Aquaphotomics emerged from non-invasive analysis of biological systems using near infrared spectroscopy where water spectral patterns of bio fluids and tissues were found to be highly informative for the health status and have been used as biomarkers for diagnosis. Nowadays, it has been applied in various fields. One of them is measuring very low concentrations of the solutes using the water mirror effect on molecular level extended over the near-infrared range of the spectrum where the near-infrared light at various frequencies has been absorbed by different pools of water molecules that have changed correspondingly to the concentration of the solute. Other applications are related to water quality and functionality evaluation, understanding functionality of microorganisms and water molecular changes related to amyloid formation, diagnosis of physiological conditions etc., all based on the holistic approach that the knowledge of water molecular system provides. The future is towards developing the entire “aquaphotome”, i.e. collective characterization of all possible “windows” of electromagnetic spectrum (Water Matrix Coordinates, WAMACS) where water molecular system could be observed. In the future, we expect to be able to explain how the water spectral pattern is related

Roumiana Tsenkova is professor and head of laboratory at Kobe University. Recently she proposed aquaphotomics as a new scientific field to study the collective characterization and quantification of pools of water molecules that have the same molecular vibration and hold information on structure, function, and dynamics of organisms or aqueous systems.

Water constitutes roughly 70% of the mass of our body. Water metabolism is one of the most important homeostatic functions. There is a dynamic and precise regulation for water balance in our body; secretion such as tears or saliva and absorption in digestive tracts or kidney. Disturbance in water balance can be seen in many clinical disorders from dry syndromes to brain edema. The discovery of the water channel aquaporin (AQP) greatly expanded our understanding of the regulation of the water permeability of biological membranes. We have introduced a couple of new technologies in order to understand further water dynamics and biological relevance of AQP in the living system. A nonlinear optical microscopy technique, the coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering (CARS) imaging, has been applied to directly and quantitatively imaging water transport through cell membranes. We introduce “Aquaphotomics” approach to access water dynamics of the cells as well as AQP functions. Molecular dynamics simulation is also used to evaluate our experimental findings. Taken together, we try to understand life science better by focusing on water molecule behaviors; how water molecules contribute to the complex of life phenomenon, especially self-organization under non-linear open system.

Masato Yasui has been working on water channels, aquaporins in biology and medicine, and has spent eight years at Nobel Laureate Peter Agre’s workgroup. As professor and head of department at Keio University, Tokyo, he focuses on biophysics to understand the behavior and roles of water molecules, and has started collaborations in aquaphotomics.

Despite recent advances in food product development (e.g. nutraceuticals and functional foods) our understanding of the role of water in foods is still in its infancy. Monitoring of food quality via optical methods such as near infrared (NIR) and terahertz spectroscopy is made possible due to the interaction of electromagnetic energy and the water matrix. Aquaphotomics provides a framework for understanding the role of water in food systems and processes. This paper highlights the importance of water in food quality and presents a number of case studies that demonstrate the potential of NIR hyperspectral imaging for monitoring food quality through analysis of water absorbance bands.

Aoife Gowen as a post-doctoral researcher investigated the intersection of near infrared spectroscopy, chemical imaging and chemometrics for characterization of biological systems. Nowadays, as senior lecturer at University College Dublin, her research area is multidisciplinary, involving applications of sensor technology and chemometrics to biological systems, including food quality process monitoring.

The role of water and its influence on absorption in NIR range has been studied over 40 years. In the past, the presence of water was often considered as a limit for the calibration performance of other constituents, in particular for applications in food and agriculture fields. The Aquaphotomics concept helps to positively evaluate the water changes occurring, after physical or chemical perturbations, in different and several bio-systems. The direct monitoring of food processes or/and chemical and physical changes in biological matrices is not often possible. These information can be collected through the study of water patterns in NIR region. Examples of Aquaphotomics application in food science (cheese ripening, effect of packaging on shelf life and product quality, scattering and absorption contribution, rice quality, etc.) will be shown in supporting the approach transferability following a correct flow-sheet of actions to demonstrate biological changes, rearrangements, and process behaviours.

Tiziana Cattaneo has been employed by the CRA, for more than 25 years. She has begun research in NIRS more than 15 years ago. As President of the Italian Society for NIRS, she continues improving the development on NIRS. Fields of research: milk and dairy, fruits and vegetables.

In recent years, the new approach of “aquaphotomics” has been proposed. This presentation focuses on recent applications of aquaphotomics in the pharmaceutical technology, medicine, food technology and for monitoring of food quality through observation of water absorbance bands. However, the use of aquaphotomics as a tool for microbiological monitoring, ecological and physiological and biochemical research remains underdeveloped. There is a lot of potential for new applications of aquaphotomics tools in the field of biotechnology and biochemistry - identification of microorganisms, monitoring of fermentation processes (growth rate and production rate), specification of metabolites, mass transfer in bioreactors, measuring the activity of enzymes, etc. Special attention will be made for aquaphotomics as a tool in the reveal of molecular mechanism of enzyme reactions, especially for hydrolases. Application of aquaphotomics as a new highly effective method for selection of probiotic bacteria strains through the analysis of the spectral changes caused by varying water molecular arrangement in the solution as a molecular mirror for the rest of the solution will be also discussed.

