Texas A&M University researchers, led by Dr. Matthew Powell-Palm, published in Nature Scientific Reports (November 2025) that elevating glass transition temperature (Tg) in vitrification solutions prevents cracking in large organs during rapid cooling to -196°C liquid nitrogen storage, building on 2023 University of Minnesota rat kidney transplant success; funded by NSF Engineering Research Center.
For lunar habitation, this minimizes existential risks by enabling biocompatible, crack-free cryopreservation of organs, tissues, and biodiversity samples in Moon's extreme cold (-173°C nights), supporting long-term human restoration without ice crystal damage or structural failure under vacuum and radiation.
Ark team must monitor Texas A&M/NSF developments, license high-Tg solutions for integration into Ark biorepositories, and test on porcine organs under lunar simulant conditions by Q4 2026.