Secondary Electrons in Radiation Chemistry of DNA

6 th September 2023, 2 PM, J. Heyrovský Institute, Brdička´s Hall

Series of lectures by our scientists who have done research at our institute as Heyrovsky Young Scientists.

The research field exploring the interaction of ionizing radiation with living tissue is very active due to the increased medical use of radiation, e.g. proton therapy, and increased human exposure to natural radiation, e.g. during high-altitude flights. Every ionization event is accompanied by the release of secondary electrons. Such electrons undergo rapid interaction with the neighboring environment to become solvated electrons. For many years, the role of secondary electrons, prior to solvation, in radiation chemistry remained unexplored because of the absent experimental approaches for studying these transient species. The talk introduces two approaches developed in our laboratory to study processes induced by secondary electrons in the radiation chemistry of DNA. The first is to study interactions of meV electrons with microhydrated DNA building blocks and the second is to study interactions of MeV electrons with long DNA strands. These enabled studies towards a better understanding of the radiation chemistry of DNA as well as the synergistic action of some chemo-radiation drugs.