What effect does electromagnetic radiation have on human cells?

[deleted-300360]

So I'd like to do a science fair project looking at the effects of EM radiation from cell phone technology on human (skin) cells on a molecular level. I need advice on what I can study in cells on a molecular level that has to do with cell growth. Also, my project has to be somewhat novel and doable with a budget of $150. Thank you

[deleted-288920]

Hi there!

I'm not super familiar with electromagnetic radiation, but I did some searching on the science buddies website and came across this experiment which looks at the effects of EM on yeast. I haven't done the experiment or built the x-ray machine, they estimate that it could be a little out of your budget. But I would take a look at it anyways. It should give you some ideas and maybe you can work off of it. Here is the experiment...https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p030.shtml

Let us know if you have more questions and good luck! Keep us posted.

Nikki

[SciB]

Hi,

If you plan to use human cells then you will need to work in a lab that has the proper equipment (biosafety hood, microscopes, pipetters, growth media, etc.) and permissions to use mammalian cells. Do you have access to such a lab and a person in the lab to teach and supervise you?

The other question I have is what do you plan to measure as an effect of EM radiation from a phone on the cells? The effects of low-level EMFs on cells are probably quite small and difficult to detect. Have you done some reading and research on this subject to see what other scientists have tried and how they did the experiments? What have they found out so far?

This is an advanced project and may require more time than you have. When is your project due?

Let us know a little more about your resources and time line and maybe we can help you.

Sybee

[deleted-300360]

hey!
So I do have access to the tools and laboratory space to grow out a cell culture. Honestly, finding something to measure as an effect of EM radiation is what I'm having trouble coming up with.

As for the time line, I have a few months to perform the experiment and put together the lab write up and poster board for science fair.

Thanks

[SciB]

Hi,

You could start by measuring something simple like growth rate since you usually have to count the cells anyway when you subculture them. As for what else you might measure, that depends on the instruments that you will be able to use. Do you have or can use the following?

flow cytometer
fluorescence microscope
real-time PCR thermocycler
polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and western blotting set-up

The purpose of these instruments is to allow you to detect and measure specific proteins and RNAs that are present in the cells. These data can tell you if there have been specific changes in the cells' metabolism as a result of exposure to cell-phone emf.

One other important question--how did you plan to expose some dishes of cells to emf while keeping the others shielded. Would wrapping them in aluminum foil work? Have you read scientific articles about this subject to know how this sort of exposure is done in the lab? If you don't do it correctly then your results will not be valid.

This is a really interesting project so keep us in the loop in your planning and progress. Be sure to take photos or better, make a video of what you are doing.

Good luck!

Sybee

[deleted-300360]

Hi again,
So I do have access to a PCR thermocycler, a fluorescence microscope, and tools for gel electrophoresis. Also, wrapping the control group in aluminum foil should be enough to efficiently protect the cells, and this is what I had already thought of doing.

Thank you

[SciB]

Ok. It sounds like you have the resources to do this project. How will you expose the cells to EMF from a cell phone and for how long? How will you measure the EMF? The effects of EMFs on a cell are probably cumulative and may take weeks to show up. What exactly do you plan to use in the cells as an indicator of EMF effects and how will you quantitate it?

If you want help, post again with specific questions.

Sybee

[deleted-300360]

So I hope to expose the cells for a month or so. As far as what I plan to use in the cells as an indicator and how to measure it, that's where I need help. I'm not 100% sure on what indicator I can use that will help quantify my data.

Thanks for your help

[SciB]

I did a search for cellular effects of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) and found some possibly relevant papers.

Wen-Qi Zuo,# Yu-Juan Hu,# Yang Yang, Xue-Yan Zhao, Yuan-Yuan Zhang, Wen Kong, and Wei-Jia Kong
Sensitivity of spiral ganglion neurons to damage caused by mobile phone electromagnetic radiation will increase in lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammation in vitro model J Neuroinflammation. 2015; 12: 105. Published online 2015 May 29. doi: 10.1186/s12974-015-0300-1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4458026/
In this paper they cultured neurons isolated from rats as a test subject and exposed them to radiofrequency radiation (1.8 GHz) from a waveguide apparatus (not a cell phone but producing similar EMR). They did something a little different and that was to expose the cells to a bacterial chemical called lipopolysaccharide (LPS) before they exposed them to EMR. The reason for this was that if they exposed them to only EMR there was no measurable effect on the cells. They had to treat them with LPS first and then there was an effect.

