Workshop on Challenges for Modelling of Radiation Damage in Cells

Date and place
17-19 October, 2006
Bad Honnef, Germany

Dear all,

the following information is sent to you as an addressee of the 1st Announcement of the RADAM'06 Meeting in Groningen in June. Please excuse if you receive this information now a second time due to overlap in the distribution list.

The COST ACTION P9 (Radiation Damage in Biomolecular Systems) Management Committee meeting in Groningen in June approved a meeting of WG5 to be held from 17th (noon) to 19th (noon) October 2006 in Bad Honnef, Germany.

For our further planning and to get approval for the budget from COST, Brussels, we need rather soon your reply regarding participation and oral or poster contributions.
The meeting will be a

Workshop on Challenges for Modelling of Radiation Damage in Cells.

The main aim of this meeting will be a discussion of various research areas where experimental results challenge present biophysical modelling approaches. Below you find a list of ten such challenges which may be taken as a preliminary compilation of possible sessions of the workshop.
It is intended to organize the meeting in 8 sessions of 90 to 120 minutes. In general, each session will include a main presentation of experimental results (25 min), a main presentation of modelling approaches and its results (25 min), optionally further short oral contributions regarding experimental data or modelling and, last but not least, an intensive discussion on experimental findings and suggested improvements in future modelling approaches. In addition, the presentation of posters on results in close relation to these topics will be possible.

The following 10 challenge areas are foreseen to be discussed during the meeting:

1. What is the contribution to various types of radiation damage in cells (ssb, dsb, base damages, etc.) of low-energy electrons and their dissociative attachment reactions on DNA and/or water?
   
   
2. How important are various types of base damages and other non-strand break radiation damage for late cellular effects?
3. Are the molecular chemical consequences of physical interaction processes occuring in high-LET radiation tracks, in particular inside the track core, qualitatively significantly different from those in low-LET radiation tracks?
4. How important are actually Auger-inner shell-effects induced by various radiation qualities for normal cells and for cells implanted for this purpose with high-Z atoms (e.g. Iodine, Se)?
5. What do we learn from H2AX gamma measurements and other DSB rejoining data on the dynamics of DNA repair and how can we describe these processes quantitatively?
6. What do we know about the cellular mechanisms in all 4 dimensions leading to the various types of chromosomal aberrations after irradiations?
7. Which types of molecular radiation damage are most closely related to cell inactivation processes? How do we quantify these contributions?
8. To what extent are DNA structures in cells reflected in various radiation damage?
9. What are the possible primary targets and induction mechanism of non-DNA-targeted effects of ionising radiation in secondarily affected targets?
10. Are there types of early radiation damage and mechanisms of high significance for late somatic radiation effects which have not been sufficiently addressed?

All these challenges are to be discussed with respect to the systems biological approach: 'What is the quantitative working hypothesis for the process considered, and which crucial experiment needs to be done next to discriminate between interpretation options'.

Further suggestions for topics challenging models interpreting low dose biological radiation effects are very welcome.

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For our planning I would be very grateful if you could indicate to me very soon ( if possible by Aug. 7) whether you will be able to attend this meeting and indicate whether your attendence would be as:

a) A member of the COST-Management Committee,
b) A nominee/substitute for a member of the Management Committee,
c) A researcher with a contribution in one or maybe more of the topics above; please indicate the topic number(s) and whether it mainly deals with experiments or a modelling approach.
d) A researcher with interest in that field without oral/poster contribution.

Depending on your response it is planned to invite further researchers to give presentations on topics not covered sufficiently so far. In particular, selected researchers from the RISC-RAD community will be asked to participate and contribute to the workshop.

I am looking forward to your response. It is an expression of interest; the request for registration will be submitted later.

With best regards

Dr. Werner Friedland
(COST-WP5-Workshop Organizer )
GSF - Institute of Radiation Protection

Ingolstädter Landstraße 1
D-85764 Neuherberg
Germany
Tel.: +49 89 3187 2767
Fax: +49 89 3187 3363
email: friedland@gsf.de