edited by Francesco Musumeci (University of Catania, Italy) , Larissa S Brizhik (Bogolyubor Institute, Ukraine) , & Mae-Wan Ho (Institute of Science in Society, UK)

This volume contains papers based on the workshop “Energy and Information Transfer in Biological Systems: How Physics Could Enrich Biological Understanding”, held in Italy in 2002. The meeting was a forum aimed at evaluating the potential and outlooks of a modern physics approach to understanding and describing biological processes, especially regarding the transition from the microscopic chemical scenario to the macroscopic functional configurations of living matter. In this frame some leading researchers presented and discussed several basic topics, such as the photon interaction with biological systems also from the viewpoint of photon information processes and of possible applications; the influence of electromagnetic fields on the self-organization of biosystems including the nonlinear mechanism for energy transfer and storage; and the influence of the structure of water on the properties of biological matter.

• Soliton Mechanism of Charge, Energy and Information Transfer in Biosystems (L Brizhik)
• Delayed Luminescence and Motional Harmonicity (L Cordone et al.)
• 62 AMEV Proton Beam for the Treatment of Ocular Melanoma at LNS — INFN (G Cuttone et al.)
• Search for Quantum and Classical Modes of Information Processing in Microtubules: Implications for “the Living State” (S Hameroff et al.)
• From ‘Molecular Machines’ to Coherent Organisms (M-W Ho)
• On the Physics of Ultraweak Bioluminescence and Intercellular Photon Signaling (V S Letokhov & A L Dobryakov)
• Nonlinearity in Biological Systems: How Can Physics Help? (A A Marino & C Frilot)
• Life as a Fourth Level of Quantum Organization of Nature (S P Sit'ko)
• Concept of Photon Storage Capacity in Cell Biology (R van Wijk)
• and other papers