The living cell as a continuous electromagnetic field

Londres

Encuentro; THE PHYSICAL CELL - In search of the design principles of life; 2010

University Colledge London

An attempt to study a living cell as a physical system requires the adoption of some theoretical frame (e.g., classical mechanics for cell locomotion, classical fluidics for water diffusion through aquapores, electrical circuits theory for transmembrane potential, quantum chemistry for individual biomolecules, among others). In this work, a brief review on both classical and semi-classical, but also quantum electromagnetism shows the validity of conceiving a living cell as a region of space occupied by time varying electromagnetic fields. Adopting this picture as the starting point, time and space Fourier transforms yield alternative views of the cell in the (temporal and spatial) frequencies domains. Upon the preceding considerations, a) definitions for the non-trivial concepts of ‘structure’ and ‘process’ are posed in terms of spectral content of the field that represents the cell; and b) interference is posed as the main mechanism for interaction of extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields with living cells. Finally, two hypothesis are posed: one on a universal feature of all living cells, and another one on the possibility of cell line selectively trigger apoptosis using electromagnetic waves. This hypothesis provide for a unifying interpretation of a broad range of experimental results, suggest a comprehensive approach for future works, and invite to integrate efforts among the most diverse theoretical and experimental research groups dealing with the complexity of the physical cell.