It is also defined as the science and technology of temperatures below 120 K.

The field of low temperature technologies progressed during World War II when

researchers found that metals solidified to low temperatures demonstrated more

protection from the war. The businesses that involves low temperature was established in

1966 by Ed Busch. Busch established an organization in Detroit called CryoTech in

1966. Despite the fact that CryoTech later converged with 300 Below to make the biggest

and most seasoned business organization on the planet. They initially explored different

avenues regarding the likelihood of expanding the life of metal devices to anyplace

between 200 percent to 400 percent of the first future utilizing cryotechnology. This

toughening advanced in the late 1990s into the treatment of different items, for example,

melodic instruments where it improves sound quality, sluggers, golf clubs hustling

motors where it makes more prominent execution under pressure, guns where less
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distortion happens after consistent shooting, blades, extremely sharp edges, brake rotors

and even pantyhose.

Cryotechnology intends to deliver cold, yet the term has built up an increasingly

broad suggestion over long periods of utilization by engineers and researchers. Today, the

word Cryotechonology is related with the generation and investigation of low-

temperature. This paper aims to introduce some of the different components of

Cryotechnology to others who has little to no idea what is it about. It tries to explain in a

structured information and the basic highlights of the branches of Cryotechnology. It

tackles about the essential background of different kinds of Cryotechnology.

Elements of Cryotechnology

Cryopreservation

Cryopreservation also known as cryoconservation is a process wherein cells, tissues,

organs and many more that relates to other biological constructs that are susceptible to damage

unregulated reaction kinetics are being preserved at a low enough temperature that is suitable for

the biological material not to cause further damage. The intention of cryopreservation is to preserve

structurally intact living cells and tissues for a long period of time to prevent the loss of genetic

diversity.

In 1949, an English biologist namely Ernest John Christopher Polge, was the first to solve

the mystery of how to preserve living cells and tissues at very low temperatures. One of the most

important early theoreticians that uses cryopreservation was James Lovelock in 1953. In the mid-

1950’s he experimented the rodents using cryopreservation, discovering that hamsters could be

frozen by 60% of the water in the brain crystallized into ice with no adverse effects on the other

hand, other organs were unfortunately susceptible to damage.

Cryopreservation was applied to humans beginning in 1954 with three pregnancies

resulting from the insemination of previously frozen sperm. Fowl sperm was cryopreserved in

1957 by a team of scientists in the UK directed by Christopher Polge.

Many methods have been developed for various types of cells, tissues and organs due to

an unanticipated discovery by Polge and co-workers of the cryoprotective effect of glycerol. The

progression in the field has come from empirical work as well as from fundamental cryobiology

and due to more in-depth understanding of the causes of cryo-injury the cryopreservation methods

continuously improved over time. The most commonly used methods that would prevent

cryopreservation damages are a well established combination of controlled rate and slow freezing

and a newer flash-freezing process known as vitrification. These are quite different methods, but

relate to the same physico-chemical relationships. The difference between the two main methods

will be explained further:

Cells in slow-freezing are to be cooled below freezing point. At some stage, ice

masses containing pure crystalline water will form and what remains between the growing ice

masses is the so-called unfrozen fraction. Slow cooling is needed in order to allow sufficient efflux

of water to minimize the chance of intracellular ice formation. As cooling continues, the viscosity

of the unfrozen fraction ultimately becomes too high for any further crystallization. The remaining

unfrozen fraction turns into an amorphous solid that contains no ice crystals.

Virtrification also known as flash-freezing process is the transformation of a

substance into a glass, that is to say a non-crystalline amorphous solid. According to this

definition,cells that are properly slow frozen become “vitrified”. Vitrification methods involve the

use of a medium that has a very high solute concentration to begin with. Thus, ice cannot form in

any part of the sample. As no ice forms, cooling does not have to be slow. In fact, it may be

beneficial to cool very rapidly. The vitrified state and the associated physico-chemical conditions
Branches of Cryotechnology 6

obtained using vitrification methods, are to some extent similar to those obtained by slow cooling,

but the way of reaching this point is quite different.

