cryopreservation

noun cryo·pres·er·va·tion \ ˌkrī-ō-ˌpre-zər-ˈvā-shən \

|Updated on: 12 Jun 2018

Definition of cryopreservation

: preservation (as of cells) by subjection to extremely low temperatures

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cryopreserve

play \ˌkrī-ō-pri-ˈzərv, ˈkrī-ō-pri-ˌzərv\ transitive verb

Recent Examples of cryopreservation from the Web

Many clinics still use older cryopreservation tanks that must be filled with liquid nitrogen by hand, and there is no standard set-up for alarms.

— chicagotribune.com, "Patients mobilize after malfunctions at fertility clinics damage thousands of eggs, embryos," 13 Mar. 2018
Many clinics still use older cryopreservation tanks that must be filled with liquid nitrogen by hand, and there is no standard set-up for alarms.

— chicagotribune.com, "Patients mobilize after malfunctions at fertility clinics damage thousands of eggs, embryos," 13 Mar. 2018
Sometime during the weekend of March 3, 2018, the cryopreservation tank at University Hospitals suddenly failed.

— sandee lamotte, CNN, "'Our future family...is gone': Parents in two cities grieve their lost embryos," 13 Mar. 2018
The cryopreservation process frees this germplasm of pathogens and buys the material an estimated couple-thousand years of viability.

— sena christian, Newsweek, "Breakfast in Post-Apocalypse America: Inside Colorado's Fort Knox of Food," 19 Nov. 2015
Many clinics still use older cryopreservation tanks that must be filled with liquid nitrogen by hand, and there is no standard set-up for alarms.

— amy goldstein, Washington Post, "Patients mobilize to take legal action against fertility clinics with malfunctions," 12 Mar. 2018
Before freezing methods were refined, fresh embryos were the only option, but as cryopreservation techniques improved, freezing embryos so that not all of the healthiest ones had to be transferred to the woman immediately became more popular.

— alice park, Time, "Frozen Embryos Are Just as Good for IVF as Fresh Ones," 11 Jan. 2018
Still, developing cryopreservation techniques that work on reef species has proved tricky.

— eva botkin-kowacki, The Christian Science Monitor, "From coral sperm banks to climate action: What's best to save reefs?," 13 July 2017
But there, tucked among other marine biology offices on the 28-acre Coconut Island in Hawaii’s Kāneʻohe Bay, Hagedorn and colleagues are working on a science-fiction solution: cryopreservation.

— eva botkin-kowacki, The Christian Science Monitor, "From coral sperm banks to climate action: What's best to save reefs?," 13 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'cryopreservation.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.