# Viable Banking of Human Tissues

> **NIH NIH R01** · AUGUSTA UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $366,463

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Development of an effective cryopreservation technology for human tissues is necessary to address critical
biomedical needs by solving a worldwide shortage of transplantable human tissues and shelf-life problems of
engineered tissue constructs that hinder mass production, storage, distribution, and safety/quality control.
Moreover, the development of a reliable tissue preservation method would allow better tissue matching toward
increased overall success rates and reduced burden of immunosuppression. By enabling viable banking of
diseased tissues, an effective preservation method would also advance biomarker discovery and drug testing,
and thus personalized medicine toward new effective therapies of devastating diseases such as cancer.
Current preservation strategies are inadequate for multicellular complex tissues. The overall goal of the
proposed research is to meet the critical need for effective, widely applicable tissue preservation technology by
developing a novel approach to vitrification, a cryopreservation strategy involving the solidification of liquid in a
glass-like state using high concentrations of cryoprotective agents (CPAs). Vitrification is a promising
technique, but CPAs have inherent cytotoxicity. In fact, chemical toxicity of CPAs is considered to be the main
barrier to successful cryopreservation of complex tissues. Reduced CPA concentrations with increased cooling
and warming rates ameliorate toxicity, but sufficiently fast cooling and warming rates are difficult to achieve in
tissues and may lead to extreme thermal stresses, resulting in tissue cracking. To overcome the limitations of
current tissue preservation approaches, we propose to address chemical toxicity of CPAs using an
interdisciplinary approach of targeted interventions and biophysical modeling. Our preliminary studies revealed
that the primary toxicity of 1,2-propanediol (PROH), a preferred CPA, occurs through mitochondrial Ca2+
overload. We were able to completely prevent PROH’s toxicity in mouse oocyte, human fibroid and mouse
brain tissue models by using inhibitors of mitochondrial Ca2+ uniporter. Recently, we have also mathematically
optimized a procedure to add high CPA concentrations to endothelial cells with minimal cytotoxicity. Based on
these encouraging preliminary data, our central hypothesis is that an interdisciplinary approach combining
targeted inhibition of CPA toxicity with mathematical modeling and optimization can enable employment of high
CPA concentrations, leading to a versatile tissue vitrification method applicable to diverse tissues. The
proposed vitrification approach is innovative, because it circumvents the main barrier to the use of high CPA
concentrations (CPA toxicity), enabling better suppression of ice nucleation and devitrification; other
innovations include the development of a novel vitrification medium that can block ice crystal growth through
synthetic polymers and mitigate free radical damage by o...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9926261
- **Project number:** 5R01EB027203-03
- **Recipient organization:** AUGUSTA UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** ALI EROGLU
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $366,463
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-15 → 2022-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9926261

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9926261, Viable Banking of Human Tissues (5R01EB027203-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9926261. Licensed CC0.

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