Heavy ion radiobiology for hadrontherapy and space radiation protection.

Abstract

Research in the field of biological effects of heavy charged particles is needed for both heavy-ion therapy (hadrontherapy) and protection from the exposure to galactic cosmic radiation in long-term manned space missions. Although the exposure conditions (e.g. high- vs. low-dose rate) and relevant endpoints (e.g. cell killing vs. neoplastic transformation) are different in the two fields, it is clear that a substantial overlap exists in several research topics. Three such topics are discussed in this short review: individual radiosensitivity, mixed radiation fields, and late stochastic effects of heavy ions. In addition, researchers involved either in experimental studies on space radiation protection or heavy-ion therapy will basically use the same accelerator facilities. It seems to be important that novel accelerator facilities planned (or under construction) for heavy-ion therapy reserve a substantial amount of beamtime to basic studies of heavy-ion radiobiology and its applications in space radiation research.