Taking lessons from nature to improve cell therapy cryopreservation

Cryopreservation is crucial to the delivery of cell-based therapies, breaking logistical bottlenecks that would otherwise compromise both the manufacturing and accessibility of the intervention. Conventional methods of cryopreservation leveraged by the cell therapy industry remain, for the most part, unchanged from those developed in the 1950s shortly following discovery of the first cryoprotective agents (CPAs). These methods suffice but, in many ways, have been proven suboptimal. While this may not be significant cause for concern in most basic science research settings, it certainly is the case clinically as even minor alterations in the post-thaw efficacy of a therapeutic product could impact patient outcomes. An overarching tenet in cryobiology that is guiding recent developments to improve the standards of cryopreservation involves marrying substitutes for dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), the historically ‘gold-standard’ CPA, with additives that protect against ancillary sources of cryoinjury. It is primarily mechanisms through which natural organisms tolerate environmental stressors that are serving as a template for promising developments in cryobiology that could prove invaluable when integrated into cell therapy cryopreservation protocols. The present article aims to provide an overview of these strategies and contextualize their potential to improve the current standards of cryopreservation.

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