Luc Montagnier’s Revolution in Biology

New Evidence for
A Non-Particle
View of Lifeby Laurence Hecht
Jan. 21, 2011
rance’s leading virologist, Luc Montagnier, has brought forth remarkable
new evidence for a non-particle view of life. The emission of low-frequency electromagnetic waves from bacterial DNA sequences, and the apparent ability of these waves to organize nucleotides (the raw material of DNA)
into new bacterial DNA, by mediation of structures within water, are among theimportant results reported to date.
By demonstrating the interaction of living organisms with electromagnetic
waves, perhaps including the low-frequency Schumann resonance waves in the
Earth’s atmosphere, the work has revolutionary implications for biology andour whole understanding of the universe, extending the work begun in the
1920s by such figures as Alexander Gurwitsch, who detected
ultraviolet radiations from growing plant cells.
The signals detected by Montagnier appear to be a property of
most bacteria infecting humans, as well as many viruses, including HIV, influenza A, and hepatitis C. Further, it appears from theresearch, that some common diseases not previously considered to be of bacterial origin, may indeed be so. In evidence ofthat, signals identical to those detected in test tubes containing
live bacteria, have been found in the blood plasma, and in the
DNA extracted from the plasma, in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, chronic Lyme
syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, and various neuropathies.
Dr. Montagnier, who won the Nobel prize in 2008 for his
1983 discovery of the HIV virus, has proposed to employ theseradio frequency techniques for detection of chronic bacterial
and viral infections, and to explore means to use them in treatment of diseases including AIDS and autism. Montagnier also
notes that such techniques might some day provide a solution to the growing
problem of evolution of antibiotic-resistant organisms.
Under attack from the science establishment in Europe and elsewhere in theWest, Montagnier, age 78, has now made the decision to pursue further re-F

University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine

Nobel Prize laureate Luc Montagnier: His
groundbreaking new work looks at the interplay of radiation with life.

Jiaotang University

Prof. Montagnier at Jiaotang University in Shanghai, receiving his appointment in November 2010
to a university chair. Montagnier, under attack in
the West, will continue his research at Jiaotang.

. L. Montagnier, J. Aissa, E. Del Giudice, C. Lavalee, A. Tedeschi, and G. Vitiello, “DNA Waves
and Water,” (2010) http://arxiv.org/pdf/1012.5166
. The Schumann resonance refers to the waves of base frequency 7.83 Hz and its higher harmonics which propagate in the waveguide formed between the surface of the Earth and the ionosphere.
In 1952, German atmospheric physicist Winfried Schumann hypothesized that lightning activity
would produce such low-frequency waves, and by dividing the circumference of the Earth by thevelocity of light, he predicted the approximate frequency later detected.

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search in China, at a new research institute which will bear his
name at Shanghai’s Jiaotang University.
The Non-Particle View
Montagnier’s experiments bear upon certain crucial questionsof scientific method which could not be properly addressed
within the usually posed paradoxes of 20th Century physics, butwhich begin to find a clearer resolution when the subject matterbecomes the relationship among the non-living, living, and also
cognitive domains. For example, we knew already from the workof de Broglie and Schrödinger in the 1920s, that the paradoxes
arising from the attempt to reduce experience within the nonliving domain to a particle-based conception of substance, could
be overcome by a wave conception which subsumed the phenomena of electromagnetic radiation and the old “mechanics”
within a unified conception of microcosm and macrocosm.
However, Schrödinger was unable to carry over such insights
into the domain of life, instead proposing a disappointing notion of local negation of entropy to explain the obvious upward
organizing principle characterizing both evolutionary progressand cognitive human advance. That difficulty was resolved
midway through the 20th Century by Lyndon LaRouche’s recognition that human creativity, which he recognized as thedriving force of human physical economic advance, and theactual source of wealth or value, as opposed to all prevailingtheories of labor content or market valuation, was also theknowable principle of universal progress, or cognate with it.
Therefore, the characteristics of that universally propagatedcreative principle must be adducible from properly constructedinvestigations into the relationship of cosmic radiations to lifeon Earth—provided that the usual flawed assumption about thecompleteness and efficacy of the human sensorium, the fivesenses, is cast aside, as LaRouche has recently emphasized.
By revisiting the question of the interplay of radiation, including atmospheric and, implicitly, cosmic radiation, with life, theMontagnier experiments have brought to bear some fresh newevidence into this area of inquiry which had been declared almost verboten by the science establishment for most of the lastcentury.
The Experimental Evidence
To make these matters more transparent, let us now review ingreater detail the extraordinary experimental results reported
by Montagnier and his colleagues.
1. Regeneration from filtrates. In a paper published in 2009,
Montagnier et al. reported evidence of bacteria and viruses regenerating themselves from apparently sterile solutions. After
passage through filters of pore sizes far smaller than the bacterium or virus, solutions which had contained infected cultures,
but tested as sterile after filtration, were able to regenerate theInternational Organization for Mycoplasmology

Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae attached to swine cilia. The mycoplasma are very small bacteria, without a cell wall, which are
implicated in several human diseases.
bacteria and viruses that had infected them. The first experiments
used Mycoplasma pirum, a species of small, cell wall-deficient
bacteria, about 300 nM in size. The mycoplasma constitute a genus of very small bacteria, which are implicated in a number ofhuman diseases and are resistant to many types of antibiotics.
After filtration of a culture of human lymphocytes infectedwith Mycoplasma pirum through filters of 100 nM or 20 nM porosities, incubation on a sterile culture of human lymphocytes
showed regeneration of the original mycoplasma. The sterilityof the cultures on which the mycoplasma was regenerated had
been rigorously tested for traces of bacterial DNA, and showednegative. “Repeated search for traces of mycoplasma DNA by
PCR [polymerase chain reaction] and nested PCR using specificprimers for the adhesin gene or for the 16S ribosomal gene wasconsistently negative,” Montagnier reports.
These were the results, first observed 10 years ago, which set
Montagnier on this experimental path.
2. Emission of low-frequency waves from the filtrates. In thecourse of investigating this anomalous phenomenon, Montagnier and colleagues found a remarkable new property of thesefiltrates. After dilutions with water, the apparently sterile filtrates were shown to produce low-frequency electromagnetic

. For example, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., “A Wedding Anniversary: The Sixth
Sense,” EIR, Jan. 14, 2011, pp. 4-22. http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2011/
3802sixth_sense.html
See also, the report “The Extended Sensorium” by the LaRouche “Basement”
Project, EIR, Feb. 4, 2011 and http://www.larouchepac.com/node/17172
. L. Montagnier, J. Aissa, S. Ferris, J-L. Montagnier, C. Lavalee, “Electromagnetic Signals Are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial
DNA Sequences,” Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences(2009) Vol. 1, pp. 81-90.

CDC

The more classical Escherichia coli, here shown magnified
1,250X in a fluorescent antibody stained photomicrograph.

21st Century Science & Technology

Winter 2010/2011 Jacques Benveniste,
whose 1980s
research found thatan antibody
remained in very
diluted water—and
who was thensubjected to ridiculeby the science mafia.
waves in a manner that was reproducible. Similar emissions
were also found in apparently sterile filtrates of solutions that
had been infected with a larger, more classical bacterium, E.
coli, and with other microorganisms. But no signal was foundin unfiltered solutions (Figure 1).
The waves were detected by an apparatus that had been designed by immunologist Jacques Benveniste. Before being test. Jacques Benveniste (1935-2004) had been the director of the immunology labof France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). His re­search in the 1980s showed that water, which had once contained an antibody,but had been diluted to such a degree that no molecule of the antibody could
remain, was still capable of acting upon a type of white blood cell known as abasophil. Benveniste concluded that the configuration of water molecules had
become biologically active, despite the absence of the antibody. Benveniste’s
results were replicated by independent laboratories in Canada, Italy, and Israel,
before their June 1988 publication in Nature. But in a follow-up visit to Benveniste’slaboratory by a team including Nature editor John Maddox and magician James
Randi, the results could be reproduced in many, but not all trials. Benveniste
called the visit a mockery, and denounced McCarthy-like methods. But the highprofile defamation campaign by Nature caused him public discreditation.

Figure 1
Device for the capture and analysis of electromagnetic
signals: (1) a coil of copper wire, impedance 300 Ohms;(2) plastic stoppered tube containing 1 mL of the solution
to be analyzed; (3) amplifier; (4) computer with software.
Source: “DNA Waves and Water”

