Colleagues -
The following message was posted on the DOEWATCH mailing list this morning ...
Jim Hardeman
Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us
======================
Subject: Blood Test Measures Radiation Induced Cell Damage article/contact address
I just found Gong's address and article
his contact addresses:
Gong, Dr. Joseph jgong@facilities.buffalo.edu;
joseph_gong@sdm.buffalo.edu
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gong's article can be found here:
http://www.buffalo.edu/Reporter//vol31/vol31n18/n8.html
VOLUME 31, NUMBER 18 THURSDAY, February 3, 2000
Blood test measures radiation damage
Gong spends lifetime researching health effects of low-level
radiation
By LOIS BAKER
News Services Editor
Scientists from UB report that they have developed and
patented a simple blood test that can measure accumulated cell damage
from ionizing radiation-one of the major causes of cancer-long before
any physical signs are evident.
Results of research that led to the development of the
test, described as a "life-long wide-range radiation biodosimeter,"
appear in the December issue of Health Physics.
Joseph K. Gong, associate professor emeritus of oral
diagnostic sciences and chair of UB's Radioisotope Safety Committee, is
lead author on the paper. Gong has spent a lifetime researching,
lecturing and writing on the health effects of low-level radiation. His
work has centered on seeking a predictable, accurate and practical cell
marker of internal biological damage from radiation, using a rat model.
Gong's test, called the Transferrin Receptor Red Cell Assay,
or E-Tr assay, measures the amount of radiation that has been absorbed
by the body. Using a specific biomarker, it reveals the extent of
stem-cell mutations due to exposure to X-ray, or to anything potentially
carcinogenic that mimics X-ray damage, such as many chemicals used in
the microchip industry.
"All cancers develop from a pool of mutated cells that are
'turned on' by one or more triggers," Gong said. "The larger the pool of
mutated cells, the greater the risk. Cancer can take years to decades to
develop, depending on the type.
"This test provides a way to measure the damage before the
first sign of cancer appears," Gong said. "It also can determine if cell
mutations from ionizing radiation are increasing over time. If so, the
individual can take steps to stop the increase, perhaps through a change
in job, diet or environment. It gives people more control over their
health."
The method most widely used to determine radiation exposure
in the workplace is a badge containing radiation-sensitive film, which
the worker wears on the job. The badge measures external radiation
exposure only.
Gong and his co-investigator, Chester A. Glomski, professor
of anatomy and cell biology, were able to show that radiation exposure
causes stem cells-the "mother" of all blood cells-to express an excess
of erythrocytes (red-blood cells) bearing receptors for the protein
transferrin on their surface membrane. Knowing this cause and effect, it
then became possible to use the number of red blood cells with
transferrin receptors as a biomarker for radiation exposure. Subsequent
blood tests can monitor any increase or decrease in cell damage.
The test, which requires a drop of blood and about two hours
for analysis, is capable of measuring the effects of radiation doses
ranging from normal levels experienced in everyday life to amounts that
would kill 50 percent of those exposed within 30 days, Gong said.
The test could allow individuals who work in jobs that
expose them to radiation or chemicals that mimic radiation's effects to
know how much cellular damage they've experienced from the exposure and
to make appropriate, well-informed health decisions, Gong noted. It can
be taken as often as desired.
Such a test also could be useful to the general public to
determine exposure to ionizing radiation, such as X-rays and gamma rays
used in cancer treatment, Gong said, and to tiny amounts of ionizing
radiation emitted by such consumer products as cellular phones,
microwave ovens and computer screens.
After decades of working with an animal model, Gong and
Glomski used the E-Tr assay on blood samples of seven cancer patients
who had received radiation treatment and blood samples from 10 healthy
individuals who had been exposed to only a few dental and chest X-rays
to determine the effectiveness of the test on humans. The assay produced
similar results in human blood samples as in the animal studies, the
researchers found.
Gong postulates that this dose-response relationship will
allow patients to reconstruct their past radiation doses, as well as
project the amount of residual injury from past exposure that will exist
at various times in the future.
Gong received an Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) grant in
1964 to study the biomedical effect of low-dose radiation. In 1965, a
20-year follow-up report on the survivors of the atomic bomb lead to a
consensus among experts that low-dose radiation was safe.
That finding was overturned in 1986 after advances in
measuring radiation made a reassessment possible, but in the interim,
very little research in low-dose radiation was conducted. Gong, however,
carried on his work in the field at UB for 35 years, buoyed by results
obtained through the early AEC funded research, and accumulated data on
the effects of radiation exposure from background amounts to lethality.
His decades-worth of data led to the recognition of the
specific bone marrow syndrome induced by radiation and to the discovery
of the E-Tr assay.
Also participating in the research was Yuqing Guo,
biophysicist and research scientists at Biomira USA, Inc., in Cranbury,
N.J.
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