Light In Shaping Life: Biophotons in Biology And Medicine - Roeland Van Wijk

Description:

The production of biological light (ultra-weak photon emission or biophotons) within many types of cells and tissues is characteristic of an alive organism. You will begin a journey of discovery about biophotons in relationship to biological matter and about how such biophotons can be detected utilizing specialized very photon-sensitive technologies. In this book, Roeland Van Wijk provides a unified synthesis that facilitates easy entry into an exciting sub-field of biology. Light in Shaping Life encompasses the history of biophoton research,insight into how biophotons are generated, and into their involvement with life. Also included, is an overview of the potential benefits of such research to a better understanding of health and medicine.

About the Author:

Roeland van Wijk, Ph.D., graduated in biophysical chemistry and molecular biology, and received his Ph.D. at the Utrecht University (Utrecht, The Netherlands). He lectured molecular cell biology at Utrecht University and was visiting scientist at the National Jewish Hospital and Research Centre and the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute For Cancer Research (Denver, USA), and at the Friedrich Miescher Institute (Basel, Switzerland). He is Director of the institute on Measurements on Luminescence of Natural products (MeLuNa) and Advisor at Sino-Dutch Centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine (Centre for Photonics of Living Systems) at Leiden University (The Netherlands).

His major research projects are

(a) Molecular basis of stress;

(b) Stress, differentiation and tumor growth;

(c) Photon emission in relation to tumor development; and

(d) Human biophoton research in health and disease.

Contents:

1 Prelude The Roots of a Field in Biology

2 A Field in Regeneration

3 A Field that Guides Generation

4 Does a Field also Guide the Development of Cancer? Birth and Growth of Biophoton Field Concept

5 Early Systems Biology and the Morphogenetic Radiation Field

6 Biology Looks at Physics

7 The Entrance of the Photomultiplier

8 World-wide Expansion of Photon Emission Research Cancer Metabolism and Photon Emission

9 Cancer: Energy Metabolism in Relationship to Differentiation

10 More about Cancer as a Model and its Relationship to Proliferation

11 Beyond Respiration: Free Radicals and Photon Emission From Bio-Electromagnetism to the Photon Field Concept

12 Field Theory and Bio-electromagnetism

13 Bone: Semiconductors as Biophoton Emitters

14 Electromagnetic Fields and Life

15 Revival of the Photon Field Concept The Photon Field Concept in Health and Disease

16 Photon Storage and Emission in Cancer Cells

17 Photon Field Aspects in the 1990's

18 Human Photon Emission in Health and Disease

19 Imaging Human Photon Emission

20 Perspectives by John M. Ackerman: Biophotons as a Bridge between Western and Chinese Medicine?

Glossary Index