By far the biggest concern is not microbial growth in tissues, but massive cellular disruption by enzymes and other chemicals already present, and just the lack of active processes which work hard to maintain homeostasis. Cryopreservation arrests all these processes.
With irradiation you might be able to preserve gross morphology, but the chances of preventing information theoretic death are almost nil in my opinion. Even straight freezing would be preferred (with no cryoprotectants).
You are likely right; even if freeze fracture ocurred at every membrane the nonreversible chemical combinations of being at 32.0000001 have much higher data obliteration
part of the idea was based based on the idea that frozen chicken tastes more peculiar than radiation sterilized chicken; I thought perhaps my tongue might be sensing a wide range of chemical changes from the freeze thaw process; its plausible that [freeze fracture then thaw, then rest at room temp] is more enzymatically active than radiation sterilized chicken with enzymes sequesterd at non freeze fracture membranes then a few months at room temp
I was just impressed that a few hours of thaw post freezing had more detectable peculiarity than a few months of radiation sterilized room temp
on a humorous note that suggests cryopreserved persons should avoid thawing then sitting around a few hours at room temp
Edited by treonsverdery, 16 January 2008 - 07:02 PM.