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Title: Which nanoscale observable predicts biological effect
Plain: Dose alone does not predict biological damage for different particle types. The question is which microscopic measure of the energy pattern does.
Precise: Identify a nanodosimetric quantity, such as the ionization cluster size distribution in a volume of 2 to 10 nm, lineal energy on a 1 micron site, or a DNA-weighted energy-deposition metric, that collapses measured cell-survival and chromosome-aberration data for photons, protons and ions of LET from 0.2 to 200 keV/micron onto a single curve. An answer names the quantity and shows the collapse with residuals.
Settled by: Joint nanodosimeter and radiobiology measurements on identical beams showing one metric that orders all endpoints consistently.
Kind: well-posed
Answer type: identification
References: (empty)
Literature status: open
Status note: Cluster-size based metrics outperform LET in several comparisons, but no single observable has been shown to be sufficient.
Posed since: 2000