In human medicine, cryopreservation has gained its importance when its usage in infertility

treatment was realized. Since then, gamete cryopreservation has been developed to solve fertility

problems in this field. In the field of cryopreservation, sperm was the first reproductive cell to be

successfully frozen and still remains the easiest to freeze because of containing low amounts of

cytoplasm and consequently low quantity of water. Sperm and semen can be used almost

indefinitely after proper cryopreservation. Overall, cryopreservation can be used as a first-line

means of preserving fertility for men undergoing vasectomy or treatments that may compromise

their fertility, such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or surgery.

The first case of embryo cryopreservation for fertility preservation took place in 1996, with

the application of a natural In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) cycle prior to chemotherapy in a woman

diagnosed with breast cancer. Cryopreservation of mature oocytes is a proven technique for

preserving the reproductive capacity. Results from a retrospective study of 11,768 cryopreserved

human embryos that underwent at least one thaw cycle from 1986 to 2007 showed that there was

no significant impact of the duration of storage on clinical pregnancy, miscarriage, implantation,

or live birth rate, whether from IVF or oocyte donation cycles. Since oocytes are highly prone to

chilling injury; cryopreservation of immature oocytes and ovarian tissue is a promising approach

with reports of live births-but the need for investigational improvements remain.

Adult stem cells are capable of differentiating into multiple types of specific cells and can

be obtained from various locations other than bone marrow, including fat tissue, the periosteum,
Branches of Cryotechnology 7

amniotic fluid, and umbilical cord blood. Clearly, the fields of tissue engineering, gene therapy,

regenerative medicine, and cell transplantation are largely dependent on the ability to preserve,

store, and transport these stem cells without modification of their genetic and/or cellular contents.

Hepatocytes have found important applications in science and medicine over the past 40

years in a wide range of areas, including physiological studies, investigations on liver metabolism,

organ preservation and drug detoxification, and experimental and clinical transplantation. There is

a current increase of interest in the applications of liver progenitor cells across a range of scientific

areas, including both regenerative medicine and biotechnology, which raises the need for

cryobanking.

Cryosurgery

In the years 1845-1851, using freezing temperature to destroy tissues, therapeutically

began in England when James Arnott, the father of modern cryosurgery and pioneer of

cryotherapy describe the iced salt solutions usage to freeze advance cancers in accesible areas

and also reduces the tumor size and ameliorates the pain. In the late 1990s, with the use of

solidified carbon dioxide, and later when liquid nitrogen and nitrous oxide became available, a

better and improved freezing techniques were possible. When the modern cryosurgical apparatus

was developed by Cooper in 1961, revivification of interest in cryosurgery began and techniques

for different clinical conditions, including visceral cancer, developed, after underlying

widespread clinical trials developed during the 1970s, some utilizations of the technique were no

longer used and others turned into standard treatment. There were further development in
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apparatus and imaging techniques have allowed increased clinical use in neoplastic disease,

including visceral cancer.

James Arnott is an English physician who published on the use of cold between 1817 and

1879. He was the first person to use the freezing temperature for the destruction of tissues. To

palliate a tumor, he used a mixture of salt and ice which reduces the pain and local hemorrhage.

Arnott stated that a very low temperature will arrest every inflammation which is near enough to

the surface to be accessible to its influence. Cancer of the breast, uterine and skin have been

treated by Arnott. Though he was more focused on Palliative care he discovered how the cold

can cure cancers, stating that the cases he had seen are the ones who has no curability of cancer

by congelation.

Cryosurgery is important because this medical procedure destroys the abnormal tissues

like tumors or cancers in the body. Even it is not the first line of defense in most cancer cases, it

can be performed when the other forms of treatment or therapy did not work or really proven

unsuccessful, especially when the cancer comes back into the body following other treatments.

Cryonics

Cryonics is the very low-temperature freezing in human corpses. Cryonic aims at

keeping such individual refrigerated confinement with the speculation of resurrecting these

corpses in the future. Cryonic is still regarded as a theory or scepticism with the science

community
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It was in 1954 that cryopreservation was applied to the cells of human with frozen sperm

that was thawed and inseminated three women. Cryonics was first proposed in the 1960s by a

Michigan educator, Robert Ettinger in the book “The Prospect of Immortality”, which argued

that death could, in fact, be a reversible process.

