History and applications
Long-term preservation of viable and functional biological systems

Suspending the activity of a cell or biological tissue at will, while retaining the possibility of reactivating it, has the major advantage of making these complex systems available at any time, since, by their very nature, they take time to build up and are not systematically available.

The temporary suspension of biological activity is not simple, however, and is in principle antagonistic to life. Indeed, cellular metabolism is partly devoted to cell maintenance, which, when halted, gives way to the degradation of cellular components. However, the natural resistance of certain living systems to freezing, reported for decades, demonstrates the feasibility of reversible suspension of biological activities