CellStore Chief Scientist Professor Jianjun Wang and his collaborators have published a landmark study in Nature.
The paper, titled “Graphene oxide-polydopamine membranes with controlled interlayer spacing,” presents a novel method for achieving continuous, sub-angstrom regulation of membrane interlayer spacing.
By investigating the crystallization behavior of both bulk and nanoconfined water, the team established a precise temperature window that separates rapid dopamine assembly from slower polymerization and covalent reactions. This temporal separation enables continuous tuning of the membrane’s interlayer spacing, followed by structural stabilization — a level of control previously unattainable.
This research reflects the scientific pathway that defines CellStore’s core mission:
Understanding Ice – revealing how water crystallizes and undergoes phase transitions in confined environments
Designing Ice – translating these mechanisms into rational formulations and time–temperature pathways
Controlling Ice – making freezing processes tunable, reproducible, and scalable
Although the study focuses on membrane materials rather than cryopreservation, its scientific methodology is highly relevant to biological sample preservation. Ice nucleation, crystal growth, unfrozen water, and local solute concentration are all factors that directly influence post-thaw cell viability and function — the very challenges CellStore addresses through its advanced cryopreservation media and technologies.
“At CellStore, we aim to advance fundamental ice science toward the high-quality preservation of cells, tissues, and other biological samples,” said Professor Wang. “ This publication is a testament to our ongoing commitment to understanding and controlling ice — because the future of medicine depends on what we preserve today.”
The research was conducted in collaboration with leading institutions and supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Read the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10765-4
