A Brief History of BioPhotons

A Brief History of BioPhotons

Around 1923 Alexander Gurwitsch discovers an "ultraweak" photon emission from living systems (onions, yeast,...), since he suggested connections between photon emission and cell division rate. He calls this photonemission "mitogenetic radiation". His experiments indicate that the wavelength is in the range around 260 nm (Bibliography under Gurwisch and also Ruth (1977, 1979)).

Around 1950: Russian scientists rediscover "ultraweak photon emission" from living organisms. Most results are published in "Biophysics" (engl.) and originally in "Biofizika").( Bibliography under Ruth, 1979).

Italian nuclear physicists discover by chance "bioluminescence" of seedlings. They do not think that this finding is significant, but they publish the results. (Colli et al. 1954, 1955, Ruth 1979).

The Russian biophysicist and the American chemist enunciate the first theory of ultraweak photonemission (UWPE) from biological systems, the so called "imperfection" theory. UWPE shall be an expression of the deviation from equilibrium, some kind of distortion of metabolic processes (Zhuravlev 1972, Seliger 1975, Ruth 1979).

Independently from each other and by different motivations scientific groups in Australia (Quickenden), Germany (Fritz-Albert Popp), Japan (Inaba), and Poland (Slawinski) show evidence of ultraweak photon emission from biological systems by use of modern single-photon counting systems. Bibliography (Quickenden, Inaba, Popp &Ruth, Slawinski).

While Quickenden, Slawinski and Inaba prefer the imperfection theory, Popp and his group enunciate just the opposite theory:

The radiation originates from an almost perfect coherent photon field.
Essential sources are the DNA and corresponding resonators in the cells.
The mechanism describes photon storage in cavities and information channels, tuned by Casimir forces.
There is a close connection to delayed luminescence which corresponds to excited states of the coherent photon field.
The radiation is not the product but essentially the initiator of chemical reactions in the cells. The radiation submits the information within and between cells.
The radiation is not limited to the optical range but follows a f = const-rule (the occupation probability of the phase space is equal for all wavelengths) and extends to longer wavelengths including the so called heat radiation of the body.
This radiation is the proper regulator and information carrier of life.
The Marburg group of Fritz-Albert Popp calls this phenomenon "biophotons" in order to stress the difference to "bioluminescence": Biophotons are single quanta which are permanently and continuously emitted by all living systems. They are subjects of quantum physics and they display an universal phenomenon attributed to all living systems. Wordlwide all scientists who agree with these statements call the radiation biophotons and the scientific field "biophotonics".

From 1972 to 1980 the Marburg group of the leader, the physicist and Dr. habil. Fritz-Albert Popp, evaluated experimentally all the essential physical properties of biophotons.

The intensity ranges from a few up to some hundreds photons/(s cm2).
The spectral distribution follows in the time average a f = const-rule.
The modes are strongly coupled.
The delayed luminescence that approaches continuously the biophoton emission follows a hyperbolic rather than an exponential relaxation function.
The biophotons origin from an almost fully coherent field.
Cells are able to establish cavity resonators which contribute to biophoton regulation.
The essential source of non-equilibrium biophoton emission is the DNA.
This group introduces the first time photocount statistics (PCS) into biophotonics. They show evidence that biophotons are emitted according to a Poissonian PCS. Furthermore they show evidence (1) that the delayed luminescence follows a hyperbolic relaxation function rather than an exponential one, (2) that the modes are strongly coupled, and (3) that there are hyperbolic oscillations around the continous hyperbolic relaxation function. The group finds the first time intercellular communication by means of biophotons. Later this was confirmed by Albrecht-Bühler (Bacteria), Popp and Chang (dinoflagellates), Galle (daphnia), Shen (blood), Vogel (bacteria).

(Bibliography under Popp and coworkers, i.e. Bahr, Böhm, Grass, Grolig, Herrmann, Kramer, Rattemeyer, Ruth, Schmidt, Wulle, Albrecht-Bühler, Chang, Galle, Shen, Vogel).

The papers of Popp and his group are examined mainly by the group of B. Chwirot (Kopernikus University, Torun). They confirm the essential results (Bibliography Chwirot et al.).

Herbert Klima (Atom Institute Vienna) performs his dissertation in Popp`s group at the University in Marburg. He transfers "Biophotonics" to the University in Vienna, in particular investigations on laser excitation of living systems.

(Bibliography Klima or Atominstitut Wien).

J.Slawinski cooperates with the groups in Japan, USA and the Popp-group in Germany. He follows mainly the links between biophotons and biochemical reactions. There arises a branch biochemical biophotonics that becomes an essential part mainly in Japan and USA.

(Bibliography Slawinski).

From 1981 to 1986 Walter Nagl, a famous biologist working on molecular biology, invites Fritz-Albert Popp to cooperate with him in his lab at the University in Kaiserslautern. Nagl, Popp and Li establish fundamental theories about biophotons and cell growth and differentiation, essential differences between tumor tissue and normal one, some experimental evidence of DNA as source of biophotons and theoretical models like the exciplex model. They hypothesize that the scattering patterns of photons of cells contain information about virus (or bacterial) infections. This is confirmed by scientists of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in USA. The virologist Lipkind finds the first indications of assessing virus infections by biophotons.

(Bibliography Nagl, Li, Popp, Schamhart, Scholz, Lipkind).

Biophotons and Biophotonics become official disciplines in Chinese and Indian Universities.

From 1986 on a new scientific group of Popp enters the Technology Center in Kaiserslautern, in order to investigate the possibilities of applications of biophotons. In this time among others the following applications were protected by European or international patent applications.

