Role of Local Enhancement Effects in Hadron and Gold Nanoparticle Therapy

Biological enhancement by gold nanoparticles has been accounted for using the LEM, originally designed for hadron therapy [S.J. McMahon et al, Nature Scientific Reports, 1 DOI:10.1038/srep00018 (2011)]. This shows there is a deep conceptual overlap between hadron therapy and nanoparticle-enhanced therapy. In this project the LEM’s power as a predictive tool will be further tested in both situations. Biological radioenhancement due to gold nanoparticle preparations that exhibit different subcellular distributions (electron microscopy and plasmon-resonance imaging) will be investigated. 220 kVp, 6 MV and 15 MV x-rays (in Belfast), monoenergetic x-rays (4 – 80 keV, Diamond Light Source, Oxfordshire), protons and carbon ions (Catania, Italy) will be used to trigger the activation in calculably different ways as will irradiation of the same samples but without the addition of gold. New nanodosimetric models comparing with the observations to examine local enhancement effects on the subcellular level will be developed to account for the full set of measurements. In this way the student on this project will contribute to development of the next generation of cancer care based on nanoscale processes and technologies.