ed, the samples are serially diluted, 1 part in 10, in small (1.5
milliliter) plastic tubes, which are then tightly stoppered andstrongly agitated for 15 seconds, a critical step. The sample isplaced inside a coil of copper wire of 300-ohm impedance,
which acts as a detector of low-frequency electromagnetic signals, attached to an amplifier. Computer software is used to separate background noise, and the signal is
Fourier-analyzed. The first low dilutions were usually negative for a signal.
Positive signals were usually obtainedat dilutions ranging from 10-5 to 10-8, or
10-12 (5 to 8, or 12 successive dilutions).
Higher dilutions were again negative.
The original unfiltered suspension was
negative at all dilutions for all microorganisms studied (Figure 2).
When the signal appears, an increase in amplitude and in frequency
over the background is detected. Frequencies close to 1,000 Hz and its
multiples were found. The range of thedetected frequencies falls in what issometimes called the extremely low
frequency (ELF) band of electromagnetic radiation (about 3 to 3,000 Hz).
The bacteria are emitting frequencies
which would be audible were theysound waves, but as electromagnetic
Figure 2
signals are traditionally thought of as
Fourier-analyzed signal from aqueous dilutions of Mycoplasma pirum. The spikes
lying at the very low end of the radioat the left are the 50 Hz signal from electric circuit. The spikes at the right (promfrequency spectrum.
inent in D-9 to D-12) are interpreted as the positive signal of about 1,000 Hz from
A remarkable feature of the results
the bacteria.
with bacteria and viruses is that many
Source: “DNA Waves and Water”
of the emitting filtrates are so highly di-Winter 2010/2011

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luted as to have almost no likelihood of containing the original
infectious agent or its complete DNA. In order to account for
this, as well as the appearance of signals from pure water,Montagnier adopted an hypothesis developed by researchers
into the anomalous properties of water, namely, that coherent,
polymeric nanostructures are formed in the water. A number ofphysical studies have reported the formation of long polymersof hydrogen-bonded dipoles in water. However, these tended
to be short lived. In Montagnier’s view, the emitted signals may
be a resonance phenomenon, perhaps depending upon excitation by the ambient electromagnetic noise. Their persistence
after the removal of the agent which forms them might be due
to a coherence effect produced by the radiations themselves,
as postulated by Italian physicists Emilio Del Giudice and Giuliano Preparata.
(Results dating back to the 1920s had shown the existence ofemissions from living substances at the much higher frequency
range of ultraviolet light. Such emission was later confirmed by
Fritz-Albert Popp, who named the phenomenon biophotons.
German researcher
Fritz-Albert Popp
continued the 1920s
work of Alexander
Gurwitsch, investigating
emissions from living
plants of high frequency
untraviolet light, which
he named biophotons.
Popp and colleagues demonstrated that the light was coherent,
somewhat like a laser; that the emitting molecules are coupled
by a coherent radiation field; and that the source is the DNA in
the cell nucleus. Whole body biophoton detection in Popp’s lab
showed a correlation with known biological rhythms of diurnal, lunar, and other periodicity, and suggested the existence ofa globally organized  biophoton field for the organism.)3.“Cross talk” between the test tubes. In continued experimentation by Montagnier, it proved possible both to eliminate
the signal from certain dilutions, and to cause others, which
had not emitted, to begin emitting signals. This is the phenomenon Montagnier refers to as “cross talk.”
In one series of experiments, negative (non-emitting) dilutions were combined with positive (emitting) dilutions. Thus,
when 0.1 mL of a negative low dilution (perhaps 10-3) was added to 0.4 or 0.9 mL of a positive dilution (10-8), the latter became negative. “This indicates,” writes Montagnier, “that the‘silent’ low dilu­tions are self-inhibitory, probably by interference of the multiple sources emitting in the same length, or

CDC

Scanning electron micrograph of Salmonella typhimurium
bacteria magnified 15,000X. Montagnier observed electromagnetic signals in dilutions of Salmonella, and other bacterial
species.
slightly out of phase, like a radio jamming. Alternatively, theabundance of nanostructures can form a gel in water and therefore are prevented to vibrate.”
If this is truly a wave effect, it should be possible to demonstrate that the properties of the dilutions could be communicated, not by physically combining them, but by placing theplastic tubes containing them next to one another. This wasdemonstrated by placing a donor tube of a low “silent” dilution(10-3) of E. Coli next to a receiver tube of a positive “loud” dilution (10-9) of the same substance.
The tubes were placed for 24 hours inside a box surrounded
by a nickel-iron alloy known as mu-metal, which has the property of suppressing low-frequency magnetic fields. The hypothesis was that the mu-metal would shield them from external

. E. Del Giudice, G. Preparata, G. Vitielo, “Water as a free electric dipole laser,” Physical Review Letters, Vol. 61, pp. 1085-1088 (1988).
. See, for example, Gurwitsch & Gurwitsch, “Twenty Years of Mitogenetic Radiation: Emergence, Development and Perspectives,” 21st Century Science &Technology, Fall 1999, pp. 41-53.
. cf. Recent Advances in Biophoton Research and its Radiations, edited by
F.A. Popp (World Scientific, 1992).

CDC

Scanning electron micrograph of the human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV-1), which is spherical in appearance. Montagnier observed electromagnetic signals from a portion of the virus
DNA.

