Host: The Japan Radiation Research Society
It has been believed that the serious biological effect observed after irradiation of heavy ions is due to formation of clustered-DNA-damage which may be difficult to be repaired. However, it is difficult to detect such kind of damages experimentally. The purpose of this study is to estimate the yields and the configuration of DNA damages as well as the spatial distribution of the damages along to the tracks of heavy ions using the Monte Carlo simulation. A new Monte Carlo track structure code for any kind of ions from hydrogen to uranium has been developed and applied for simulation of the induction process of DNA damage. Induction of strand breaks and base damages were simulated with direct and the radical generation and diffusion using Monte Carlo methods for atomistic model of DNA. The number and configuration of damages on the DNA segment of a few helical turns were estimated. In our presentation, the framework of the developed track code for ions, the calculated DNA damage spectrum for some selected types of ions for different energies will be shown and discussed by comparison with the related RBE data of double strand breaks and cell death.
