What is radiation biophysics?

Answer 1

Simply put, radiation biophysics is the intersection of Biology and radiation physics. And it's a big intersection - with lots of traffic. Radiation physics is all about what happens to living things that are zapped with radiation. And it's a huge field because of the different types of radiation and the many, many ways it occurs naturally or is artificially generated and applied for a purpose. Let's look at a few areas of investigation and application to get a handle on radiation biophysics. We are naturally exposed to radiation from the moment we are conceived to the moment we die. The radiation comes in two "flavors" as we look at it - electromagnetic and particulate. As an example of the former, we are being bombarded by gamma rays right now. These rays are are a form of extremely high frequency electromagnetic radiation. The rays originate on the sun and in other stars, star-like objects, etc. throughout the galaxy and the universe in general. They also originate from the nuclear decay of radioactive materials around us, both naturally occurring stuff (e.g., radium) and from man-made stuff, like material from bomb tests, nuclear accidents and the like. Gamma rays are what is called ionizing radiation, and that means that as the ray passes through material (like living tissue), it breaks some of the covalent bonds of the biochemical molecules. This can destroy some chemical structures. If it turns out that the "target" is a DNA or RNA chemical structure, it can alter or kill the unit of life. There are particulate radiation sources all around us too. These sources are mostly the ones we already cited - radioactive materials in the environment that occur naturally or have been man made. The "effective range" of these particulate radiation sources is (thankfully) very short (except for neutron sources, which aren't that common). That's good because these "subatomic bullets" have tremendous energy, and they can ionize the heck out of living tissue - they can damage it big time. They can also undergo interactions with non-bio materials that release other ionizing radiation, and that radiation is bad for biologicals. Having sort of "summed up" radiation hazards, let's look at who cares about all this. Health physics is a closely associated - or actually a specialty - within the field of radiation biophysics. The health physicist focuses on the adverse affects of radiation on living things, particularly people. The nice folks in health physics are the ones who track exposure to X-rays of hospital staffers, laboratory personnel or company radiation workers and the like. They are interested in all the sources of radiation in a given setting where they have charge and all the folks who work in areas and could be exposed. They're the ones who insure dosimeters and film badges are available and worn appropriately. And they collect and process all the radiometric data related to exposures and maintain a file on everyone to maintain a history of exposure. These nice people have to monitor all the radioactive sources used in medical treatment of patients, and they work along with the physicians, and the other medical and technical staff who handle the materials. As you might guess, there is a lot of documentation associated with this activity. And all of the people associated with these activities are working in radiation biophysics. Oh, and the health physics experts are working in all the places where nuclear reactors are, and also anywhere radioactive materials are manufactured, processed and fabricated into something we wish to use. NASA and all space concerns where people are outside earth's atmosphere must have radiation biophysicists on hand to consider the effects of the extra radiation on those who go up. It's isn't as nice out there as some people think. We usually have research going on here or there where we are exposing biological material to some form of radiation. The researchers and all those who work with them in monitoring and safety are working in radiation biophysics. Bottom line is that anywhere there is an intersection of people and radiation or radioactivity, there is radiation biophysics.