Synchrotron Radiation in Biology and Medicine

J.B. Pełka Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Al. Lotników 32/46, 02-668 Warsaw, Poland

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The properties of synchrotron radiation, substantial for biomedical research, as well as basic methods using these sources are briefly discussed. Particular attention is paid to radiation damage, which imposes the modification of techniques and procedures for synchrotron research in biology relative to the approach in materials science. The principles and the stormy development of new basic techniques such as imaging, structural and ultrafast dynamics studies developed for free-electron lasers are briefly reported. A special section is dedicated to the latest research with terahertz radiation on detection of pathogens, including viruses, as a possible application of synchrotron technology. Recently achieved viral detection sensitivity and selectivity are comparable to classical bioanalytical methods. This review is intended to researchers of various science and technology disciplines with, who are interested to cooperate in application of synchrotron radiation for issues of biology and medicine and provides a set of relevant references.

DOI:10.12693/APhysPolA.141.3 topics: synchrotron radiation, free-electron laser, biomedical applications, radiation damage