ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Since 1984, vitrication has been used with rapidly expanding frequency to accomplish cryopreservation in a way that was not previously possible (Figure 1.1). e expected number of new citations of vitrication to appear in PubMed from the time the previous edition of the present volume was published to the end of 2014 is projected to be in the vicinity of 1600-1700 papers, if not more. It is not possible for a short review to encompass all of the ndings in this rapidly expanding literature, or even just all of the ndings in the realm of reproductive cryobiology, but it is possible to place this research into
a broader perspective, and that is the goal of the present chapter. It is worth noting, however, that the general popularity of vitrication was originally based on its e- cacy for preserving embryos,1 and that a major portion of the continuing interest in this technique is sustained by reproductive cryobiologists. ere is now a vast literature describing the present use of vitrication for the routine cryopreservation of human2,3 and animal3 embryos, and for more experimental but increasingly routine cryopreservation of ovarian tissue,4,5 ova,6-8 and even small whole ovaries.9
