Laser-Driven Particle Acceleration Towards Radiobiology and Medicine

326 Pages·2016·9.27 MB·English

by  Antonio Giulietti (eds.)

Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering
Antonio Giulietti Editor
Laser-Driven Particle
Acceleration Towards
Radiobiology and
Medicine
Laser-Driven Particle Acceleration Towards
Radiobiology and Medicine
BIOLOGICAL AND MEDICAL PHYSICS,
BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
Thefieldsofbiologicalandmedicalphysicsandbiomedicalengineeringarebroad,multidisciplinaryanddynamic.
Theylieatthecrossroadsoffrontierresearchinphysics,biology,chemistry,andmedicine.TheBiologicaland
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principlesofrenewableenergyproduction,advancedprostheses,andenvironmentalcontrolandengineering.
Editor-in-Chief:
EliasGreenbaum,OakRidgeNationalLaboratory,OakRidge,Tennessee,USA
EditorialBoard:
MasuoAizawa,DepartmentofBioengineering, JudithHerzfeld,DepartmentofChemistry,
TokyoInstituteofTechnology,Yokohama,Japan BrandeisUniversity,Waltham,Massachusetts,USA
OlafS.Andersen,DepartmentofPhysiology, MarkS.Humayun,DohenyEyeInstitute,
BiophysicsandMolecularMedicine, LosAngeles,California,USA
CornellUniversity,NewYork,USA PierreJoliot,InstitutedeBiologie
RobertH.Austin,DepartmentofPhysics, Physico-Chimique,FondationEdmond
PrincetonUniversity,Princeton,NewJersey,USA deRothschild,Paris,France
JamesBarber,DepartmentofBiochemistry, LajosKeszthelyi,InstituteofBiophysics,Hungarian
ImperialCollegeofScience,Technology AcademyofSciences,Szeged,Hungary
andMedicine,London,England RobertS.Knox,DepartmentofPhysics
HowardC.Berg,DepartmentofMolecular andAstronomy,UniversityofRochester,Rochester,
andCellularBiology,HarvardUniversity, NewYork,USA
Cambridge,Massachusetts,USA AaronLewis,DepartmentofAppliedPhysics,
VictorBloomfield,DepartmentofBiochemistry, HebrewUniversity,Jerusalem,Israel
UniversityofMinnesota,St.Paul,Minnesota,USA StuartM.Lindsay,DepartmentofPhysics
RobertCallender,DepartmentofBiochemistry, andAstronomy,ArizonaStateUniversity,
AlbertEinsteinCollegeofMedicine, Tempe,Arizona,USA
Bronx,NewYork,USA DavidMauzerall,RockefellerUniversity,
BrittonChance,UniversityofPennsylvania NewYork,NewYork,USA
DepartmentofBiochemistry/Biophysics EugenieV.Mielczarek,DepartmentofPhysics
Philadelphia,USA andAstronomy,GeorgeMasonUniversity,Fairfax,
StevenChu,LawrenceBerkeleyNational Virginia,USA
Laboratory,Berkeley,California,USA MarkolfNiemz,MedicalFacultyMannheim,
LouisJ.DeFelice,DepartmentofPharmacology, UniversityofHeidelberg,Mannheim,Germany
VanderbiltUniversity,Nashville,Tennessee,USA V.AdrianParsegian,PhysicalScienceLaboratory,
JohannDeisenhofer,HowardHughesMedical NationalInstitutesofHealth,Bethesda,
Institute,TheUniversityofTexas,Dallas, Maryland,USA
Texas,USA LindaS.Powers,UniversityofArizona,
GeorgeFeher,DepartmentofPhysics, Tucson,Arizona,USA
UniversityofCalifornia,SanDiego,LaJolla, EarlW.Prohofsky,DepartmentofPhysics,
California,USA PurdueUniversity,WestLafayette,Indiana,USA
HansFrauenfelder, AndrewRubin,DepartmentofBiophysics,Moscow
LosAlamosNationalLaboratory, StateUniversity,Moscow,Russia
LosAlamos,NewMexico,USA
MichaelSeibert,NationalRenewableEnergy
IvarGiaever,RensselaerPolytechnicInstitute, Laboratory,Golden,Colorado,USA
Troy,NewYork,USA
DavidThomas,DepartmentofBiochemistry,
SolM.Gruner,CornellUniversity, UniversityofMinnesotaMedicalSchool,
Ithaca,NewYork,USA Minneapolis,Minnesota,USA
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/3740
Antonio Giulietti
Editor
Laser-Driven Particle
Acceleration Towards
Radiobiology and Medicine
123
Editor
AntonioGiulietti
Sezione “AdrianoGozzini”
Istituto Nazionale di Ottica
Pisa
Italy
ISSN 1618-7210 ISSN 2197-5647 (electronic)
Biological andMedical Physics, Biomedical Engineering
ISBN978-3-319-31561-4 ISBN978-3-319-31563-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-31563-8
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016935958
©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2016
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ProfessorWolfgangSandner(1949–2015).CourtesyMax-Born
InstitutBerlin©RalfGünther/MBI
This volume is dedicated to Wolfgang
Sandner who left us suddenly in December
2015. His memory will remain with us as an
active and productive scientist, as a lab
leader, as a science and culture organizer,
as a manger of scientific organizations.
