Technology Advancements in Cryopreservation

F32 Postdoctoral Fellow
Massachusetts General Hospital

"Veloporation for Therapeutic Immune Cell Cryopreservation"
Universal immune cells have the potential to transform immunotherapy by providing ready-to-use treatments for cancer, infections, and other diseases. However, current preservation methods used to build cell banks often damage these cells, limiting their availability and effectiveness. In this presentation, I will discuss our work in developing a microfluidic chip that uses veloporation, a mechanoporation technique leveraging viscoelastic stretching, to enable rapid and high-throughput CPA loading while minimizing toxicity. This research seeks develops a novel and translatable preservation technique to store immune cells more efficiently, ensuring they remain functional and accessible, ultimately expanding the reach of lifesaving immunotherapies to more patients.

Bio: Natalie Livingston is an NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Mehmet Toner at MGH. She received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, where she worked on the development and characterization of cell-based therapies for immunotherapy. She continues this work now, with a shifted focus towards cell manufacturing and preservation.

Graduate Researcher
Massachusetts General Hospital

"Cryoweb Decouples Vitrification Efficiency from Sample Volume"
Vitrification preserves living systems by transforming them into a non-crystalline state. Despite its promise, current vitrification carriers are restricted to volumes below 5 µl. Here, we introduce cryoweb, a vitrification platform that preserves a constant surface-area-to-volume ratio. Using cryoweb, we achieved cooling rates exceeding 10,000 °C/min and warming rates above 200,000 °C/min in webs carrying more than 250 µl of hepatocyte suspension. Following rewarming, primary hepatocytes exhibited fresh-like performance. Cryoweb is readily scalable to 20 ml per device while maintaining identical thermal performance. By decoupling vitrification efficiency from sample volume, this approach overcomes a longstanding bottleneck in cell cryopreservation.

Bio: I am a physician-scientist in training. In 2024, I paused medical school in Belgium to pursue a PhD at the Center for Engineering in Medicine and Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital, under the mentorship of Prof. Korkut Uygun. My long-term mission is to remove cryopreservation as the bottleneck in cell therapies. More specifically, my work focuses on engineering a device for scalable vitrification of cells and organelles. In parallel, part of my work aims at designing novel cryoprotective molecules and microparticles.

Mechanical Engineering
University of Minnesota

"Aerosol Based High Throughput Cryopreservation"
Cell therapies require robust long term storage methods to enable widespread clinical deployment. Current approaches utilizing refrigeration or small-scale vitrification cannot meet the scalability and viability requirements for next-generation therapeutics. In this work we demonstrate a cryoaerosolization platform that achieves both ultra-rapid cooling rates ($>$200,000~\si{\celsius\per\minute}) and high throughput ($>$100~\si{\milli\liter\per\hour}) by generating micrometer-scale droplets and spraying in a liquid nitrogen stream. Using only $\approx$ 19 wt\% cryoprotectant, we achieved $>$90\% cell viability, comparable to low-throughput methods, but at two orders of magnitude higher processing rates.

Bio: PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at UMN, working on cryopreservation using experimental and numerical simulations

BioChoric Inc., Maximize Bio and University of California, Berkeley

"Isochoric Supercooling: Harnessing metastability for enhanced sub-zero ice-free preservation"
Conventional hypothermic organ preservation at 4 ± 4°C limits viable storage to hours, constraining transplant logistics, contributing to organ discard, and precluding adoption of immune tolerance induction protocols. Here, we discuss isochoric supercooling which maintains organs in a metastable liquid state below 0°C without ice formation by confining them within a rigid, liquid-filled, air-free vessel. Ice nucleation is suppressed by eliminating multi-phase interfaces and isolating the system from fluctuations and external perturbations. The resulting subzero temperatures further suppress metabolic processes, extending viable storage. Safety against freezing is quantified using probabilistic metrics derived from benchmark nucleation experiments and physics-based stochastic models. This approach integrates seamlessly into existing preservation workflows, requiring only a sealable rigid container and standard refrigeration without cryoprotectants, perfusion systems, or specialized instrumentation.

Bio: I am a postdoc in Prof. Boris Rubinsky's Biothermal Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. I study physical and thermodynamic aspects of biopreservation and engineer preservation devices.

Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Minnesota

"Enabling Nanowarming at Scale: Biocompatible Iron Oxide Nanoparticles for Translational Cryopreservation"
The ability to cryopreserve and rewarm whole organs without damage could transform transplantation by enabling long-term organ banking and global sharing. Our group has demonstrated successful transplantation of rat kidneys following cryopreservation and rewarming using nanowarming, in which silica-coated iron oxide nanoparticles (sIONPs) are perfused throughout the organ vasculature alongside cryoprotective agents (CPAs). After rewarming, both sIONPs and CPAs are washed out prior to transplantation. To enable translation to clinically relevant organ scales, the nanoparticles must be scalable, non-toxic, stable in CPAs, and clinically translatable.

Bio: Dr. Onyinyechukwu Oziri is a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, where she currently leads chemistry-focused research in Prof. John Bischof’s laboratory. Her work focuses on the development and scalable production of iron oxide nanoparticles for applications in nanowarming and cryopreservation. Her recent findings have been published in the journal Small. Dr. Oziri earned her PhD in Chemical Science and Engineering from Hokkaido University, Japan.

Bioheat and Mass Transfer Lab
University of Minnesota

"Medical Device Containers for Organ Vitrification & Cryogenic Transport"
We are developing medical device container technologies to enable safe transfer, transport, and storage of vitrified clinical-scale organs by overcoming fracture risk, thermal gradients, and trackability challenges. We engineered a vapor-phase LN₂ dry shipper with a custom organ holder to minimize temperature gradients and mechanical stress. In a vitrified pig kidney model, the system maintained < −120 °C for ~1 week without fracture or devitrification. Dry shippers also offer regulatory advantages for air transport. Additionally, we developed an X-ray–compatible cryogenic container enabling microCT imaging of vitrified human-scale organs for quality assessment during transport.

Bio: Dr. Lakshya Gangwar is a Postdoctoral Associate working in the Bioheat and Mass Transfer Lab led by Prof. John Bischof at University of Minnesota. His research focuses on scalable technologies for human organ cryopreservation by vitrification for medical benefits in organ transplantation. Trained as a mechanical engineer in thermal sciences, Dr. Gangwar completed his PhD from the University of Minnesota and Bachelor’s from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Dr. Gangwar serves in ASME Thermal Medicine Standards Committee and has been an Institute for Engineering in Medicine’s Walter Barnes Lang Fellow and Cryogenic Society of America’s Young Professionals in past.

Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering
Texas A&M University

CEO
BioChoric Inc.

Bio: Matt Powell-Palm is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, the CEO of BioChoric Inc., and the President of Maximize Bio. He works on both fundamental and translational aspects of multi-spectrum cryopreservation, and is passionate about expanding access to life-saving organ transplantation.

Executive Director
Strategic Planning and Product Development
AMF Lifesystems, LLC

Bio: Robert Goldstein, FASM is Executive Director of Strategic Planning and Product Development at AMF Lifesystems, LLC. He is currently conducting research in the areas of  methods for magnetic flux control, development of new induction thermal processing technologies, optimization of current induction thermal processing applications, and development of early-phase induction systems for biomedical applications. This work has led to significant advancements in steel heat treatment, inductive tube welding, additive manufacturing materials production and processing, creation and joining of multi-material components, semiconductor and compound semiconductor material production and processing, materials testing and ultra-high temperature material accelerated lifetime testing for deep space exploration, cancer hyperthermia treatments and rewarming of cryopreserved biological materials.