An international gathering of researchers and practitioners who think about the effects of cold on biological systems will brave North Carolina's summer heat next week in the Queen City.
The scientists are experts in biology at low temperatures — or cryobiology. Technically, this is the field that investigates how biology happens at temperatures ranging from refrigeration to freezing, and even down to the evaporation point of nitrogen. Practical examples of cryobiology applications abound.
"Think about going to the doctor and having a wart frozen off. That is cryobiology," explained Gloria Elliott, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Some surgeries to treat cancers employ techniques invented by cryobiologists. Blood banks, organ transplantation, and preservation of rare animal, plant, and aquatic species all depend on understanding what happens when you put life, so to speak, on ice.
Those and other topics will be the subject of conversation starting Sunday in Charlotte at the Society for Cryobiology's 45th Annual Conference, Cryo 2008. This international meeting is held every other year in the United States, and this year, the Society chose Charlotte as the host city.
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte is home to a rare concentration of scientists working in this field. Robin Coger, Ph.D., and Charles Lee, Ph.D., join Elliot as this year's Cryo2008 local planning committee. The three make their home in UNC-Charlotte's mechanical engineering department, where a conscious effort was made to create a complementary stronghold of this specialized knowledge.
"The intention was to build bioengineering strength within our department," said Coger, Professor and Interim Chair of Mechanical Engineering. "Establishing a critical mass of faculty creates the strong technical community critical to generating novel innovations."
The program of Cryo2008 includes four days of sessions, some geared to practicing clinicians. Many of the plenary sessions are focused on translational medicine — the part of research that takes a finding from the laboratory and applies it to improving health.
"Our goal for this year's conference is to emphasize the cryobiology successes that have been realized in translational medicine and to highlight remaining challenges that can be addressed with emerging technologies," Elliott said.
"Translational medicine moves biomedical advancements created in the laboratory to practical use for patient care," Coger added.
A draft of the program is available on the conference Web site, and on-site registrations are welcome. Attendees and speakers will travel from all over the world, representing many different scientific disciplines. Those involved in cryobiology are engineers, biologists, surgeons, zoologists, and plant scientists, to name a few.
This meeting will also feature speakers from North Carolina. Representatives of Duke Translational Medicine Institute, Duke University Medical Center, East Carolina University, and UNC-Charlotte are among the scheduled presenters.
"We are using the opportunity to introduce people to Charlotte, and to North Carolina," said Lee, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and Cryo2008 chairperson. "The two have much to offer the cryobiology community."