Many of the authors of this book could
appreciate Wolfgang’s authority together
with his friendship as Coordinator of the
Laserlab-Europe network.
His contribution to the topics of this volume
was enormous, both directly with his
outstanding scientific works and through
Laserlab, making possible for many young
scientists to perform their researches inside
the major European laser facilities.
The Editor
Preface
The idea of this volume was originally to provide a state-of-the-art review and
perspective of laser technologies addressed at implementing compact particle
acceleratorsforbiologicalresearchesandclinicaluses.Aslongastheeditorialwork
wasprogressing,itwasmoreandmoreclearthattheexpectationlevelforthisnovel
technologyisquitehighinabroadcommunityofscientists,includinglaser,plasma
and nuclear physicists, medical physicists, radiation biologists, radiologists.
Contributions from each one of these classes of expertise became highly desirable
and luckily they were offered by some of the leading experts and groups presently
operating in these fields.
So, the original scheme expanded its branches like a fruitful tree. Physicists
involved in the particle acceleration with laser techniques, provided not only the
stateoftheartoflaser-drivenelectron,protonandionacceleratorsmostsuitablefor
biological studies and future clinical therapies, but also a deep insight of the most
advanced experiments and novel ideas. It comes out that laser-produced particles
beams have been already used in a variety of physical processes to generate sec-
ondary sourcesofhigh-energyphotons,anotherkindofionizing radiation.Inturn,
photons of tens of MeV have been used to produce, via photonuclear reactions,
radionuclidesofinterestforthenuclearmedicine.Thereaderwillalsodiscoverhow
high-resolution ultrafast radiography can be easily performed with particles accel-
erated by laser.
Ontheotherhand,radiotherapistsdescribesomeofthemostadvancedRF-based
devicesandprotocols,extremelyeffective,theyactuallyuseinahospital.Thenovel
practiceinradiotherapyoftumorsisthebenchmark(continuouslymovingforward)
for the laser-driven technologies. While a number of biologists are systematically
investigating the response of living matter to the particle bunches produced by
lasers,someothersarealreadyspeculatingonhowthisnewopportunitycanextend
and empower the most recent concepts of radiobiology.
A major point to be addressed by the research is the extremely shorter duration
of bunches produced by laser with respect to bunches produced by conventional
accelerators.Afactorexceeding1,000,000isinvolved,fromμstosub-pstimescale.
vii
viii Preface
Theultrashortdurationoflaser-producedparticlebunchesmayinvolveunexpected
consequencesforcancertherapy.Infact,itisnotknownifdeliveringthesamedose
withparticlesofthesamekineticenergybutatmuchhigherinstantaneousdose-rate
may lead to a different tissutal effects with possible consequences on therapeutic
strategies.
Fromthephysicalpointofview,wecanexpectthattheextremeparticledensity
we can reach in a bunch with laser acceleration could produce some nonlinear or
“collective” effects which cannot be described by the usual single-particle Monte
Carlo simulation. In other words, it is possible that each ultradense bunch of
electrons could produce not only the statistic sum of the effects of each low-LET
particle but also some high-LET effect due to the total charge involved. If this
would be true, the biological action could not only concern DNA but also some
structural cellular feature, like membrane.
