Sylvain V. Costes Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Event Info

Title:  Modeling radiation effects: some answers to the NASA and DOE challenges

Date: Oct 13, 2011
Location: 3105 Etcheverry Hall
Time: 4-5pm

Abstract

Recent discoveries in carcinogenesis (cancer formation) have led to some serious doubts in the causal relationship between DNA mutation and cancer. As such, NASA Specialized Center of Research (NSCOR) and the DOE low dose program at LBNL have been facing new challenges to understand better how and when radiations affect humans. Dr. Costes, principal investigator participating on both of these projects, will discuss some of these challenges, and how nuclear engineering approaches can be used to answer the regulatory concerns of DOE and NASA. Specifically, recent advances in linking microdosimetric predictions at the cellular level with actual DNA damages will be highlighted. A new initiative modeling human organs in silico will also be introduced as a powerful tool to predict the response of human cells to radiation across various time and organization scales. These approaches could eventually be used as a mechanistic model for estimating cancer risk from radiation.