In a synchrotron radiation source coherent infrared (IR) radiation is emitted when the bunch length is comparable to the wavelength of the emitted radiation. To generate coherent THz (far IR) radiation, the ANKA storage ring is operated regularly in a dedicated low-alpha optics. Different bunch lengths, corresponding to different spectral ranges of the THz spectrum and various electron beam ene...

Living organisms are exposed to a mixture of environmental stressors, and the resultant effects are referred to as multiple stressor effects. In the present work, we studied the multiple stressor effect in embryos of the zebrafish (Danio rerio) from simultaneous exposure to ionising radiation (alpha particles) and cadmium through quantification of apoptotic signals at 24 h postfertilisation (hp...

PURPOSE Liver damage by radiation limits its efficacy in cancer treatment. As radiation can generate apoptotic signals, we wished to examine the potential to protect the liver by inhibiting apoptosis through two key mediators, FAS and tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1). EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Radiation-induced liver damage was assessed by serum aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminot...

Carbon-ion radiotherapy has been used to treat more than 9000 cancer patients in the world since 1994. Spreading of the Bragg peak is necessary for carbon-ion radiotherapy, and is designed based on the linear-quadratic model that is commonly used for photon therapy. Our recent analysis using in vitro cell kills and in vivo mouse tissue reaction indicates that radiation quality affects mainly th...

Ionizing radiation exposure is associated with activation of certain immediate-early genes that function as transcription factors. These include members of jun or fos and early growth response (EGR) gene families. In particular, the functional role of EGR-1 in radiation-induced signaling is pivotal since the promoter of EGR-1 contains radiation inducible CArG DNA sequences. The Egr-1 gene belon...

The phase 1 clinical trial of systemic Targeted Alpha Therapy for metastatic melanoma has shown that solid tumours can be regressed by alpha radiation. However, patient blood vessels and lymphocytes inevitably received a background radiation from non-targeted alpha decays in the blood circulation. To determine the toxicity of alpha particle to normal tissue capillaries and peripheral blood lymp...

Although there are substantial experimental, epidemiological and clinical evidences that high doses of ionizing radiation cause cancer and other detrimental biological effects, the health effects of human exposure to chronic low dose radiation exposures are still poorly known. People in some areas around the world live in dwellings with radiation and radon levels as much as more than 2...

In previous studies we showed that cultured human keratinocytes expressed the 55-kD TNF receptor (TNFR) and that its expression the important for TNF alpha-mediated upregulation of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) expression on keratinocytes. Because factors that either reduce or enhance TNFR expression are likely to have a major impact on the biological effects of TNF alpha on kerati...

We demonstrate that mouse intestinal intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL) can be divided into subsets based on the differential expression of functional T cell receptor alpha/beta (TCR-alpha/beta) signaling complexes. Two subsets, CD4+ 8 alpha + beta - and CD8 alpha + beta -, are refractory to stimulation with anti-TCR-alpha/beta and contain high frequencies of potentially self-reactive cells. In ...

The dynamics of soliton and quasisoliton solutions of the cubic third-order nonlinear Schrödinger equation is studied. Regular solitons exist due to a balance between the nonlinear terms and (linear) third-order dispersion; they are not important at small alpha(3) (alpha(3) is the coefficient in the third derivative term) and vanish at alpha(3)-->0. The most essential, at small alpha(3), is a q...