Plenary lectures
Scientific Research and Health Protection: a Mutual Perspective
Paolo Vecchia
Department of Technology and Health
National Institute of Health (ISS), Rome, Italy
Date: February 21st Time: 14:30 Location: Aula 1
Summary
The scope of bioelectromagnetics is extremely wide. In principle, the discipline aims at elucidating all aspects of interaction of electromagnetic fields with biological systems, irrespective of whether such interactions may impact on health, and whether the impact is adverse or beneficial. However, in the last decades scientific research has been mostly driven by public concern about possible health risks of exposure to electromagnetic fields.
Biographical sketch
Dr. Paolo Vecchia was graduated in Physics at the University of Rome in 1969.
Since 1973, he has been serving at the National Institute of Health (ISS) in Rome. He has been working in the field of Non Ionizing Radiation (NIR), performing both basic research and control activity aimed at the protection of workers and of the general public.
In the field of basic research, he has been involved mainly in studies on possible effects of electromagnetic fields on the immune system as well as in theoretical dosimetry. He is also collaborating to epidemiological studies relative to both low- and high-frequency fields.
He has organized and directed courses on different topics related to NIR at the Advanced School for Radiation Protection in, Italy. He has also been lecturer at several national and international schools, and Professor of "Fundamentals of Protection against Non Ionizing Radiation” at the post-graduate school of Health Physics of the University "Tor Vergata" in Rome.
Past President of the Italian Radiation Protection Association (AIRP), and of the European Bioelectromagnetics Association (EBEA), he is presently Chairman of the International Commission on Non Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), and Member of the International Advisory Committee of the International EMF Project of the World Health Organization.
Controlling Neuronal Excitability with Applied Electromagnetic Fields
Dominique M. Durand
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Neural Engineering Center
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Date: February 22nd Time: 8:30 Location: Aula 1
Summary
Applied electrics fields are known to excite neural tissue but have been also used to suppress neural activity. The controlling effects of these fields have been observed both in the central and in the peripheral nervous system and have been shown to be effective in a variety of conditions such as Parkinson's disease or chronic pain. The mechanisms of these effects are still mostly unknown but vary considerably with the frequency of the applied fields. The effect of applied electromagnetic fields applied at various frequencies such as DC stimulation (tDCS), low frequency stimulation (LFS) (1-5Hz), high Frequency (HFS) (80 to 200Hz), very high frequency stimulation (VHFS) (1kH-30KHz) on neural activity in in-vitro, and in-vivo animal experiments will be reviewed. Clinical applications as well as the mechanisms of action and novel stimulation methods will also be addressed.
Biographical sketch
Dr. DM Durand is the E.L. Linsedth Professor of Biomedical Engineering Neurosciences, Physiology and Biophysics and Director of the Neural Engineering Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He received an engineering degree from Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Electronique, Hydrolique, Informatique et Automatique de Toulouse, France in 1973. In 1974, he received a M.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Case Reserve University in Cleveland OH., worked several years at the Addiction Research Foundation of Toronto, Canada and in 1982 received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. He received an NSF Young Investigator Presidential Award as well as the Diekhoff and Wittke awards for graduate and undergraduate teaching and the Mortar board top-prof awards at Case Western Reserve University. He is an IEEE Fellow and also Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering and Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He serves on five editorial boards of peer-reviewed scientific journals and he is the editor-in-chief and founding editor of the Journal of Neural Engineering. His research interests are in neural engineering and include computational neuroscience, neurophysiology and control of epilepsy, non-linear dynamics of neural systems, neural prostheses and applied magnetic and electrical field interactions with neural tissue. He has obtained funding for his research from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and private foundations. He has published over 100 articles and he has consulted for many biotechnology companies and foundations.
Mechanisms and Models of Interactions: Lessons Learned and Future Perspectives
Guglielmo D'Inzeo
Department of Information Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunications,
University "La Sapienza" of Rome, Italy
Date: February 23rd Time: 8:30 Location: Aula 1
Summary
The last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in experiments investigating possible effects of exposure of biological samples to non-ionizing electromagnetic (EM) fields. Such research has given rise to a huge literature on effects, both on animals (in vivo) and on single cells or cell cultures (in vitro), yielding to contradictory and often intriguing results. This experimental investigation was accompanied by the development of theoretical studies having the purpose to either understand the peculiarities of interaction between EM fields and biological tissues, either to provide proper predictive biophysical models.
To date, a scientific debate is still open about possible specific mechanisms of interaction with low level EM field, responsible of specific biological effects. The deep comprehension of such mechanisms is considered a key point even in developing further medical applications.