Three public organizations were established in the early days (starting 1960s); Cryo-care

Equipment Corporation, Cryonics Society of New York and Cryonics Society of California. The

first body to be frozen in cryonics with the desire for future restoration was James Bedford’s

body, a few hours after his cancer-caused death in 1967. His body was frozen by Robert Nelson,

a previous TV repairman with no specific background. Bedford’s body is the only one frozen

before 1974 and still safeguarded today.

It is illegal to frozen human while medically alive. So the science community have to

wait for someone to be declared dead before they go for cryonic freezing. In France, cryonic

freezing is not allowed for the mode of disposing body; only burial, cremation, and formal

volunteer or donations to science are allowed. However, shipping your body to another country

may be possible. There may be countries who allowed cryonics like Russia, U.S. and Germany

but there are some who prohibits at preserving your body based on cryonics. However, courts

began to exercise jurisdiction over the body and use discretion in carrying out of the wishes of

the deceased person.

Writing in Bioethics in 2009, David Shaw examines cryonics’ ethical status. The

arguments against it include altering the notion of death, the cost of preservation and
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regeneration, lack of science advancement to permit regeneration, temptation to use early

euthanasia, and disaster failure. Cryonic arguments include the prospective advantage to society,

the prospect of immortality, the advantages of avoiding death. Shaw discusses the cost and

potential payoff and applies Pascal’s Wager’s tailored version to the issue.

The method has been tested on mammals but it has not worked and yet the service is

being offered by companies for a fee.

All they can promise is storage and tracking at extremely low temperatures in liquid

nitrogen until such moment as medical technology evolves to revive patients.

General Discussion

Cryotechnology is a kind of techonology that is incorporate with low temperatures, for

instance, Cryonics, Cryoelectronics, Cryosurgery, Cryopumping, Cryobiology and Cryogenics. It

is also described as the science and development of temperatures underneath 120 K.

Cryotechnology intends to pass on cold, yet the term has built up an inflexibly wide suggestion

over broad stretches of use by planners and investigators.

Cryotechnology has a lot of elements and some of these are Cryopreservation,

Cryosurgery and Cryonics. The first element is Cryopreservation, Cryopreservation otherwise

called cryoconservation is a procedure wherein cells, tissues, organs and a lot more that identifies

with other natural builds that are helpless to harm unregulated response energy are being

safeguarded at a low enough temperature that is appropriate for the organic material not to bring

on additional harm.

In human medication, cryopreservation has picked up its significance when its use in

fruitlessness treatment was figured it out. From that point forward, gamete cryopreservation has

been created to take care of fruitfulness issues in this field. In the field of cryopreservation,

sperm was the principal regenerative cell to be effectively solidified and still remains the most

straightforward to solidify in view of containing low measures of cytoplasm and thus low

amount of water. Sperm and semen can be utilized uncertainly after legitimate cryopreservation.

Second is Cryosurgery, using freezing temperature to destroy tissues, it is the usage of

iced salt solutions to freeze advance cancers in accessible areas and also reduces the tumor size

and ameliorates the pain. James Arnott is an English physician, was the pioneering person who

use the freezing temperature for the destruction of tissues. To diminish a tumor, he used a
Branches of Cryotechnology 12

concoction of salt and ice which minimizes the pain. An extremely low temperature will stop

inflammation. Cryosurgery is vital because this medical procedure destroys the abnormal tissues

like tumors or cancers in the body.

Lastly, Cryonics Cryonics is the extremely low-temperature solidifying in human

bodies. Cryonic targets keeping such individual refrigerated imprisonment with the theory of

reviving these bodies later on. Cryonic is still viewed as a hypothesis or doubt with the science

network. It is connected to the cells of human with solidified sperm that was defrosted and

inseminated. Cryonics was first proposed during the 1960s by a Michigan teacher, Robert

Ettinger. However, it has still its lapses ethically and was called unlawful to solidified human

while restoratively alive. In France, cryonic solidifying was not took into consideration as a

method of arranging body.

Overall, Cryotechnology is by and large inferred as the science and progression of low-

temperature condition for applications. Cryotechnology is unending progress of low

temperatures and their effect on various part of our life. Cryotechnology has yet to be developed

clearly over wide stretches of use by specialists as the world ages

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