Grant: Project Grant

The efficiency and safety of radiotherapy, in which ionizing radiation is used to kill cancer cells, rests largely on our ability to determine the amount of radiation (or radiation dose) delivered to a tumor and nearby healthy tissue. Well-established methods exist to do this when the source of radiation lies outside the patient. However, if the radiation source is inside the patient, for example as a radioactive atom delivered into a cancer cell, then the situation is more complex. In such cases, we require information on where radioactive atoms are found in the cell and of how and where their radiation travels once it is emitted. This latter can be achieved through computer simulations that follow step-by-step the slowing down of the emitted radiation. Since low energy electrons are the most numerous of the species emitted and/or generated by the radioactive atoms, the computer simulations require information on how these electrons travel in the cell and what kinds of damage they can do. This project will measure how low energy electrons interact with cellular biomolecules using a range of experimental techniques we have developed. This basic quantitative information will be included in new computer models of radiation damage to more accurately calculate radiation dose delivered to patients in such novel types of radiotherapy.