A review on the most interesting mechanisms of interaction and models presented in literature will be addressed, together with a cross-examination of the effects considered well established, in order to propose future perspectives and trends in this branch of bioelectromagnetics research.
Biographical sketch
Guglielmo d'Inzeo was born in Milan, Italy, in 1952. Since 1990, he has been a Full Professor of bioelectromagnetic interaction with the University of Rome La Sapienza, Rome, Italy. From 1997 to 2006, he was Acting Chairman of the Electronic Engineering Department, University of Rome La Sapienza. From 1998 to 2004, he was Director of the Italian Inter-University Centre for Electromagnetic Fields and Biosystems (ICEmB). His research interests have evolved from active and passive microwave components to bioelectromagnetics. Prof. D'Inzeo served as president of the European Bioelectromagnetics Association (EBEA) from 1993 to 1998. He also served as secretary treasurer of the Middle and Southern Sections of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (IEEE MTT-S) from 1986 to 1988. Since 2008, he has being president of the URSI Commission K Electromagnetism in Biology and Medicine.
Tutorials
Challenges and design of human experimental studies
Peter Achermann
Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology
University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Date: February 23rd Time: 14:30 Location: Sala del Chiostro
Summary
The steady increase of mobile phone usage has led to a rising concern about potential adverse health effects of radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF EMF), such as those emitted by mobile phones, at intensities below the existing safety limits. Accumulating evidence suggests that pulse-modulated RF EMF may alter brain physiology. Despite effects on the human electroencephalogram in waking and sleep repeatedly being shown in recent years, results on cognitive performance remain inconsistent. The high variety of findings may be due to methodological issues such as differences in sample size and the composition of study groups, experimental design, exposure setup as well as the exposure conditions. Based on a critical evaluation within the scope of methodological standards, design issues of human provocation studies will be discussed with emphasis on the need for standardized protocols in bioelectromagnetic research.
Biographical sketch
Peter Achermann graduated in 1983 in Electrical Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and received in 1988 a Ph.D. in natural sciences at the ETH. He is currently co-director of the Human Sleep Laboratory at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, a member of the steering committee of the Zurich Center for Integrative Human Physiology, and a member of the Neuroscience Center Zurich.
He has extensive experience in the areas of sleep, sleep regulation, and circadian rhythms research, spanning a period of 25 years. He has shown specific expertise in a number of areas of basic sleep research, including signal analysis of the EEG (spectral analysis, coherence analysis, non-linear approaches), mathematical modeling of sleep processes and circadian rhythms, imaging of sleep (brain mapping, PET studies, sleep EEG topography), sleep regulation in infancy and adolescence, and sleep-related learning and cognitive performance. He also has experience in clinical applications of sleep research, including sleep and EEG analysis in stroke patients, in patients with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and patients in a persistent vegetative state, analysis of Parkinsonian and pain patients before and after stereotactic neurosurgery, analysis of sleep EEG alterations in patients with cirrhosis and induced hyperammonaemia, and the investigation of sleep regulation in narcolepsy patients.
Additionally, over the last 13 years he has been a researcher and chief investigator in a number of studies investigating the effects of electromagnetic fields as emitted by mobile phones on sleep, sleep and wake EEG, cognitive performance, and regional cerebral blood flow.
Application of terahertz waves: sources, biological effects and medical applications
Philip Taday
TeraView Limited
St John's Innovation Park, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Date: February 23rd Time: 14:30 Location: Aula 1
Summary
The terahertz spectral region extends from the end of the far-IR spectral region (i.e., 133 cm-1 or 4 THz) to the beginning of the microwave spectral region (i.e. 1.3 cm-1 or 0.2 THz). Absorptions observed in this region are commonly associated with intermolecular hydrogen-bonding vibrations and crystalline structure lattice vibrations.
Terahertz pulsed spectroscopy (TPS) measurements obtained in both transmission and reflectance modes advance the current state-of-the-art for elucidating solid state crystalline structures such as polymorphs, hydrates, and solvates by providing fundamental spectra-structure correlations for hydrogen-bonding and other organic moieties.
Terahertz pulsed imaging (TPI) provides a quick and non destructive 3D mapping technique for determining the composition and integrity of intact materials. TPI yields unique information about materials.
This presentation will overview sources, biological effects and medical applications of terahertz pulsed methods.
