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MINI REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Radiation Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1539718
This article is part of the Research Topic Recent Studies on the Use of Magnetic Fields in Experimental Oncology: Effects of Magnetic Fields on Cancer Biology View all articles
Magneto-oncology: a radical pair primer
Provisionally accepted- University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
There are few well-established biophysical mechanisms by which external magnetic fields can influence the biochemistry of molecules in living systems. The radical pair mechanism is arguably the most promising. In this mini-review I summarize the characteristics of radical pairs in a way that may be useful to those engaged in the field of magneto-oncology. The intention is to help researchers decide whether an observed biomedical magnetic field effect could have its origin in radical pair biochemistry. Armed with a physically plausible interaction mechanism, it may be possible to devise and refine a theoretical model and thereby iteratively optimise therapeutic protocols. Such an approach may also help identify experimental artefacts
Keywords: Radical Pair Mechanism (RPM), Spin chemistry, Electron spin, Magnetobiology, Magnetic field effects (MFE)
Received: 05 Dec 2024; Accepted: 14 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hore. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Peter Hore, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
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