The evidence currently available on the potential health effects from electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure has been largely judged as being too tentative and inadequate to meet criteria for assessing health risks. Some of the main reasons for these shortcomings lie in the incomplete description of the exposure and poorly characterized dosimetry. Well-defined exposure conditions are essential to obtain reproducible and scientifically valuable results. To facilitate the development of optimized setups for specific bio-experiments, this paper lists basic requirements and provides development guidelines for evaluation, optimization, construction, and verification of exposure. In addition, definitions of minimum performance requirements for setups addressing the health risk concern of wireless communications are suggested.

Effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF) simulating exposure to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) signals were studied using pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells in vitro. Wild-type ES cells and ES cells deficient for the tumor suppressor p53 were exposed to pulse modulated EMF at 1.71 GHz, lower end of the uplink band of GSM 1800, under standardized and controlled conditions, and transcripts of regulatory genes were analyzed during in vitro differentiation. Two dominant GSM modulation schemes (GSM-217 and GSM-Talk), which generate temporal changes between GSM-Basic (active during talking phases) and GSM-DTX (active during listening phases thus simulating a typical conversation), were applied to the cells at and below the basic safety limits for local exposures as defined for the general public by the International Commission on Nonionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). GSM-217 EMF induced a significant upregulation of mRNA levels of the heat shock protein, hsp70 of p53-deficient ES cells differentiating in vitro, paralleled by a low and transient increase of c-jun, c-myc, and p21 levels in p53-deficient, but not in wild-type cells. No responses were observed in either cell type after EMF exposure to GSM-Talk applied at similar slot-averaged specific absorption rates (SAR), but at lower time-averaged SAR values. Cardiac differentiation and cell cycle characteristics were not affected in embryonic stem and embryonic carcinoma cells after exposure to GSM-217 EMF signals. Our data indicate that the genetic background determines cellular responses to GSM modulated EMF. Bioelectromagnetics 25:296-307, 2004.

The main objective of this paper is to carefully study the fields induced in flasks exposed to RF electromagnetic fields. The study focuses on the widely used 60 mm Petri dishes and rectangular T-75 flasks for the two following cases: 1) cells in homogeneous suspension and 2) cell monolayers. The dependence of the coupling and the homogeneity of the SAR distribution on frequency (0.7 GHz to 2.5 GHz), polarization (E, H and k polarizations) and the amount of medium (1.9 mm to 4.7 mm medium height) is studied. In addition, the effects of the environment, meniscus and field impedance as well as the distortion of the incident field are discussed. Based on these results, advantages and disadvantages of different fundamental designs of apparatus used in the past are compared. These are TEM cells, HF chambers, radial transmission lines (RTL), waveguides and wire patch cells. Furthermore, the major optimization parameters are identified for the development of highly optimized exposure systems, enabling the conduct of high quality experiments.