Rotation of sickle cells in homogeneous magnetic fields.

Deoxygenated sickle cells (HbS) have been shown to orient in homogeneous magnetic fields because of magnetic anisotropy of the hemes. The time of rotation is proportional to 1/H2 and is in agreement with theory. Structural information concerning the orientation of HbS molecules in the fibers is obtained from these experiments and is shown to agree substantially with existing models.

Theory of fluorescence polarization in magnetically oriented photosynthetic systems.

Many cells and cell fragments are known to assume specific alignments with respect to an applied magnetic field. One indicator of this alignment is a difference between the intensities of fluorescence observed in polarizations parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic filed. We calculate these two intensities using a model that assumes axially symmetric membranes and that covers a wide variety of shapes from flat disk to right cylinder.