Advanced cryopreservation as an emergent and convergent technological platform Evelyn Brister a,* , Paul B. Thompson b , Susan M. Wolf c , John C. Bischof d a Department of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology, United States b Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, United States c Law School, Medical School, Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences, University of Minnesota, United States d Department of Mechanical Engineering, Institute for Engineering in Medicine, University of Minnesota, United States A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Cryopreservation Emerging technology Convergent technology Platform technology Engineering Ethics ABSTRACT Advanced cryopreservation technologies have the potential to transform organ transplants, biomedical research, food storage, aquaculture, biodiversity repositories, ecological restoration, and numerous other applications. These surpass the capability of existing cryopreservation technologies to extend the life and viability of biological materials at various scales from cells to tissues, organs, and entire organisms. In this article, we demonstrate why innovations in advanced cryopreservation, which we analyze as emergent, convergent platform technologies, raise novel concerns for research ethics and coordination, governance, and equitable access to benefits. As emerging technologies, they may disrupt markets or destabilize social institutions, including the systems that govern the distribution of organs for transplant. As convergent technologies, their impact will be heightened through interaction with other technologies. The technologies that may intensify the social and ethical effects of advanced cryopreservation include information technologies that permit the administration of complex logistics of storage and transport, biotechnologies for the management of floral and faunal species and populations, and 3D printing technologies that may enable the development and distribution of customizable peripheral com- ponents of this platform technology. The speed of development among diverse applications of the core platform is likely to vary between sectors in ways that are responsive to public support as well as to ethical constraints, and advancements in any sector will affect the achievement of reliability for the core technology across sectors. We recommend that societal benefits and risks be assessed both in the specific contexts for which peripheral components are developed and for the core technology. 1. Introduction Advanced cryopreservation technologies have transformative po- tential for applications in biomedicine, agricultural and aquaculture food production, and conservation. While conventional cryopreserva- tion has long been used to extend the life and viability of biological materials, advanced cryopreservation techniques promise more than incremental improvements. They manipulate temperature, concentra- tion of cryoprotective agents (CPAs), and pressure and make use of novel rewarming strategies —including through infusion of nanoparticles and electromagnetic rewarming—to radically extend the potential duration of biopreservation and the materials that can be successfully preserved. By enabling long-term storage of cells, tissues, and organisms, these newer technologies expand options for human organ transplants, biomedical therapies and research, and the conservation of seeds or embryos, including genetic resources from a wide variety of plants and animals for food and conservation purposes. Advanced cryopreservation technologies could also enable long-distance transportation of human, animal, and plant cells, tissues, and organisms and are a step toward scaling up activities to support human health, food security, and species conservation. By slowing decay and thus pausing biological time, cryopreservation technologies allow the movement of people, tools, instruments, and biological materials for the sake of supporting human and ecosystem health and facilitating production and reproduction. For Abbreviations: CPA, (Cryoprotective agent); (ERC), Engineering Research Center; (ATP-Bio℠), for Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems; (NNI), National Nanotechnology Initiative. * Corresponding author. 92 Lomb Memorial Dr., Rochester, NY, 14623, United States. E-mail addresses: elbgsl@rit.edu (E. Brister), thomp649@msu.edu (P.B. Thompson), swolf@umn.edu (S.M. Wolf), bischof@umn.edu (J.C. Bischof). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Technology in Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/techsoc https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2024.102754 Received 15 May 2023; Received in revised form 11 September 2024; Accepted 1 November 2024 Technology in Society 79 (2024) 102754 Available online 2 November 2024 0160-791X/© 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.