Radiation oncology has benefited from the digital era by improving its performance in terms of irradiation precision and selectivity. This has enabled dose escalation to regions of interest (ROIs) and dose reduction to organs at risk (OARs), supported by the availability of Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT). The introduction of proton beams, carbon ions (hadrons), and boron neutron...
Ionizing radiation triggers a sequence of physical, physico-chemical and chemical events from
femtoseconds to milliseconds before entering a biological response window that extends from
seconds to days and years. Within this cascade, superoxide dismutases (SODs) in living cells critically regulate the conversion of superoxide to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), thereby shaping downstream redox...
Ultrahigh-intensity laser systems now enable the generation of particle beams with instantaneous dose rates reaching 10⁷–10¹² Gy/s and pulse durations down to the femtosecond regime. The Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) is emerging as a unique open-access platform where such laser-driven protons, ions, electrons, and neutrons can be systematically investigated for radiobiology and medical...
The extremely high electric fields sustained by plasma make the Laser Wakefield Acceleration
(LWFA) the most compact technique to generate very highly relativistic electron beams in the
MeV-to-GeV regime. However, the limited repetition rate and low efficiency of this technology
has, to date, prevented people from unleashing its full potential as a unique source for basic
research,...
