ALBERT

Description: Our ability to confidently develop appropriate countermeasures for radiations in space in terms of shielding and design of a spacecraft, the mission scenario, or chemoprevention is severely limited by the uncertainties in both the risk itself and the change in that risk with intervention. Despite the fact that the risk of carcinogenesis from exposures of personnel to radiations on long-term missions is considered one of the worst hazards in space, only a limited amount of in-vivo data exist for tumor induction from exposures to protons or energetic heavy ions (HZEs) at lower doses. The most extensive work remains the landmark study. for tumor development in the harderian gland of the mouse. The objective of this study is to characterize the level of risk for tumor induction in another relevant animal model. Subsequent experiments are designed to test the hypothesis that the level of risk can be reduced by pharmaceutical intervention in the promoting and progressing stages of the disease rather than in the initiating stage. The work presented here results from a cooperative effort on the part of investigators from two projects of the Radiation-Effects Team of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). The collaborating projects are the Core Project which is investigating the risk of carcinogenesis in Sprague-Dawley rats and the Chemoprevention Project which is investigating the ability of Tamoxifen to reduce the number of malignant tumors in the irradiated animals. Research at the cellular and subcellular levels is being conducted in two other projects of the Radiation-Effects Team, Cytogenetics with J. R. Williams as Principal Investigator and Mutations from Repeated DNA Sequences. Results for these other projects also are being presented at this Workshop.