21st Century Science & Technology

Winter 2010/2011 In experiments reported by Montagnier at a 2010conference in Lindau, a tube of pure water, when exposed to a second tube emitting signals, was made toemit signals, and then to cause DNA sequences
placed into the pure water to assemble into sequences similar to those of the original emitting organism.
Because of its importance we will summarize the experiment in as much detail as is available.
As reported in a 2010 paper on the experiment,10
a fragment of DNA taken from the long terminal repeat of the AIDS virus (HIV) was used as the source.
(The long terminal repeat is a portion of the DNA
found in retroviruses that repeats itself many times
over.) The fragment was then amplified by the PCRtechnique, in which a naturally derived enzyme,
known as polymerase, artificially stimulates the DNA
to reproduce many copies of itself when the nucleotides and other raw materials are supplied. Dilutionsof the PCR-amplified DNA solution were then made,as in earlier experiments, until an electromagnetic
signal was detected.
The contents of the tube were then filtered throughFigure 3450-nm and 20-nm porosity filters, and diluted from
Small test tubes containing diluted bacterial culture, or pure water,
were placed inside a solenoid of copper wire which was shielded
10-2 to 10-15. A second tube containing pure water wasby mu-metal to prevent extraneous magnetic influence. A generasubjected to the same filtration and dilutions. The
tubes were then placed near to one another inside a
tor sent an electrical signal to the solenoid, creating a low-frequenhorizontally oriented copper coil or solenoid (Figure
cy magnetic field of 7 Hz. The device could cause “cross talk” between
3). The solenoid and tubes are placed inside a conthe tubes.
tainer shielded by a 1-mm-thick layer of mu-metal. A
Source: “DNA Waves and Water”
low-intensity electric current oscillating at 7 Hz wasthen fed to the solenoid from an external generator forelectromagnetic noise, permitting the active electromagnetic 18 hours at room temperature.
When the tube containing pure water was removed after 18
emissions from the bacteria to act on their own. After 24 hours
in the shielded box, the donor tube was still silent, but the re- hours, it was found to emit signals, as did the tube containing
ceiver tube had also become silent. But when the receiver tube the diluted filtrate of viral DNA. No emission occurred under
the following conditions:
was further diluted, a signal appeared again.
• Time of exposure less than 16-18 hours“These results suggest,” writes Montagnier, “that the receiver• No coiltube was made silent by the formation of an excess of new• Generator turned off
nanostructures, which could emit signals upon further dilu• Frequency of excitation less than 7 Hz11
tion.” By interposing a sheet of mu-metal between the tubes, it
was possible to suppress the effect.
• Absence of DNA in the first tube.
The cross talk also proved to be species specific. ElectromagNow comes the most remarkable step. The ingredients fornetic signals were observed in dilutions of other bacterial spe- synthesizing DNA by the polymerase chain reaction (nucleocies, including Streptococcus B, Staphylococcus aureas, Pseu- tides, primers, polymerase) were added to the tube containing
domonas aeroginosa, Proteus mirabilis, Bacillus subtilis, the pure water. It is expected that the PCR reaction should reSalmonella, and Clostridium perfringens. The signals were detected in the same range of dilutions observed for E. coli, andthe transfer effect was noted upon immersion in a mu-metal . “DNA between Physics and Biology: DNA Waves and Water” from the preshielded box. But a species could only “talk” with a member of sentation of Dr. Luc Montagnier, Lindau, 28 June 2010 http://montagnier.net/
montagnier/index.php/publications/the same species.
4. Wave transmission of DNA genetic information to water. 10. L. Montagnier, J. Aissa, E. Del Giudice, C. Lavalee, A. Tedeschi, and G. Vitiello, “DNA waves and water.”
The next phase of the experimentation proved truly remarkable,
for it comes close to challenging the tenet of biology, some- 11. Compare the experiments of Italian biophysicist Bruno Brandimarte in aplow-frequency magnetic oscillations, both in vitro, and to the healing oftimes known as Redi’s principle, and also strongly defended by plying
wounds and other pathologies. Brandimarte proposes that magnetic oscillaPasteur, that all life comes from life (omne vivum ex vivo). Yet, a tions below 10 kHz are non-Maxwellian waves, which should be called magcloser analysis will demonstrate that it is not the truth of the neto-electric, not electromagnetic. See, Bruno Brandimarte, “Whole-Body
Magneto-Therapy Speeds Wound and Disease Healing,” 21st Century Science
principle, but what we mean by “life” which is actually chal- & Technology, Summer 2010, pp. 21-30. www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Arlenged by the results.
ticles_2010/ Summer_2010/Magneto-Therapy.pdf
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Again, the Non-Particle View
A broad view of the results ofMontagnier, as also those of the
Craig Venter group, touch upon amost fundamental question as tothe nature of life. In stating the principle, all life comes from life, a principle which has never been shown
