COST Collaborative Project on Radiation Damage

所有的电离辐射，如果受到足够大的照射，都能致癌。然而，电离辐射，如果小心使用，控制照射也可用于癌症治疗。关于辐射影响的资料来自对受照射群体和个人的研究、动物实验以及细胞和分子水平的研究。后者特别有用，因为它可以开发没有遗传和许多环境影响的受控实验，这些影响会在人类和动物的研究中引起问题。例如，可以制备DNA样品并使其经受充分表征量的电离辐射。因此，近年来开展了一项重大研究，开发关于DNA损伤的实验室实验，目的是开发可用于预测辐射对细胞系统影响的辐射损伤模型，这些模型将有助于我们预测无意中暴露于辐射和使用辐射治疗癌症（通过选择性破坏癌细胞中的DNA）的后果。在这个项目中，联合王国的一组研究人员参加了一个研究辐射损害的欧洲研究方案。他们将与彼此和欧洲合作伙伴合作，探索电子、离子和紫外线照射对DNA及其组成分子的影响。使用各种各样的实验技术，这种损伤的能量依赖性和不同类型的电离辐射的影响将被探测，目的是在DNA中的单个分子的水平上提供这种损伤的图片。这样的图像然后可以用于DNA损伤的几个计算机模拟，目的是提供辐射损伤的预测。

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.