Revision 1

Accepted · first revision · record

Title: Ab initio prediction of complex DNA damage yields
Plain: Radiation sometimes breaks both strands of DNA at nearby places, which cells repair badly. Predicting how often this happens, starting from physics alone, is not yet possible.
Precise: Predict the yield and complexity spectrum of DNA double-strand breaks and clustered lesions per 100 rad per cell, including the indirect chemical channel, from physical track structure plus radiation chemistry and a chromatin geometry model, without fitting to the damage data being predicted. Target accuracy: 20 percent across radiation qualities from Co-60 photons to 100 keV/micron ions. An answer is a predicted yield spectrum with that accuracy.
Settled by: Blind comparison of predictions with measured break yields and fragment-size distributions obtained by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis or equivalent.
Kind: well-posed
Answer type: value
References: (empty)
Literature status: open
Status note: Simulation chains reproduce yields only after chromatin-model and chemistry-parameter tuning.
Posed since: 1995