June 14, 2016
On June 1-2, the international conference “Modern Trends in Radiobiology and Physiology” was held in JINR, Dubna (Russia). The conference was devoted to the 60th anniversary of JINR.
The experimental results of DNA damage and repair, obtained by ultra-short relativistic electron beams of AREAL facility at CANDLE Institute, were presented by the head of Genetics and Cytology Chair Prof. Rouben M. Aroutiounian (Faculty of Biology, Yerevan State University).
In his interview to JINR weekly (http://wwwinfo.jinr.ru/jinrmag/2016/25/ko25.htm) Prof. Aroutiounian stated, “It is a great honor for me to be here. Our cooperation with Russian biologists and doctors lasts for decades. We are in many respects the foreign clones of Russian scientific schools. In the difficult 1950-1960s the physics were the ones to give a helping hand to the geneticists: genetic laboratories were organized at physical institutes both in Russia and Armenia. There is a very firm and long lasting cooperation between radiobiologists of Armenia and JINR. Since, modern researches are mostly associated with life sciences, they demonstrate the need and perspectives of radiobiology.
We have a very long history of cooperation with friendly and powerful JINR Laboratory of Radiation Biology. A lot of newly obtained research results and their implementation prospects have been assessed during the conference. The atmosphere present here reminded me of a very interesting conference held in 2014 on radiobiology and space biology in memory of Academician Alexey Sisakyan. If we try to summarize the results of today’s conference, then, both the issues of different types of radiation effect with the application of molecular and cell biology modern methods and their extrapolation possibilities to security problems during long space flights have been touched upon.
Actually, this is the first time I am representing the results of our research on the study of relativistic electron beam effects in molecular genetic studies with the application of DNA comet method (single cell electrophoresis) carried out on AREAL linear accelerator. AREAL (Advanced Research Electron Accelerator Laboratory) is the attainment of our nuclear physicists of CANDLE Synchrotron Research Institute which was implemented in 2014 by a great support of RA State committee of science. It is designed for generation and acceleration of ultra-short electron bunches with low emittance. In our research we have tried to analyze the effects of electron beams having different power and frequency values. I have introduced our plans regarding the study of epigenetic effects role in the evaluation of DNA damage. Moreover, a number of meetings and discussions were held with our colleagues. The RAS Corresponding Member, LRB JINR director Evgeny A. Krasavin introduced us the amazing “astrobiology” results and the research perspectives. Such kind of conferences and meetings are very essential for idea and result exchange, looking forward for the next ones!”