A team of researchers led by Los Alamos National Laboratory has evaluated the cellular response of mouse stem cells exposed to terahertz (THz) radiation. THz technologies show promise for myriad medical, military, security, and research applications ranging from the detection of cancer to airport security systems to shipment inspection to spectroscopy. Relatively little is known, however, about the effect of THz radiation on biological systems.

They applied low-power radiation both from a pulsed broadband (centered at 10 THz) source and from a continuous wave (CW) laser (2.52 THz) source. They found that temperature increases were minimal, and that heat shock protein expression was unaffected.

But the expression of certain other genes showed clear effects of the THz irradiation. Mouse mesenchymal stem cells exposed to THz radiation exhibit specific changes in cellular function closely related to the gene expression. They say that more direct experimental investigations of THz radiation’s ability to induce specific openings of the DNA double strand are needed to fully determine how THz radiation may work through DNA dynamics to influence cellular function.