COST Collaborative Project on Radiation Damage

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All ionizing radiations, if given at sufficiently large exposures, can cause cancer. However ionizing radiation, if used in carefully, controlled exposures may also be used for cancer therapy. Information on the effects of radiation is developed from studies of exposed groups and individuals, from animal experiments, and from studies at the cellular and molecular level. The latter is particularly useful since it is possible to develop controlled experiments free of the genetic and many environmental effects that cause problems in studies of humans and animals. For example DNA samples can be prepared and subjected to well characterised amounts of ionising radiation. Thus in recent years there has been a major study to develop laboratory experiments on DNA damage with the intention of developing models of radiation damage which can be used to predict effects of radiation in cellular systems, models that will aid our ability to predict the consequences of both inadvertent exposure to radiation and the use of radiation in the treatment of cancers (by selective destruction of DNA in cancer cells). In this project a group of UK researchers has been assembled to participate in a European research programme to study radiation damage. In collaboration with one another and European partners they will probe the effects of electron, ion and ultraviolet light irradiation on DNA and its constituent molecules. Using a wide variety of experimental techniques the energy dependence of such damage and the effect of the different types of ionising radiation will be probed with the intention of providing a picture of such damage at the level of individual molecules in the DNA. Such a picture may then be used in several computer simulations of DNA damage with the aim to provide forecast of radiation damage.