Date of Graduation

Summer 2011

Degree

Master of Science in Cell and Molecular Biology

Department

Biomedical Sciences

Committee Chair

Joshua Smith

Abstract

Electromagnetic fields produced by electromagnetic resonance are a natural byproduct of electricity moving through a circuit. The effects that these electromagnetic fields have on biological tissue are poorly understood at the molecular level. Electronic devices that emit low to high level electromagnetic frequencies are ubiquitous to most buildings and with the invention of the cell phone electromagnetic resonance is virtually inescapable. Since the 1970's research on the effects of electromagnetic resonance on biological tissues has focused primarily on the detrimental effects and very little on the prospect of therapies. Electromagnetic fields are currently speculated to interact with molecules such as protein or DNA as phonon energy introducing subtle vibrations that can either disrupt or stabilize the conformation of the molecule. An oscillating circuit that creates an electromagnetic field with frequencies between 54 and 78 GHz was used to determine the effects of electromagnetic resonance on telomeric regions of DNA. Astrocytoma from human astrocyte tumors and cell cultures from Mus musculus primary cell lines received electromagnetic resonance exposure for 30 minutes daily. DNA from the exposed cell lines was isolated, subjected to either singlplex QPCR or the southern blot technique for telomere length analysis and compared against DNA from negative control cells of identical lineage to determine any telomeric response to electromagnetic resonance exposure. The singleplex qPCR data generated from this experiment appear to indicate telomeic maintenance, however, subsequent supporting experiments using multiplex qPCR and the southern blot are yet to be performed.

Keywords

electromagnetic resonance, telomere, qPCR, southern blot

Subject Categories

Medical Molecular Biology

Copyright

© Scott C. Kelsey

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