WG2 group will investigate basic THz properties of biomolecules in plants and human tissue with looking for agriculture/forestry and biomedical applications. The team will necessarily include (or cooperate with) physicists, chemists, biologists and medical doctors to guide pioneering research in THz properties in bio-medical domains. Two main objectives of this group are:

1) Water and heavy metal monitoring in plants and food. Assessment of water and heavy metals content in plants is a key factor for many fields of plant science such as agronomy, plant productivity, phenotyping, breeding, plant ecophysiology, and global water cycle studies. It is also important in control of food quality. The team will work on the basic science and development of new methods for in-vivo monitoring the water and heavy metal content in the different parts of the plants and food. Determination of other biochemical parameters such as chlorophyll, nitrogen, and sugar content will also be considered. Soil contamination by heavy metals because of human activities is serious environmental threat in Europe and many other parts of the world. Failure to mitigate this threat and resulting contamination of the food chain has deleterious health effects (mainly cancers and neurodegenerative diseases).

2) THz Detection of cancer tissue. Evaluation of possible THz vision enhancement of intra-operative tissue diagnostics during cancer surgery (or, another example, during endoscopic examination) provides vital information on the spread of malignant cells, what dictates the mode and extent of treatment. Only recently the first reports concerning this issue appeared, suggesting that this approach may be informative and much faster than standard intraoperative histology employed by pathologists. This field, while of high impact, remains largely unexplored. Also THz diagnosis of degree of burned tissue will be considered by this WG.