NICE: Monte Carlo modelling of neutron RBE

Neutron radiation is present in a variety of exposure scenarios, including radiation therapy, space travel, and nuclear incidents. These neutrons pose a unique concern for radiation protection because neutrons are more damaging than other types of radiation. This property is described by neutron relative biological effectiveness (RBE) for inducing stochastic effects like carcinogenesis. Neutron RBE is characterized by a large magnitude and marked energy dependence but the underlying reasons for these characteristics are unknown. Our research team is using computational techniques to investigate the fundamental biological damage that characterizes neutron RBE. A previous investigation conducted a microdosimetric analysis of neutron RBE in human tissue using Geant4-DNA. In our ongoing research efforts, we are developing a novel, open-source TOPAS-nBio application to model neutron RBE for inducing clustered DNA damage.