title: Towards whole-body ultra-weak photon counting and imaging with a focus on human beings: a review.
abstract: For decades, the relationship between ultra-weak photon emission (UPE) and the health state of the body is being studied. With the advent of systems biology, attention shifted from the association between UPE and reactive oxygen species towards UPE as a reflection of changed metabolic networks. Essential for this shift in thinking is the development of novel photon count statistical methods that more reflect the dynamics of the systems organization. Additionally, efforts to combine and correlate UPE data with other types of measurements such as metabolomics be key to understand the complexity of the human body. This review describes the history and developments in the area of human UPE research from a technical - methodological perspective, an experimental perspective and a theoretical perspective. There is ample evidence that human UPE research will allow a better understanding of the body as a complex dynamical system. The future lies in the further development of an integrated UPE and metabolomics platform for a personalized monitoring of changes of the system towards health or disease.
authors.affiliation: Sino-Dutch Centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine/Centre for Photonics of Living Systems, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands; Meluna Research, Geldermalsen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: epa.vanwijk@lacdr.leidenuniv.nl.
authors.forename: Roeland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Van Wijk
authors.affiliation: Sino-Dutch Centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine/Centre for Photonics of Living Systems, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands; Meluna Research, Geldermalsen, The Netherlands; Division of Analytical Biosciences, LACDR, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands; Samueli Institute, 1737 King Street, Suite 600, Alexandria, VA 22314, USA.
authors.forename: Eduard P A
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Van Wijk
authors.affiliation: Sino-Dutch Centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine/Centre for Photonics of Living Systems, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands; TNO Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, Zeist, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Herman A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: van Wietmarschen
authors.affiliation: Sino-Dutch Centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine/Centre for Photonics of Living Systems, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands; Division of Analytical Biosciences, LACDR, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands; TNO Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, Zeist, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van der Greef
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D055432:Metabolomics; D057054:Molecular Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D018462:Photobiology / Q000379:methods*; D017785:Photons
keywords: Biophoton; Human; Reactive oxygen species; Review; Systems biology; Ultra-weak photon emission