Albert Krastanov is professor and head of department at University of Food Technologies in Plovdiv, while he is visiting professor at several foreign universities. His research interests are in different fields of biotechnology science – industrial and applied enzymology and immobilized cells technology, industrial microbiology and bio-product analyses.

Nowadays, the field of natural product analysis is urgently demanding for the establishment of the Aquaphotomics approach due to the following reasons: On one side NIR absorption spectra of water in food products might give a hint to their geographical provenience. This is of huge economic importance as farming gets more and more pressurized by its high production costs, opening of the markets and globalization. To be able to compete against cheaper sustainably producing competitors, the added value of these products must be made credible for the consumer in order to achieve reasonable prices. In the field of medicinal plant analysis also the determination of the geographic origin and plants species plays a crucial role. Additionally, it is known that the water balance is essential for the medicinal effects and therefore deeper insights are strongly demanded. On the other hand the Aquaphotomics approach offers huge potential to establish new methods for the fast quality control of different types of contaminants. The advantages to be expected by introducing Aquaphotomics in natural products analysis can be summarized as following: Simultaneous, fast and non-invasive determination of geographic provenience, determination of species together with a quantitative analysis of main ingredients, and a check for critical contamination as well, new insights

Christian Huck is professor and deputy head of the institute for analytical chemistry at University of Innsbruck. He holds several national and international awards, and as author of numerous scientific papers, editorial member of journals in vibrational spectroscopy, and guest professor in foreign countries, he has built up a wide international scientific network.

We have previously reported the recording of electromagnetic signals (EMS) produced by aqueous dilutions of bacterial and viral DNAs. These recordings can be stored under a digitized form in lap top computers and sent via internet to distant recipient laboratories. The original DNA sequences were retrieved from water nanostuctures induced by EMS by means of the ingredients of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) using a thermo-resistant polymerase (TAQ). We have now come to a new stage: instead of using PCR, we have exposed human living cells cultured in flasks to the amplified EMS of a bacterial DNA sequence. After several days of exposure, we have found the specific bacterial DNA sequence in these cells. At the same time, these cells of tumoral origin, are inhibited in their growth and finally die. This indicates that such cells do possess the machinery to “read “ the message coming from the EMS and synthesize accordingly the foreign DNA. Here we demonstrate a further step: that the latter process can be carried out by living cells in culture, indicating that these cells do possess the system to read the sequences from water nanostructures. Therefore this system does exist in nature.

Luc Montagnier led the team at Pasteur Institute which first isolated the HIV1 virus for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. As President of the World Foundation for AIDS Research & Prevention, he has co-founded two centers for the prevention, treatment, research and diagnosis of AIDS patients in Ivory Coast and Cameroon. His current studies bear on the diagnosis and treatment of microbial and viral factors associated with cancers, neurodegenerative and articular diseases using innovative technologies.

Non-linear modelling of spectra: Measurements of light intensity are often affected by a number of different causes. If they have sufficiently different spectral profiles, they may – in principle – be distinguished and quantified by multi-wavelength measurements and multivariate calibration. But high-sensitivity aquaphotomics may call for a combination of different mathematical forms in this modelling process. For instance, physical variation in specular- or stray light gives additive effects in the raw reflectance or transmittance measurements. Variations in a sample’s different chemical constituent concentrations (as expected in aquaphotomics) give multiplicative raw signal changes (additive in absorbance), and so does instrumental light source variation. Physical optical path length variation due to sample thickness or light scattering gives exponential effects in the raw signals (multiplicative in absorbance). Ideally, to calibrate a diffuse spectrophotometer efficiently, one ought to handle the different types of physical and chemical signal contributions mathematically according to their contribution types. So there is not only Reflectance R; there may be e.g. a whole “ladder of logs” to be handled: [R, log(R), log(log(R)),…]. Therefore, the simple additive model is not the answer to all calibration problems. More mechanistic modelling may be required. The trick is to apply our prior knowledge in mathematical modelling, without causing information loss, supporting wishful thinking or creating computational nightmares.

Harald Martens has been working in chemometrics since the beginning of 1970s. He has had a great influence on the field, developed several new methods, written numerous scientific papers, books and had lectures all over the world. At NTNU he focuses on combining multivariate measurement-driven and knowledge-driven modelling.

The discovery of new scientific findings requires more and more often the perception of many parameters simultaneously, which results complex multivariate data matrices. The extraction of the useful information and the determination of the relationships in such complex data structures need the application of multivariate data evaluation methods, i.e. chemometrics in the field of biological and chemical sciences. To ensure the rapid and extensive development of modern water researches the ongoing development of new chemometrics tools is essential. The work reported here introduces the easy to use application and interpretation of recently developed statistical methods for the data evaluation in near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, revealing interaction of electromagnetic energy and water as a system point of view, i.e. Aquaphotomics approach.

Bernhard Pollner graduated as a Medical Doctor from Innsbruck Medical School and works as a self-employed scientific consultant. He will start his joint PhD course at Kobe University, University of Innsbruck and Innsbruck Medical School. His works focus on theories and models of water structure, information in water and bio-systems.