Cryobiology, surgery, engineering, and commercialization.

John Bischof is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of NorthStar Cryo. He is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota and holds the Medtronic-Bakken Endowed Chair for Engineering in Medicine. He directs the University's Institute for Engineering in Medicine and ATP-Bio, the NSF Engineering Research Center for Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems. His research in thermal bioengineering focuses on biopreservation, thermal therapy, and nanomedicine. He is a past President of the Society for Cryobiology and founded Vigilant Diagnostics LLC. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Society for Cryobiology, and the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Erik Finger is a co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of NorthStar Cryo. He is Professor of Surgery in the Division of Transplantation at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and holds the Eunice L. Dwan Endowed Chair for Diabetes Research. A multi-organ abdominal transplant surgeon focused on kidney, pancreas, and islet transplantation, he leads a research program in organ and tissue preservation and transplant immunology. With John Bischof, he co-leads the development of cryopreservation technologies for organs, tissues, and other biological systems. Their work includes the CryoMesh-based vitrification method for pancreatic islets, the first reproducible transplantation of rat kidneys after long-term cryogenic storage (up to 100 days), and, more recently, cryopreservation of human-scale pig kidneys for up to one year with restoration of function after nanowarming. He received his MD from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology and his PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from Harvard University. He trained in surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and in transplant surgery, transplant immunology, and islet transplantation research at UCSF.

Michael Etheridge is a co-founder of NorthStar Cryo and a co-inventor of the CryoMesh technology. He is Principal Research Engineer in the Bischof Lab and ATP-Bio at the University of Minnesota, where he leads work on the feasibility and translation of cryopreservation and rewarming technologies for regenerative medicine, including pancreatic islet transplantation. He brings more than 15 years of experience in cryopreservation and thermal therapies, including engineering roles at 3M and medical device development at Medtronic and AtriCure, where he led early-phase development of radiofrequency and cryoablation technologies. During his doctoral work at the University of Minnesota, he co-invented nanowarming, a method for rewarming cryopreserved tissues using radiofrequency heating of magnetic nanoparticles.

Daniel (Dan) Chen is a business and technical leader with deep experience in strategy, new product development, and international business development. During a 30-year career at 3M, he served as President of its global transportation safety and infrastructure business (2018 to 2023) and as Vice President for Respiratory Protection, where he led the integration of Scott Safety. Earlier, he led strategy and M&A for the Safety and Graphics Business Group, including the $2.5 billion acquisition of Capital Safety, and managed 3M's solar energy new product portfolio. Dan is an inventor or co-inventor on 8 patents, including patents for the 3M 9000 series respirator, the most popular flat-fold respirator design used today. He holds bachelor's and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin, and an Executive MBA from INSEAD.

Nathan Allen is a product management leader focused on biotechnology tools that bring novel therapies closer to the clinic. At NorthStar Cryo he leads product and project planning to develop CryoMesh as a tool for vitrification of cellular systems. He was previously Director of Product Management at Bio-Techne, where he built the product management function for a new business unit and led product launches for immune and stem cell expansion, including GMP-grade products. Before that, he directed product management at McKesson and held product and marketing roles at Thermo Fisher Scientific, including launches of cryopreservation and stem cell media product lines.

Zongqi Guo is Director of Engineering at NorthStar Cryo and an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Medical Engineering (affiliated) at the University of South Florida. As a postdoctoral fellow in John Bischof's group at the University of Minnesota, he developed vitrification-based cryopreservation methods for diverse organisms and cell types, including pancreatic islets, cell spheroids, coral larvae, and Drosophila embryos. His research spans heat transfer, surface modification, and micro- and nanofabrication, and he has published in journals including Advanced Science, Joule, and PNAS. He received his PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Joseph Sushil Rao is the Director of Clinical and Biological Sciences at NorthStar Cryo. Dr. Rao specializes in developing advanced preservation technologies for organ, tissue, and cellular therapies, with an emphasis on their clinical translation in transplantation. At the University of Minnesota, his research encompasses transplant immunology, genetic engineering of humanized porcine donors for xenotransplantation, and predictive hemodynamic modeling to optimize transplant outcomes. Dr. Rao has published his research in organ and tissue cryopreservation in Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, and other leading peer-reviewed journals.

Mehmet Toner is a Scientific Advisor to NorthStar Cryo. He is the Helen Andrus Benedict Professor of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology in the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. A co-founder of the Center for Engineering in Medicine & Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and founder of the NIH BioMEMS Resource Center, he is internationally recognized for work in low-temperature biology and biostabilization, tissue engineering, and microsystems bioengineering. His cryobiology research focuses on stabilizing mammalian cells and engineered tissues. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and a recipient of the 2025 Mustafa Prize. He has been a scientific founder of multiple startup companies. He received his PhD in Medical Engineering from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.