Historically, cryoprotectants have been discovered by chance, with structure-property relationships being poorly understood. There is growing interest in the use of macromolecular cryoprotectants.

In this study we used a liquid handling system to produce 120 unique terpolymers using photopolymerisation with RAFT agents. These terpolymers were screened using a red blood cell freezing assay to identify the best and the worst polymer cryoprotectants, allowing us to explore the chemical space in a short time frame. Testing the hit polymers with a nucleated cell line demonstrated that the high throughput screen was able predict how well the polymers would perform as cryoprotective agents in a more complex assay. This new high throughput approach will allow us to identify new, potent macromolecular cryoprotectants.

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Combinatorial Biomaterials Discovery Strategy to Identify New Macromolecular Cryoprotectants