Basic Concepts of Radiation Biology

Ans Baeyens , Ana Margarida Abrantes , Vidhula Ahire , Elizabeth Ainsbury (1) , Sarah Baatout (2, 3) , Bjorn Baselet , Maria Filomena Botelho , Tom Boterberg , François Chevalier (4, 5, 6, 7) , Fabiana da Pieve (8) , Wendy Delbart , Nina Frederike Jeppesen Edin (9) , Cristian Fernandez-Palomo (10) , Lorain Geenen , Alexandros Georgakilas (11) , Nathalie Heynickx , Aidan Meade (12) , Anna Jelinek Michaelidesova , Dhruti Mistry , Alegría Montoro (13) , Carmel Mothersill , Ana Salomé Pires , Judith Reindl , Giuseppe Schettino , Yehoshua Socol , Vinodh Kumar Selvaraj , Peter Sminia , Koen Vermeulen , Guillaume Vogin , Anthony Waked , Anne-Sophie Wozny

1 PHE - Public Health England
2 SCK-CEN - Centre d'Etude de l'Energie Nucléaire
3 UGENT - Universiteit Gent = Ghent University
4 ARIA - Accueil et Recherche en Radiobiologie des Ions Accélérés
5 IRAMIS - Institut Rayonnement Matière de Saclay (DRF)
6 CIMAP - UMR 6252 - Centre de recherche sur les Ions, les MAtériaux et la Photonique
7 CEA - CEA- Saclay
8 BIRA-IASB - Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy
9 UiO - University of Oslo
10 UNIBE - Universität Bern / University of Bern
11 NTUA - National Technical University of Athens [Athens]
12 Focas Research Institute [Dublin]
13 LA FE - Fundación para la Investigación del Hospital Universitario LA FE de la Comunidad Valenciana

Abstract Radiation biology is the study of the effects of ionizing radiation on biological tissues and living organisms. It combines radiation physics and biology. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the terminology and basic concepts of radiobiology to create a better understanding of the ionizing radiation interactions with a living organism. This chapter firstly describes the different types of radiation, the sources, and the radiation interactions with matter. The basic concepts of radioactivity and its applications are also included. Ionizing radiation causes significant physical and chemical modifications, which eventually lead to biological effects in the exposed tissue or organism. The physical quantities and units needed to describe the radiation are introduced here. Eventually, a broad range of biological effects of the different radiation types are addressed. This chapter concludes with a specific focus on the effects of low doses of radiation.

Domains: Cellular Biology

Ans Baeyens, Ana Margarida Abrantes, Vidhula Ahire, Elizabeth Ainsbury, Sarah Baatout, et al.. Basic Concepts of Radiation Biology. Radiobiology Textbook, Springer International Publishing, pp.25-81, 2023, ⟨10.1007/978-3-031-18810-7_2⟩. ⟨hal-04221255⟩