Nuclear charge biological effects

The specific biological effects of charged particle radiation were recognized as early as 1935 [68]. However, systematic studies have been performed only after accelerators became an Important tool for nuclear physics studies and could then be used also as radiation source for radiobiological applications [69-71 ]. A typical survival curve as obtained after irradiation of Chinese hamster cells with low energetic carbon ions is shown in Fig. 14 in comparison with the dose response curve after photon irradiation. Two essential differences are clearly visible ... 

Parameterization and evaluation of the through-space nonbonded interactions in Eq. (1) presents the greatest difficulty in the development of empirical potentials for biological macromolecules. There are a number of reasons for this difficulty. First, the A and B parameters, which represent the repulsive van der Waals radius and attractive dispersion interactions, are not directly observable by experimental measurement. In fact, they represent a complicated and non-uniquely decomposable set of high level quantum chemical interactions (Pauli exclusion, nuclear repulsion, induced electronic effects, etc.) which are not readily amenable to theoretical analysis. A second problem arises in attempts to represent the electrostatic interactions due to a permanent charge distribution on particular atomic centers i.e. the q s in Eq. (1). 

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