PROBING WATER DYNAMICS IN HEALTHY AND CANCER HUMAN TISSUE BY QENS

Normal-to-malignant transformation, still an ill-understood process, is related to the biomechanical properties of cells within tissues, which are strongly dependent on the dynamical behaviour of interfacial water. This is known to play a fundamental role in normal cellular activity, namely through maintenance of the three-dimensional architecture and functional conformation of biopolymers.Building on the success of previous QENS and INS experiments on intracellular water in human cancer and non-tumorigenic cells [1-4], the present study aims to apply QENS for probing interfacial water dynamics in healthy and cancer human tissue. This is an innovative approach for identifying particular features associated to malignancy that may allow a better understanding of the normal-to-cancer transition thus contributing to improved cancer diagnosis methods and chemotherapeutic approaches.