Biological Radioprotection: Six Decades of Scientific Struggle

Abstract

Welcome to this special issue on ‘biological radioprotection’ of Defence Life Science Journal (DLSJ). The journal is published by Defence Scientific Information & Documentation Centre (DESIDOC) on behalf of Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Govt. of India. Biological radioprotection is an uncherris goal for radiation biologist at global scale. Despite six decade’s continuous efforts, global scientific community is still searching for a radiation countermeasure agent which can be used during radiation emergency scenario. Though, few radioprotective agents received IND status by US-FDA however, so far not a single drug is approved for human uses globally. The major obstacles to achieve biological radioprotection are i.e. variable severity of biological damage with different types of radiation and dose rate, differential RBE for low LET and high LET radiation, variable radiosensitivity of biological systems, unpractical time and drug therapeutic dose window and unacceptable toxicity at efficacious dose of a radioprotective agent, etc.