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The Barnes Research Group is current looking at the effects of electric and magnetic fields on biological systems. We have shown that we can change the growth rates of cancers by changing the magnetic fields. Our work is of interest to people worried about the safety of cell phones and living near power lines with possible applications in sending signals to biological systems.

Professor Barnes worked on design of lasers and laser surgery in the early 1960’s and the effects of microwave pulse on biological systems in 1975. He was involved in the second epidemiology study of the effects power lines on childhood leukemia and has been interested in understanding how weak electric and magnetic fields can be sensed by biological systems ever since. He and his students have shown that they can modify the growth of cancer cells by reducing the static magnetic field from 45μT to less than 1μT [Martino et al., 2010] and in a paper with Ben Greenebaum they provide a theoretical foundation for showing how weak magnetic fields could modify the recombination rates of radical pairs and concentrations radicals in biological systems [Barnes and Greenebaum, 2015].

He has also been involved in evaluating energy storage system for use in integrating renewable energy into the grid.  He and his students have built lasers, flash lamps, super conductors, avalanche photo diodes and other electron devices and have also worked on the effects of electric and magnetic fields on biology and energy storage systems for renewable energy systems.