Radiation chemistry reveals secrets of cancer therapy
Medics have been using radiation to treat cancer since 1896. This type of cancer therapy has moved on a lot since those early days, in part because scientists have delved into the detailed chemistry that happens in our bodies. Today, there are different types of radiation therapy available that could use ion beams from a particle accelerator or use implants placed at the site of the tumour. These options can focus most of the radiation on the tumour, but some healthy tissue will still be affected. Two researchers are working on different aspects of radiation chemistry to understand these effects and minimise the effects in healthy tissue.
Mechanisms acting on DNA
Our DNA is damaged in small ways every day and then repaired by our own body. There are many different types of damage and so there are multiple repair mechanisms, each of which begins with an alarm sensor, i.e. a protein, and can involve a whole host of molecules. The most serious type of damage is a double strand break, where both sides of the double helix are broken. Repair of this damage by our bodies involves biochemical processes that can start a second after the damage is caused, or take minutes, hours, or days. The damage happens at a molecular level when chemical bonds are disrupted and this can happen in a fraction of a second.
