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| Report on
Dr. Eric J Hall International Symposium |
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In celebration of Professor Eric J. Hall's
retirement, international symposium was in
Columbia University, morning side campus,
where the famous law library is founded.
Dr. Hall is an extremely famous professor
in the field of radiation biology as well
as in radiation oncology. He has been a director
of Columbia University, Center for Radiological
Research, for many many years. After his
over 40 years career, he has finally decided
to retire. Two days' symposium was held between
October 13 and 14, 2008, and over 120 scientists,
physicians, and radiotherapists were gathered
to celebrate his retirement. From Japan,
Professor Komatsu from Kyoto University and
myself were the only two persons invited.
It was an outstanding symposium, which I
never experienced.
The first day was started from the history
of Dr. Eric, whose talk was given by the new
director of Columbia University, Center for
Radiological Research, Professor David Brenner.
Dr. Hall is always a pioneer in our field,
but, if we looked back into his career, we
completely understand the reason, as his research
key words are all that are thought to be the
key words in the present research, those including
radiation sensitivity, dose-rate issue, oxygen
effects, so and so on. These must be the reason
why his book entitled "Radiobiology for
the Radiologists" has been edited for
over 6 times.
Introduction of his history was followed by
the scientific talks, whose subtitle is "".
After lunch, our session entitled "low
dose radiation effects" was held. There
were three speakers including me. The first
two were Dr. Eric Wright from Dundee University,
UK, who was invited to Nagasaki by the former
21st COE program, and Dr. William Morgan,
who is the radiation biology international
consortium member of the current GCOE program.
He used to be in University of Maryland, but
very recently, he moved to Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory in Washington State. My
talk was about a role of higher-order chromatin
structure on non-targeted effects. We have
hypothesized that altered chromatin structures
caused by large deletions could be DNA damage
memories. In fact, the presence of DNA damage
memory, or radiation signature, has been discussed
for many years. However, there are no solid
data indicating their presence. In my talk,
deletions for over several megabases were
shown to be transmitted through the progeny
of surviving cells. Those large deletions
are particularly unstable, as delayed chromosomal
instability was quite often observed in chromosomes
harboring large deletions. Our conclusion
was extensively discussed by the participants,
and I am quite convinced that our GCOE program
should contribute to the better understandings
of the effects of low dose irradiation on
human beings.
The second day was started from the talk given
by Dr. Cox and Dr. Komaki from MD Anderson
Cancer Center. They did impressive talks on
recent advances in radiation therapy. Their
therapies are based upon IMRT with protons,
which enables particle deposition on the exact
tumor tissues. This advanced physical targeting
method has been imported to Japan for many
years, but, apart from this issue, I should
mention one thing, which is the recent philosophy
underlying the newly advanced radiotherapy,
which is "Biology is always being aside".
Until recently, the development of radiation
facility is what we needed. But now, as IMRT
is one of the ordinary methods for radiotherapy,
next step cannot be accomplished without the
aid of biology. For example, cancer tissues
are usually mixed with normal tissues. Currently
available imaging is impossible to discriminate
against normal tissues from cancer tissues.
However, biological difference, for example
different activity of MAP kinase differentially
lights on the cancer tissues, which sit right
beside the normal tissues. This is an extraordinary
imaging technique, which becomes possible
with the Biology. I believe that such information
could be provided by the biology side. Unfortunately,
basic research activity in radiation oncology
department is rather weak in Japan so that
our GCOE program should contribute to the
reorganiation of a radiation oncology network,
which makes translational research possible.
At the end of the symposium, Dr. Hall once
again expressed his sincere thanks to all
the participants. I am pretty sure that his
philosophy is in everyone's mind. As our GCOE
program invited many of the participants as
an international consortium member, we are
ready to provide chances to communicate his
philosophy and to translate his idea. It is
what we should do, and it is what I want to
do.
| Keiji Suzuki,
Department of Molecular Medicine |
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