About this Research Topic
During the last 40 years, there has been an increasing interest in the interaction of magnetic fields with living organisms, from bacteria and fungi to plants and animals, including humans. Reported effects and phenomena include changes in gene expression, inflammatory response, oxidative stress, apoptosis, electroencephalographic activity, blood pressure, circadian rhythms, magnetoreception, stem-cell fate, ‘magnetopriming’ of seeds, bacterial proliferation, enzymatic activity of yeast, and tumor progression, among others. In spite of this grand diversity of experimental observations the discipline remains (arguably) immature due to the scarcity of independent replications and to the still incomplete (and even controversial) understanding of the bio-physico-chemical events that mediate the interaction of magnetic fields with living cells.
The matter at issue has all the elements of a relevant frontier of knowledge: its reach is absolutely ubiquitous (from the geomagnetic field and the wild nature, to the artificial field sources of everyday appliances and devices embed in the civilized life); there is a lack of a detailed, confirmed knowledge on the underlying mechanisms; there are both concern about potentially detrimental effects and interest on possible therapeutic uses; and last but not least, beyond the yet elusive fundamental comprehension of a large variety of phenomena, the instrumental control of the interaction of magnetic fields with living cells could trigger the advent of what some anticipate to be a vast revolution in biotechnology, with profound implications in medicine and agroindustry. Here, we aim at gathering high quality research on a diversity of fronts of, so-called, Magnetobiology, hoping that they will attract the attention and curiosity of newcomers from the physical arena. Ironically, the physicists’ eye has still not been laid intensively on this intricate, relatively left-behind subdiscipline of Biophysics.
In this Research Topic, contributors are welcome to submit review or full-research articles versing in any (or combination) of the following sub-themes, with focus on the interaction of magnetic fields with living cells:
• Hypomagnetic, weak, moderate, strong and ultra-strong magnetic fields
• Static and/or low-frequency alternated, or pulsed magnetic fields
• Underlying physical mechanisms
• Non-specific effects in vitro and in vivo
• Magnetoreception (birds and other, including humans)
• Computational and experimental exposure assessment
• Potentially detrimental (cancer, oxidative stress) or beneficial health effects (anti-tumor, antibiotic, analgesic, etc.)
• Biotechnology applications
The matter at issue has all the elements of a relevant frontier of knowledge: its reach is absolutely ubiquitous (from the geomagnetic field and the wild nature, to the artificial field sources of everyday appliances and devices embed in the civilized life); there is a lack of a detailed, confirmed knowledge on the underlying mechanisms; there are both concern about potentially detrimental effects and interest on possible therapeutic uses; and last but not least, beyond the yet elusive fundamental comprehension of a large variety of phenomena, the instrumental control of the interaction of magnetic fields with living cells could trigger the advent of what some anticipate to be a vast revolution in biotechnology, with profound implications in medicine and agroindustry. Here, we aim at gathering high quality research on a diversity of fronts of, so-called, Magnetobiology, hoping that they will attract the attention and curiosity of newcomers from the physical arena. Ironically, the physicists’ eye has still not been laid intensively on this intricate, relatively left-behind subdiscipline of Biophysics.
In this Research Topic, contributors are welcome to submit review or full-research articles versing in any (or combination) of the following sub-themes, with focus on the interaction of magnetic fields with living cells:
• Hypomagnetic, weak, moderate, strong and ultra-strong magnetic fields
• Static and/or low-frequency alternated, or pulsed magnetic fields
• Underlying physical mechanisms
• Non-specific effects in vitro and in vivo
• Magnetoreception (birds and other, including humans)
• Computational and experimental exposure assessment
• Potentially detrimental (cancer, oxidative stress) or beneficial health effects (anti-tumor, antibiotic, analgesic, etc.)
• Biotechnology applications
Keywords: Cell biology, magnetic fields, magnetoreception, biotechnology
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