What they measured as an EMR affect has to do with a cellular process called autophagy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy). You can look it up if you want the details but basically it is a way for a cell to use some of its own proteins as an energy source when it is under metabolic stress. I don’t know why they chose autophagy markers to measure but they may explain their rationale in the paper’s introduction. The autophagy indicators they used are called LC3-II and Beclin1 and they detected them by immunofluorescence. They used a confocal microscope but I think you could use just a fluorescence microscope.

The EMR used in their experiments was at two different powers—2 W/kg and 4 W/kg. I don’t know how this was measured or how you would determine the EMR output of your particular phone. You’ll have to research this or ask an electrical engineer. If you are going to test the effects of EMR then you have to first prove that your phone is producing EMR under your experimental conditions. Maybe you could borrow a meter to measure it.

One thing I am not clear on is how you intend to expose the cells to EMR for one month using a cell phone. Can you explain this to me? You will have to put the phone inside the incubator with the cultured cells and the incubator is at 37C and 100% humidity. That may be bad for the electronics. Also, how will you keep the phone in call mode for hours at a time? I have to go out in the hall to get a good connection and even then it gets dropped frequently. You may not be able to get any signal inside the metal incubator.

This is a great project but it is going to be difficult to succeed with. Keep posting your questions and we will try to help you work out the details so that you can do this.

Good luck!

Sybee

[deleted-300360]

Thank you so much for all this help. This is a really good direction for me to look at. I'm still a little clear how LPS creates an effect when exposed to EMR though

[SciB]

Hi,

I don't see exactly how EMR is connected to LPS treatment either. Exposing human cells to a bacterial product like LPS triggers some changes in gene expression and could act like a stressor producing reactive oxygen species, ROS. Energy from the EMR must be absorbed by some molecules in the cell but I don't know which ones. Do some more reading on this and if you get stuck with the details let us know and we'll try to help.

If you haven't done so already, I would start becoming familiar with using the laminar flow hood, preparing culture media, trypsinizing cells, counting them, subculturing them and keeping everything sterile. This is important and takes practice under supervision.

Your whole project depends on being able to generate a continuous EMF from a cell phone inside a steel incubator. If you can't do that then i don't see how you can do the project. Are there any other experts who have any ideas about how to do this? Why don't you post a question on the physical science forum about measuring EMF from a cell phone. There may be some experts who watch that forum and who are much more knowledgeable about electronics and electrical measurements than I am. I have seen an EMF meter used on the TAPS Ghost Hunters TV show but I don't know if you could use such a meter to measure the EMF of a cell phone but it's worth looking into.

Keep posting and we'll keep trying to help.

Sybee

[deleted-300360]

I think the journal you shared with me talked briefly about looking at DNA breaks through gel electrophoresis, but I may have understood it wrong. Is this a legitimate process? Also, I'd like to thank you for your advice. I did post on the physical science forum about measuring EMF from a cell phone. Hopefully this experiment starts to come together.

I'm maybe thinking about looking at whether or not EMR radiation from cell phones causes DNA breaks, but I have no clue on how that is observed or measured. Is this worth looking into?

Thank you!

[SciB]

Hi again,

Yes, the authors did measure DNA strand breaks using the 'comet' assay, but these breaks resulted from the treatment with LPS or hydrogen peproxide--not the EMR:

"The body of normal cells exhibit intact, undamaged DNA that remains in the region of the nuclear matrix. The damaged cell, on the other hand, assumes a comet-like appearance, including a ‘tail’ shape. These results showed that exposure to H2O2 and LPS (at 100, 200, 400 μg/ml) significantly increased all the comet appearance parameters, which indicated that the dose of LPS and H2O2 could effectively result in DNA strand breaks (Figure 3). However, after exposure to radiation at 2 and 4 W/kg with and without combination with LPS (40 μg/ml), no significant difference in the comet parameters was found among any of the groups (Figure 4). It seems, thus, that RF-EMR could not directly lead to DNA strand breakage."

I offered this paper as an example of one way to study EMR effects on cells. You should do a literature search to see what other markers were used to show EMR effects. Have you used PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) before? From what I have read, the EMR from a cell phone is so weak that any effects on human cells are very small and not easy to detect. Exposure for long times or at higher EMF levels may show subtle changes if you can figure out exactly what to look for. Setting up experiment conditions is one of the hardest things in science. If people don't think your experiments were done right then they won't believe your data. Do some more reading and see what else you can find about cell phone EMR. Try to find an engineering student who knows about EMFs and how to generate and measure them. They may be able to help you to measure the EMF of a phone and maybe amplify it enough to see an effect. Cellular DNA strand breaks can be caused by UV or X-ray irradiation but it has to be pretty intense.

Hope this helps. Post again when you have more questions.

Sybee