A key bottleneck to be addressed in regenerative medicine is hypothermic preservation of cells and tissues, which has been shown to extend survival of cell and tissue-based therapies by decreasing ischemic effect. However, preservation technology is aged, toxic and less effective than desired with typical cell survival post-thaw below 50% and unreliable potency. Current technology greatly hinders efforts to repair traumatic injury and chronic disease using new cell and tissue-based therapies. This proposed technology supports the critical preservation infrastructure needed to enable post-delivery assurance of therapy viability, function, and efficacy. The super-cooled storage formula and protocol developed during Phase I using commonly available freezers (-20C) will be broadly applied to preserve genitourinary cell types and then focused for the preservation of penile tissue at sub-zero temperatures (-20C for 1 week storage, -80C for 1 month storage). Tissue preservation and corresponding tissue transplants will be studied in collaboration using a murine model system developed at an esteemed USA medical school. The novel preservation formulas are made possible by negligibly toxic, hyper-effective anti-ice nanomaterials developed via biomimetic nanotechnology that can dramatically reduce the concentration of cytotoxic CPAs required to prevent tissue damaging ice formation by 50-90%, depending on temperature regime.
