A.P. Rytik1, V.V. Tuchin2

1,2 Saratov National Research State University n.a. N.G. Chernyshevsky (Saratov, Russia)
2 Institute of Problems of Precision Mechanics and Control, Federal Research Center «Saratov Scientific Center
of the Russian Academy of Sciences» (Saratov, Russia)
1 ra4csz@ya.ru, 1, 2 tuchinvv@mail.ru

The paper presents the results of modern research on the effects of electromagnetic terahertz radiation in the frequency range of 0.5-100 THz at different levels of power density on living cells. The problem of the safety of this radiation for the human body is also considered, from the point of view of the effect of radiation on the structures and systems of a biological cell. It is known that the rate of cell division is changed by external electromagnetic radiation. The rate of cell division depends on the growth strategy, the availability of nutrient medium, oxygen, temperature, etc. Of fundamental importance are studies of the general patterns of the spatiotemporal dynamics of intensively dividing cells of biological systems and chemical environments, in particular the spatiotemporal dynamics of the division of kidney carcinoma, brain glioma and the Briggs-Rauscher self-oscillatory regime. An important result is the determination of the physical, biochemical and mathematical conditions for the violation of the growth regimes of a cancerous tumor. The cell cycle as an example of an oscillating system has not been fully investigated and is responsible, among other things, for the cooperative acceleration of proliferation. It has now been established that terahertz radiation affects the key mechanism of cell division – the formation of actin protein strands, which is a component of the cell framework of eukaryotic cells. Herbert Frelich suggested that vibrational modes in protein molecules can be ordered and condensed into a low-frequency vibrational mode in a process similar to Bose-Einstein condensation, and, consequently, macroscopic coherence can potentially be observed in biological systems. Recent experimental data on the long-term collective excitation of a protein in the terahertz frequency range have established that by absorbing radiation with a frequency of 0.4 terahertz, protein molecules in a crystal change their electronic state, and with it their structure. Thus, it is generally recognized that there are several mechanisms that determine the effect of the response of living cells to electromagnetic, in particular terahertz radiation.

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