Biographical sketch
Dr Philip F. Taday, M.Inst.Phys., C.Phys., has a B.Sc.(Hons) degree in Physics with Laser Physics obtained from University College of Swansea. He has obtained a Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry from the University of Reading. He worked for the Central Laser Facility at the CLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) as a Higher Scientific Officer from November 1989 until July 2000. He was promoted to a Senior Scientific Officer in September 1999. Until 1992 he worked on the VULCAN Nd:glass laser program. He worked on the development of femtosecond tabletop laser system and novel tunable sources. In August 2000 Dr Taday moved to work for Toshiba Research Europe Limited, Cambridge, where he was responsible for the development of advanced terahertz sources. His role developed into the Head of Spectroscopy when the actively was “spun-out” of Toshiba into a new company called TeraView Limited. At this new company Dr Taday is responsible for the exploitation of new terahertz application areas. Dr Taday is currently a Principal Scientist and is Head of the Applications Group at TeraView Limited.
He has authored and co-authored 97 published papers, 3 book chapters and has presented numerous invited conference presentations. He is a co inventor on 5 patent applications.
Special sessions
Novel approaches in exposure assessment and dosimetry of epidemiological and human laboratory studies
Sven Kühn
IT'IS Foundation
ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Date: February 22nd Time: 17:00 Location: Sala del Chiostro
Summary
Electromagnetic field exposure assessment and dosimetry in epidemiological and
human studies have been and often still are performed in terms of quantities
only representative for demonstration of compliance with safety guidelines,
e.g., incident field quantification, or induced whole-body and peak spatial SAR.
The dosimetric meaning of the aforementioned quantities is questionable for
current studies that all aim at potential effects well below established safety
levels. The investigated end-points typically are effects on specific tissues,
organs or functional regions of the brain and the quantification of the
classical dose evaluations often does not allow a clear distinction between body
regions or an accumulation of the dose from various sources.
Novel approaches for the determination and estimation of the dose in terms of
induced SAR in specific tissues and regions of the human brain from various
sources will be presented. The concepts for determining a meaningful cumulative
dose from multiple sources and their appropriate weighting in the frequency
domain and by factors such as the geographical location and user behavior will
be analyzed. Time domain characteristics of the exposure signal, i.e., amplitude
modulations, are also considered in the proposed dose model.
Biographical sketch
Sven Kühn received his Dipl. Ing.(MSc) in Information and Communication
Technologies from Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany and his PhD (Dr.
sc.) from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technogy (ETH Zurich), Switzerland in
2004 and 2009, respectively. During his MSc studies he worked as a research
assistant in the fields of digital circuit design, electronic design automation
and automatic design synthesis tools. He attended an internship at Nokia Mobile
Phones R&D Bochum (Germany) in 2003. In his master thesis he investigated the
applicability of polarization diversity in mobile communications. In November
2004, he joined the Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in
Society (IT'IS), Switzerland where he started to work on numerical and
experimental methods and tools for the assessment of human exposure to
electromagnetic fields. In spring 2005, he also joined the Integrated Systems
Laboratory (IIS) at the ETH Zurich to start working towards his PhD in
Electrical Engineering. Starting at the end of 2005 he has been working as a
project leader for experimental electromagnetic analysis at IT'IS.
In August
2009 Sven joined Schmid+Partner Engineering were he is heading the sensor
design, pursuing R&D work towards a new product generation of miniature
electro-optical sensors. Sven is co-founder of zurich med tech (ZMT).
His main research interests include experimental and numerical dosimetry in
bio-electromagnetics, classical electromagnetic compatibility, near-field
sensor, radio-frequency circuit, and antenna design, optics as well as
bio-medical applications thereof. Sven is author and co-author of numerous
journal and conference papers as well as book chapters and serves as a
scientific reviewer for several journals in the fields of EMF dosimetry,
exposure assessment, near-field and dielectric measurement technology. Sven is
recipient of the medal of the ETH Zurich as well as the award and a research
grant of the Hans-Eggenberger Foundation for his PhD thesis.
Comparison of Different RF-EMF Exposure Assessment Methods in Epidemiology
Patrizia Frei
Institute of Cancer Epidemiology
Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark
Date: February 22nd Time: 17:00 Location: Sala del Chiostro
Summary
Various methods to assess personal exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields in everyday life have been used in epidemiological research. The use of personal exposure meters (exposimeters) has been widely recommended for this purpose, but their use in large epidemiological studies is limited due to high costs and large effort for study participants. Several exposure assessment methods potentially useful in epidemiological studies (such as spot measurements, distance to fixed site transmitters) are presented and evaluated, based on exposure data collected from 166 study participants.
