X-Message-Number: 15268
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 00:21:15 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Chemical Fixation

At some point during the past few days, someone (Bob?) mentioned chemical
fixation as an alternative to vitrification. As I understand it, this
option was considered and rejected many years ago, after an experiment at
the Red Cross which showed a) chemical fixation without refrigeration is
not adequate to prevent significant deterioration over a period of time,
as the fixative agent degrades tissue, and b) chemical fixation with
refrigeration causes worse structural damage than a conventional
cryoprotectant followed by refrigeration. I recall that the chemical
fixation creates such rigid bonds, when refrigeration adds its mechanical
stresses, the eventual breakdown of the system is more chaotic. Like
bending a substance that is brittle and shatters, as opposed to bending a
substance that retains some malleability.

The bottom line: ALL the easy obvious answers have been tried. Cryobiology
is not a new science, and the people pursuing it are not idiots. There is
no quick-fix. If there was, they would have found it by now. Research, as
Edison said, is 90 percent perspiration, 10 percent inspiration. Or was it
99 percent? This especially seems to apply to research involving
temperamental, delicate, fussy entities such as human cells.

--CP

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