Radiobiology: State of the present art. A conference report

Abstract

Purpose: To review the present state of the art of the major current research areas in radiobiology in the form of a conference report.

Background: To celebrate their 50th anniversary, the Dutch Radiobiology Society recently held a meeting entitled “50 Years of Radiation Science in The Netherlands: From Molecular Research to Medical Application”. Speakers were attracted from the USA and various European countries, covering topics including hypoxia, genomics and proteomics, DNA repair, DNA damage and signalling, chromosomal instability, stem cells, and normal tissue responses. Given the occasion, a history of Dutch radiobiology was also presented.

Conclusion: Understanding the molecular pathways influencing the radiation response of cells, tumours and normal tissues has progressed dramatically over the last decades. Papers presented at this meeting showed that this understanding is leading to new and more effective ways to treat cancer with radiation.

Keywords:

• radiobiology
• DNA repair
• hypoxia
• genomics
• stem cells

Acknowledgements

I thank the conference organisers and the NVRB (Dutch Radiobiology Society) for their request to write this overview paper, giving me the opportunity to highlight various interesting and clinically relevant aspects of current radiobiology. I would also like to thank Fiona Stewart, Conchita Vens and Monique de Jong for critical reading of the manuscript. The conference was held at the Conference Center Leeuwenhorst, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands on 2–3 April, 2009.

The conference organising committee comprised: J. Bussink, R.P. Coppes, N.A. Franken, D.C. van Gent, S. Hoving, H.H. Kampinga, L.F. Mullenders, A. Pastink, K. Rousschop, P. Sminia, F. Stewart and C. Vens.

Meeting sponsors were: Elekta, ESTRO, RPS Services, Roche, NVRO (Dutch Society for Radiation Oncology), European Union Integrated Project “DNA Repair”, KuDos Pharmaceuticals/AstraZeneca, BD Bioscience, Nucleotron, Oxford Optronics, MetaSystems, LA Biosystems, Elsevier, Klaas Breur Fonds, and the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF).

Declaration of interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper.