Efficiently targeted cancer therapy without causing detrimental side effects is necessary for alleviating patient care and improving survival rates. This paper presents observations of morphological changes in H1299 human lung cancer cells following W-band millimeter wave (MMW) irradiation (75–105 GHz) at a non-thermal power density of 0.2 mW/cm², investigated over 14 days of subsequent physiological incubation following exposure. Microscopic analyses of the physical parameters measured indicate MMW irradiation induces significant morphological changes characteristic of apoptosis and senescence. The immediate short-term responses translate into long-term effects, retained over the duration of the experiment(s), reminiscent of the phenomenon of accelerated cellular senescence (ACS), and achieving terminal tumorigenic cell growth. Further, results were observed to be treatment specific in an energy (dose)-dependent manner and were achieved without the use of chemotherapeutic agents, ionizing radiation, or thermal ablation employed in conventional methods, thereby overcoming the associated side effects. Adaptation of the experimental parameters of this study for clinical oncology concomitant with current developmental trends of non-invasive medical endoscopy alleviates MMW therapy as an effective treatment procedure for human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Therapeutically effective treatments of cancer are limited. To calibrate the efficiency of the novel technique we recently discovered to modulate cancer cell viability using tuned electromagnetic fields; H1299 human lung cancer cells were irradiated in a sweeping regime of W-band (75–105 GHz) millimeter waves (MMW) at 0.2 mW/cm² (2 W/m²). Effects on cell morphology, cell death and senescence were examined and compared to that of non-tumorigenic MCF-10A human epithelial cells. MMW irradiation led to alterations of cell and nucleus morphology of H1299 cells, significantly increasing mortality and senescence over 14 days of observation. Extended irradiation of 10 min duration resulted in complete death of exposed H1299 cell population within two days, while healthy MCF-10A cells remained unaffected even after 16 min of irradiation under the same conditions. Irradiation effects were observed to be specific to MMW treated H1299 cells and absent in the control group of non-irradiated cells. MMW irradiation affected nuclear morphology of H1299 cells only and not of the immortalized MCF-10A cells. Irradiation with low intensity MMW shows an antitumor effect on H1299 lung cancer cells. This method provides a novel treatment modality enabling targeted specificity for various types of cancers.

A major goal of regenerative medicine of the central nervous system is to accelerate the regeneration of nerve tissue, where astrocytes, despite their positive and negative roles, play a critical role. Thus, scaffolds capable of producing astrocytes from neural precursor cells (NPCs) are most desirable. Our study shows that NPCs are converted into reactive astrocytes upon cultivation on coralline-derived calcium carbonate coated with poly-D-lysine (PDL-CS). As shown via nuclei staining, the adhesion of neurospheres containing hundreds of hippocampal neural cells to PDL-CS resulted in disaggregation of the cell cluster as well as the radial migration of dozens of cells away from the neurosphere core. Migrating cells per neurosphere averaged 100 on PDL-CS, significantly higher than on uncoated CS (28), PDL-coated glass (65), or uncoated glass (20). After 3 days of culture on PDL-CS, cell migration plateaued and remained stable for four more days. In addition, NPCs expressing nestin underwent continuous morphological changes from round to spiky, extending and elongating their processes, resembling activated astrocytes. The extension of the process increased continuously during the maturation of the culture and doubled after 7 days compared to day 1, whereas bifurcation increased by twofold during the first 3 days before plateauing. In addition, nestin positive cells’ shape, measured through the opposite circularity level correlation, decreased approximately twofold after three days, indicating spiky transformation. Moreover, nestin-positive cells co-expressing GFAP increased by 2.2 from day 1 to 7, reaching 40% of the NPC population on day 7. In this way, PDL-CS promotes NPC differentiation into reactive astrocytes, which could accelerate the repair of neural tissue.