THz and Biology

THz Spectroscopy of Proteins in Aqueous Media

This project aims to achieve a world first: to experimentally demonstrate—using an interdisciplinary approach involving biologists, physicists, and electronics engineers specializing in terahertz (1 THz = 10¹² Hz) instrumentation—the mechanisms used by biomolecules to communicate with one another over long distances and under typical physiological conditions.
A scientific breakthrough related to this project therefore lies in demonstrating the activation (under physicochemical conditions typical of the cellular cytoplasm) of long-range, high-frequency electromagnetic interactions within a living cell. By selectively attracting the various molecular partners involved in specific biochemical reactions, these interactions would govern the “molecular machinery.” The demonstration of these interactions would represent a revolution in our understanding of how living matter functions.

BSA oscillations outside thermodynamic equilibrium.

These long-range interactions between biomolecules (where “long” means up to a few hundred nanometers) will be demonstrated, in particular, by measuring the emitted electromagnetic field using a biocompatible THz near-field experiment. The development of such instrumentation in itself holds the promise of technological advances.

In terms of applications, this project paves the way for non-chemical, external control of basic cellular functions (gene expression, metabolism, mitosis, etc.) through entirely new, non-pharmaceutical medical interventions. It may help explain the therapeutic effects widely observed when electromagnetic fields—applied from the outside—are used on cancer cells.

• September 3, 2018: Publication of an article in *Physical Review X* titled “Out-of-equilibrium collective oscillation as phonon condensation in a model protein.”
• Nardecchia et al., “Out-of-equilibrium collective oscillations of a model protein in the THz frequency domain,” link to ArXiv (2017).