This special issue of International Journal of Radiation Biology is a collection of twelve papers arising from lectures given as part of the Radiation Research Society’s History Symposia at the 2014, 2015, and 2016 annual meetings. The History Committee proposed a dedicated History session five years ago, and the first took place in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2014. A History symposium has been a feature of each meeting thereafter. The first three symposia were structured around research questions, such as the dominance of the DNA paradigm, the robustness of the evidence for “iso-effect per fraction” in radiotherapy, and the role of non-targeted effects. In each case, there were three speakers addressing the history of different aspects of the topic of interest, followed by a scholar-in-training who took the question into the future. The talks were all so interesting, well attended, and relevant to the foundation of the radiation field that it was decided to construct a special issue of this journal focused on the talks to preserve both the history and the information that went into each symposium presentation.
Carmel E. Mothersill and Howard B. Lieberman
Guest editors