Room temperature vaccines - Brillant!

[erick]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/18/2823952.htm

[AstralTraveller]

It certainly sounds great. The only issue I see is that the vacine needs to have water added to reactivate it and clean water may be hard to find. Still, making clean water has to be easier than getting refrigeration.

[erick]

The medical worker could carry a bottle of sterile water with them?

[avandonk]

I would bet two that the sugar is Trehalose. We were using it twenty years ago to protect our protein crystals against cryo freezing. It is a sugar found in plants and small insects and animals that can withstand freezing and or dessication. It has the unique property that to the DNA, RNA or protein it forms a 'glass' that mimics the water of solution so that these molecules 'think' they are still in a lovely polar water environment.

It is now finally being used to protect fertilized human ova when they are cryo stored. Previously only unfertilised ova could be stored under cryo conditions.

For cryo protection it stops ice crystal formation. For dessication it leaves a layer of glassy sugar that protects the structural integrity of the DNA, RNA or protein.

Sorry it will not work to protect your body from cryo freezing as all your cell mebranes are impervious to this size of molecule. There is a frog in Canada that survives their winters frozen. This frog has cell membranes that actually actively control Trehalose concentration so that the extremities freeze first and the last is the heart. When thawing out these same concentration gradients then are responsible for the whole frog thawing out at once!

All these people who froze their bodies cryogenically are fools. Every cell membrane has been damaged beyond repair by ice crystals.

A simple experiment just freeze a nice crisp lettuce leaf in your freezer. When it thaws out it is limp because even the tough cellulose cell membranes are destroyed by ice crystals.

Bert