Assessment of quantitive and qualitative differences between normal und tumor tissues.
Assessment of food quality, among others freshness and shelf life.
Assessment of bacterial contamination.
Assessment of blood status.
Assessment of whole body status.
Technical optimization of biophotonics equipments.
Electroluminescence methods.
Striking examples are (1) the first proof of significant differences between cavity- and free range eggs in case of no differences of the material contents, (2) evaluation of the quality of food in terms of different quality dimensions and then the quality order for every dimension, (3) the possibility of treatment of tumor tissue by selected non-toxic agents, (4) non-invasive control of the efficacy of therapeutic or cosmetic treatments, (5) assessment of bacterial contamination down to 10 bacterial/ml; (6) assessment of smallest quality differences of water, (7) examination of environmental conditions.

The group in the Technology Center in Kaiserlautern built (1) the first "Restlichtverstärker" for real pictures of biophoton emission on a screen in real time screening, (2) the first whole body counting system in a big dark chamber for measuring the biophoton emission of the human body. The first time they showed evidence that biophoton emission of the human body follows on all points the natural biological rhythms with phase shifts and that deviation from these rhythms and/or asymmetries point to sickness.

The results were partially confirmed by other laboratories.

(Bibliography under Popp, Cohen, Niggli, Etienne, Köhler, Lambing, Ho, Musumeci, Schamhart, Mei, Galle and others, Patenapplications).

Popp rejected offers from industry in view of concerns about the scientific future of biophotonics.

Marco Bischof wrote a bestseller about biophotons (in German, now already the 12. Edition).

In other countries scientific groups of reputated research Institutes and Universities around Inaba and Hamamatsu (Japan), Li, Chang and Shen (China), Slawinski (Poland), Anna Gurwitsch and Lev Beloussov (Russia), Mishra and Bajpai (India), Fröhlich, Hyland, Ho (England), van Wijk (Holland), Musumeci (Italy), Fox, Jahn and Puthoff (USA) became strongly interested in Biophotonics and started to work for cooperation and to establish an International Institute of Biophysics (IIB) in Neuss (Germany), where Biophotonics became a common project of research and teaching. This group organizes scientific exchange programs and yearly conferences and publications. The country "Nordrhein-Westfalen" built the Institute on a cultural island near "Museumsinsel Hombroich". Biophotonics has since that time a common home with liberal and fruitful activities in putting this field forward. A lot of publications appeared since that time. There are already books about this field, like books on conferences at the Moscow State University ( L.Beloussov et al eds.), at the Ilmenau Technical University (J.J.Chang et al., eds.), in Kaiserslautern and Neuss (Popp et al.,eds.).

The next Summerschool is in Neuss (August 24-31,2003). The next biophonics conference is in Beijing (October 12-16, 2003).

The International Institute of Biophysics (IIB) establishes the field "Biophotonics" as the tool of measuring electromagnetic signals from biological tissues after exposure to electromagnetic or mechanical or other excitations. The tissues may be also prepared by tracer compounds.

Recent developments of the German group are:

The German government declares biophotonics to a development field of highest priority. We don´t know at the moment what this means but we will follow this declaration with prior interest.

The Neuss group of the IIB is successful in showing evidence that biophotons reflect the environmental conditions of seeds and seedlings even if there is no material contact, for instance the growth condition in wooden housing.

(see WASA-Möbel, Internet)

New books appear:

H.P.Dürr, F.A.Popp and W.Schommers (eds.): What is Life? World Scientific, Hongkong-London 2002.

F.A.Popp and L.Beloussov (eds.): Integrative Biophysics. Kluwer-Academic Publishers, Dordrecht-London 2003.

There is evidence that living systems do not only emit coherent biophotons but - under definite conditions - even squeezed light.

(F.A.Popp, J.J.Chang, A.Herzog, Z.Yan and Y.Yan: Evidence of non-classical (squeezed) light in biological systems. Phys.Lett. 293 A (2002), 98-102.)

The hyperbolic oscillations around the hyperbolic relaxation function of delayed luminescence can be understood in terms of coupled fully coherent states, but not in terms of chaotic photon fields.

(F.A.Popp and Y.Yan: Delayed luminescence of biological systems in terms of coherent states. Phys. Lett. 293 A (2002), 93-97.

The German group of IIB around Popp gets a research project from the Ministery of Research in Germany: Development of quantum optical methods for analyzing biological tissues.

Yu Yan shows evidence that biophotons contain the information of the germination capacity of seeds. (Y.Yan: Dissertation, Fachbereich Biologie, Universität Mainz, 2002).

In cooperation with the "Gartenbauzentrum der Landwirtschaftskammer Westfalen-Lippe" it has been shown that the quality of plants can be accurately described by biophotonic assessment. At the same time it turned out that not only the biophoton emission of the human body, but also the one of living plants follows biological rhythms.

(J.Matschke, F.A.Popp and M.Richter: J.Int.Soc.Life Info Sci. (ISLIS) 20 (2002), No.2, 712-720).

Popp and Chang explain the principle of biocommunication by means of biophotons or electromagnetic waves in terms of phase conjugation effects.

(F.A.Popp and J. J.Chang: Mechanism of interaction between electromagnetic fields and living organisms. Science in China, Series C, Vol. 43, No. 5 (2002), 507-518.)

New Scientist reports the first time about the history of biophotonics.

R.Bajpai is the editor of a special issue in the Indian scientific literature about Biophotonics. It will appear in spring.

At the end of this summary let us express our thanks in particular to the Familie-Ernst-Wendt-Stiftung (Stadt Köln). Since years this foundation provides the existence of the group "Biophotonics" around F.A.Popp by financial support. In particular Dr. Gisela Draczynski, Mrs. Ingeborg Goll and Dr. Karl-Heinz Gebhardt documented their deep understanding for a field that will become one of the most important basis of life sciences.

Credits to: International Institute of BioPhysics