SPACE RADIATION-INDUCED BYSTANDER EFFECT IN ESTIMATING THE CARCINOGENIC RISK DUE TO GALACTIC COSMIC RAYS

Abstract

Space radiobiology is an interdisciplinary science that examines the biological effects of ionizing radiation on humans involved in aerospace missions. The knowledge of the risk assessment of the health hazard related to human space exploration is crucial to reducing damages induced to astronauts from Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) and sun-generated radiation. GCRs have been identified as one of the primary sources of radiation exposure in space. In this context, an accurate characterization of the possible risk of carcinogenesis induced by exposure to GCRs particles is mandatory for safe human space exploration, and one of the most crucial open problems is the contribution to carcinogenesis due to the effects on the cells directly and not directly irradiated, indicated as Target Effects (TEs) and Non-Target Effects (NTEs), respectively. It is accepted that the detrimental effects of ionizing radiation are not restricted only to the irradiated cells but also to non-irradiated distant cells manifesting various biological effects. Tumor Prevalence (TP) is often used to investigate the effects of NTEs in predictions of chronic GCR exposure risk. This paper reports the status of the research on this topic at the INFN Roma Sapienza Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) research group, where is in progress an extensive study about the risk evaluation of the NTEs that the GCRs radiation will imply when added to the TE. A theoretical framework is presented for TP-induced NTEs modeling, ready to be used with the data collected from the AMS02 detector. Finally, a possible example of the use of the tool is shown for an accurate estimate of the tumor prevalence function of the exposure period for different typical space protons energies.