Celebrating the First Publication from the CryoStore Doctoral Network!

We are delighted to celebrate the first publication from the PhD candidates of the CryoStore Doctoral Network and warmly congratulate the authors Paulina Pyrek, Amin Sayyari, Rosa M. Lino Neto Pereira, Filipa Ferreira, Linde Rombaut, Gunn Charlotte Østby, Jaana Peippo and Anette Kristine Krogenæs on this important achievement!

The newly published study, “Rapid warming improves blastocyst production of vitrified bovine oocytes while significantly affecting mitochondrial activity,” explores an important and relatively understudied aspect of oocyte cryopreservation: the warming step.

While research on vitrification has traditionally focused on optimizing cooling procedures, this study demonstrates that rapid warming can improve embryo production outcomes in vitrified bovine oocytes. Rapidly warmed oocytes showed higher cleavage and blastocyst rates compared with slowly warmed oocytes. At the same time, although rapid warming was associated with reduced mitochondrial activity, it did not significantly affect DNA integrity, cytoplasm expansion, or rupture.

These findings provide valuable new insights into how warming conditions can influence the developmental potential of cryopreserved oocytes and highlight the potential of rapid warming as an approach for improving in vitro embryo production.

As the first publication from the CryoStore Doctoral Network’s PhD candidates, this work marks an exciting milestone for the network and its young researchers. It is a wonderful start to their research journey and an excellent example of the innovative work being carried out within CryoStore.

Congratulations to the authors on this important first milestone! We look forward to celebrating many more publications and achievements from the CryoStore PhD candidates.

The article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cryobiol.2026.105714