Thismajorissue,inturn,callsforadedicatedresearchonradiobiologicaleffects
tobeperformedwith theultrashortparticlebunches producedbylasertechnology.
It is evident that such a research also has a high conceptual value since it enables,
for the first time, the investigation of very early processes occurring in the time-
scales of physical, chemical, biological responses of the living matter to ionizing
radiation.Theactionofsuchkindofradiationcanbefollowedforthefirsttimeon
femtosecond time scale and nanometric spatial scale.
The novel acceleration technologies, based on the interaction of ultrashort
intense laser pulses with matter, delivering sub-picosecond pulses of ionizing
radiation,also demandageneralrenewingofdosimetryandsafetyprotocols. Both
absoluteand relative dosimetryarereconsidered,intheframeworkofinternational
protocols. While suitable existing devices are examined, including radiochromic
foils, ionization chambers, and Faraday cups, novel concepts for ad hoc detectors
are introduced and need to be carefully investigated. Dosimetric simulations with
Monte Carlo methods, in particular with the GEANT4 toolkit, provide a precious
support to this effort.
Also radiological safety has to be reconsidered while thinking to transfer tech-
nologiesbasedonhigh-powerlasersinaclinicalcontext.Itisnotexactlythesame
issue as with conventional accelerators delivering a well defined type of particle
with an almost monoenergetic spectrum. We are dealing now with a mix of radi-
ological products delivered by laser–matter interaction, at a given but changeable
intensity, with a variety of materials acting as accelerating media. Of course this
kind of problems have already been faced in high-power laser facilities devoted to
studiesonlaser–matterinteractionsandinparticulartoparticleacceleration,butfor
amedicalfacilitythesafetyofpatientsandpersonnelisparamount,thenalsodoses
from any secondary radiation and any kind of other hazards have to be carefully
minimized.
This volume tries to introduce the reader to the complex conceptual system
growing very quickly from the advent of laser-driven particle acceleration and
leading to a concrete expectation of benefits for basic knowledge and health care.
The multidisciplinarycontribution of severalexpertsand research groups has been
organizedin12chapters,whichinturnhavebeengroupedintothreeparts,eachone
Preface ix
including four chapters organized by major issues rather than by disciplines.
Ageneralintroductionprecedesthe12chapters,whilethevolumeisopenedwitha
dedication to Prof. Wolfgang Sandner, whose memory is strongly linked to all the
scientific efforts and successes in this field.
The editorial effort, hard as usual, was largely compensated by the enthusiastic
support and friendly attitude of all the authors as well as of a few colleagues from
the ILIL group of National Institute of Optics in Pisa.
The editor cannotpersonallyforget thecontinuouslovelyencouragementofhis
wife Angelica.
Pisa, Italy Antonio Giulietti
Contents
1 Lasers Offer New Tools to Radiobiology and Radiotherapy . . . . . 1
Antonio Giulietti and Toshiki Tajima
1.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Dealing with Protons and Ions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3 Dealing with Electrons and Photons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4 Dosimetry and Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.5 How Far We Are . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Part I Updating Radiobiology, Radiotherapy and Radiation Safety
2 Laser-Plasma Accelerators Based Ultrafast
Radiation Biophysics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Yann A. Gauduel
2.1 General Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2 Ultrafast Laser Science and Real-Time Radiation Processes:
the Synergy Between LERF and HERF Domains . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2.1 Low Energy Radiation Femtochemistry
of the Life Solvent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2.2 Multiparametric Approach of High Energy
Radiation Femtochemistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3 High Energy Electron Bunches and Ultrafast Radiation
Chemistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3.1 Laser-Accelerated High Energy Electron Beams. . . . . 25
2.3.2 High Energy Radiation Femtochemistry. . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3.3 Towards a Real-Time Probing of Prethermal
Events in the Ionization Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4 Spatio-Temporal Radiation Biomedicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.4.1 Ultrashort Pulsed Irradiation Effects at Sub-cellular
Level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4.2 Potential Applications for Pulsed Cancer Therapies. . . 39
xi