Biographical sketch
Patrizia Frei received a master's degree in environmental sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich in 2006. In 2010, she received a PhD in the field of environmental epidemiology at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, under the supervision of Prof. Martin Röösli. In her PhD project, she focused on the assessment of personal exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields in everyday life and possible implications for health-related quality of life. Since September 2010, she has been pursuing a year-long postdoctoral fellowship on the topic of health consequences of electromagnetic fields at the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology at the Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Nanosecond Electroperturbations of Cancer Cell Membranes --- Biophysics and Therapeutics
P. Thomas Vernier
MOSIS, Information Sciences Institute
University of Southern California, Marina del Rey, CA, USA
Date: February 22nd Time: 17:00 Location: Aula 1
Summary
Nanosecond pulsed electric fields of sufficient intensity permeabilize cell membranes
(electropermeabilization). These brief electrical stimuli can restructure the phospholipid
bilayer, cause intracellular calcium release, depolarize mitochondrial membranes, and induce
apoptosis in cancer cells. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal the mechanism for the
electric field-driven reorganization of phospholipid heads and water molecules that results in
the formation of membrane-spanning water bridges and conductive pores. Considerable
progress has been made in taking nanosecond electric pulses to the clinic for the treatment of
skin and other cancers, but a deeper and more detailed understanding of the underlying
biophysical phenomena will facilitate the optimization of the application of this technology in
cancer therapeutics through non-thermal, minimally scarring tumor ablation.
Biographical sketch
P. Thomas Vernier is Engineering Manager of MOSIS at the University of Southern California
(USC) Information Sciences Institute and Research Associate Professor in the Ming Hsieh
Department of Electrical Engineering at USC. His research and industrial experience includes
ultraviolet microscopy analysis of S-adenosylmethionine metabolism in the yeast Rhodotorula
glutinis, molecular biology of the temperature-sensitive host restriction of bacterial viruses in
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, low-level environmental gas monitoring, wide-band instrumentation
data recording, and physical and electrical characterization and modeling of semiconductor and
microelectromechanical devices. He currently concentrates on the effects of nanosecond, megavoltper-
meter electric fields on biological systems, with applications in cancer therapeutics, combining
experimental observations with molecular dynamics simulations, and on the integration of cellular
and biomolecular sensors, carbon nanotubes, and quantum dots with commercial integrated
electronic circuit fabrication processes.
Vernier received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California in
2004, and is a member of the American Chemical Society, American Society for Microbiology,
Bioelectrochemical Society, Bioelectromagnetics Society, Biophysical Society, and Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Electropermeabilization versus nsPEF-Stimulation - Pulsed Electric Fields can Stimulate the Growth of Plants and Fungi
Wolfgang Frey
Institute for Pulsed Power and Microwave Technology, IHM
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany
Date: February 22nd Time: 17:00 Location: Aula 1
Summary
Electropermeabilization or Electroporation is a commonly used technique for low temperature cell ingredient extraction like sugar from sugar beets or red pigment from grape skin. When applying pulses of sufficient high electric field and comparable long duration (µs, ms) the cell´s plasmamembrane is permeabilized, allowing molecules and ions to pass this natural barrier. In this case the required treatment energy ranges between 10 kJ/kg and 150 kJ/kg and a treatment ordinarily results in cell death.
However, experiments on nsPEF-treatment of seedlings of Arabidopsis thaliana reveal a stimulative effect on plant growth, when the pulsed electric field intensity is low and the pulse duration is short enough, to prevent considerable plasmamembrane permeabilization. In this case the grown leaf area of A. thaliana is more than twice compared to sham treated samples. Furthermore, experiments on fungi show the temporal dynamics of the stimulative effect. The required treatment energy for growth stimulation is 0.15 kJ/kg to 0.5 kJ/kg
The borderline between plasmamembrane permeabilization and PEF-stimulation will be derived from results from membrane voltage measurements and from results of seedling growth after nsPEF-stimulation at different pulse parameters.
Biographical sketch
Wolfgang Frey received his diploma degree in High Voltage Technology from the University of Karlsruhe in 1989. Subsequently he was assistant professor at the High Voltage Institute of the University of Karlsruhe, working on new pulse forming concepts, high voltage test engineering and gas insulated spark gaps. In 1996 he received his PhD degree on “Lasertriggering of Railgap-Switches” from the University of Karlsruhe. 1997 he joined the pulsed power group of the former Research Center of Karlsruhe, now Campus North of KIT. He started with surface coating by pulsed electron beam ablation, worked on electrodynamic fragmentation for material processing for four years and switched to pulsed electric field effects on biological matter in 2001. He worked on pulsed electric field treatment for bacterial decontamination and cell ingredient extraction. Since 2006 he is team leader of the "Bioelectrics"-group at the Institute for Pulsed Power and Microwave Technology (IHM), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT, Campus North.
