Thermo-fluid dynamic resonance in cancer cells

Abstract

Abstract In the third decade of XX century, Warburg pointed out that cancer cells follow a fermentative respiration process, as a consequence of a metabolic injury. In this paper, we consider this statement in the following way: any cell process requires energy, so, in the cell, a control of the energy conversion can represent a possible control of the cell processes. Engineering thermodynamics is the science that studies the conversion of energy into work. So, thermodynamics could represent a powerful approach to analyse of the energy conversion in the biosystems, for their control. Cells regulate their metabolisms by energy and mass (ions included) flows, and the heat flux occurs by the convective interaction with their environment. Here, we consider fluxes through the biosystems border, their shapes and the characteristic time of thermal interaction with the blood and water, in the cell environment. Moreover, just in relation to time, it is possible to consider the resonance phenomena. Resonance forces natural behaviours of systems, when a wave of a frequency, related to the characteristic time, income to a system. Here, we introduce the biothermodynamic characteristic frequency, which is the characteristic frequency of a biosystem, evaluated by a thermo-fluid dynamic approach, in order to control the fluxes through the cancer membrane, and to force it towards an optimal behaviour, by changing the concentrations of ions, inside and outside of the membrane itself. The result consists in a control of the cellular metabolic processes, and also of the energy available to cancer, for its growth. In this way, the cancer growth rate can be reduced.