Radiation effects on DNA. The Silvanus Thompson Memorial Lecture, April 1982.

Abstract

After your President greatly honoured me by his invitation to deliver this, the 60th Silvanus Thompson Memorial Lecture, my feelings of apprehension as a chemist were somewhat allayed on discovering that I was not the first chemist to be so honoured, but, in fact, the third in more recent years after Sir Frederick Dainton (1958) and Sir George Porter (1969). I was also very intrigued to learn that Silvanus Thompson himself, clearly a broad man of science, had earlier in his career actually applied, albeit unsuccessfully, for a Professorship of Chemistry at University College, Bristol. Your President, in his desire that this lecture should be concerned with radiation-chemical effects on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), clearly had in mind that of all biomolecules, DNA is a prime target as far as the biological effects of ionising radiations are concerned. Indeed, it is in an area such as this that the radiation chemist can make his contribution to radiobiology, by establishing the precise nature of the chemical events induced by ionising radiations in the isolated biomolecules. It should be pointed out, however, that whereas the primary chemical events in the biomolecule will be the same whether these are induced in the isolated state or in the cell, subsequent events can be different in vivo due to the presence of other cellular components, for example, enzymes which may be able to repair certain radiation-induced lesions. This last aspect lies, of course, within the domain of the radiation biochemist.