Some basic properties of biological tissues for potential biomedical applications of millimeter waves.

The paper gives the highlights of the reports in the literature on sharp, distinct resonances in the absorption and action spectra at millimeter wavelengths of various biochemicals, and bacteriological and biological preparations. If true, these properties may be employed for in-vitro diagnostic applications and form a basis for frequency-specific health hazards and for new forms of cancer therapy. Carefully performed experiments in our laboratory have failed to reveal frequency-specific biological effects on BHK-21/C13 mammalian cells, on induction of lambda prophages in lysogenic Escherichia coli and on back-mutation of His Salmonella typhimurium cells. Also on account of the high absorbance of water (13--36 dB/mm) which is an essential part of living tissues, little or no differences have been observed for the absorption spectra biological samples in the 26.5 to 90.0 GHz band. Dielectric characterization of the biological samples is needed and may form a basis for broadband differences in the millimeter wave absorption by various tissues.