Overview

Nature dictates that biological material will decay and die. The structure and function of organisms will change and be lost with time, as surely in laboratory cultures as in the biologists who study and manipulate them. Attempts to stop the biological clock have been conjured by minds ancient and modern; at the heart of many such schemes have been experiments with temperature and water content. Whereas refrigeration technology provides a means of slowing the rate of deterioration of perishable goods, the use of much lower temperatures has proved a means of storing living organisms in a state of suspended animation for extended periods. The removal of water from viable biological material in the frozen state (freeze-drying) provides another means of arresting the biological clock by withholding water, and commencing again by its addition.