to be violated in any experiment todate, it is usual to envision somematerial process, such as egg andsperm, spore, or cell division, as
the responsible agent. In the results
reported here, however, the life
principle appears to be transmitted,
not by the immediate presence of amaterial substance, but mediately,in connection with a signal detectable by electromagnetic apparatus.
The fuller elaboration of the mechanisms, whether by formation ofnanostructures in water as suggested, or perhaps by additional means,remains to be worked out. However, we can say that the Montagnier
CDC
results, as also the widely reported
Photomicrograph of Borrelia burgdorferi, the spi- results of the Venter group in creatThese elements give support to arochete bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Mon- ing a bacterial cell controlled by anprovocative explanation of ourtagnier also found electromagnetic signals from a assembly of a complete bacterial
Mycoplasma pirum filtration
portion of this bacterium in diluted water.
genome,14 require an extension ofexperiment: The nanostructuresthat usually limited conception of
induced by M. pirum DNA in the filtered water represent
life. But it is the work of Montagnier, which sheds the greaterlight on the question.
different segments of its genomic DNA. Each nanostrucThe attempt to reduce the principle of life to something deture, when in contact with the human lymphocytes, isrivable from the laws of chemistry and physics was never very
retro-transcribed12 in the corresponding DNA by somesatisfactory. The argument of the vitalists, that an animating
cellular DNA polymerases. Then there is a certain
principle must be superimposed upon the presumedly selfprobability (even very low) that each piece of DNA
evident material substance of living matter, also had its
recombines within the same cell to other pieces forlimitations. With the results of Montagnier, we recognize
reconstructing the whole DNA genome. We have tothat the principle, omne vivum ex vivo, still holds, but only
assume, that in presence of the eukaryotic cells, thesynthesis of the mycoplasma components (membraneon the condition that we adopt a non-particle conception oflipids, ribosomes) can be also instructed by the mycolife.
plasma DNA. One single complete mycoplasma cell isthen sufficient to generate the whole infection of
14. In 2010, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institutes reported whatsome called “artificial life” (Gibson, et al., “Creation of a Bacterial Cell Conlymphocytes. Recent experiments of the C. Venter grouptrolled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome,” Science, Vol. 329, pp. 52-56,
have shown [Gibson D.G., et al., Science, Vol. 329, pp.  
2010). Ingeniously extending known methods of cloning, the team caused
52-56 (2010)] that a synthetic genomic DNA is sufficient
100 components of artificially synthesized gene sequences to assemble
into a structure virtually identical to the DNA of the bacteria Mycoplasma
to maintain all the characteristics of a mycoplasma. All
mycoides. Inserted into the cell of a closely related species of mycoplasma,
the steps assumed in the regeneration from water can be
the new cell grew into colonies, expressing the synthetic DNA sequence.
13
analyzed and open to verification.
The word “creation” in the article’s title is, however, misleading. To thosequire the presence of at least one
copy of the DNA segment which is
to be reproduced, to serve as an initial template for DNA amplification.
This was not added. The PCR reaction was then performed in the usual way by cycled exposure to heat.
The result was that the DNA produced from the tube initially containing pure water was of the expected size and 98 percent identicalin sequence to the original DNA sequence from the long terminal repeat of the HIV. Out of 104 nucleotides (the molecules which join
together to make up the DNA structure), only two were different fromthe original. The experiment was reproducible and successful in 12 outof 12 tries. It was successfully repeated with a DNA sequence froma bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi,
the spirochete responsible for Lyme
disease.
Montagnier concludes his reportwith the observation:

12. By this, I believe Montagnier means to indicate that the single-stranded
DNA is synthesized as in a retrovirus, but without the presence of the RNA template. Instead, the aqueous nanostructure serves as the “template.”
13. Montagnier, “DNA Waves and Water,” op. cit.

confused into supposing that life has been created de novo, some clarity
might be achieved by the very rough analogy that the synthesis requires theE. coli and baker’s yeast organisms as surrogate “father” and “mother,” as itwere. The synthesis requires staged insertion of the sub-products into thelarger E. coli bacterium, and then into the DNA of S. cerevisiae (baker’s
yeast), where the artificial M. mycoides genome comprises about 5 percentof the total DNA length. Life is not created de novo, but only in the presenceof life, as in the Montagnier experiments. This, apart from moral considerations as to the misuse possible in all genetic experiments, as also in thepatenting of biological materials in agriculture, neither of which we take up
here.

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