RENEB – Running the European Network of biological dosimetry and physical retrospective dosimetry

Abstract

Purpose: A European network was initiated in 2012 by 23 partners from 16 European countries with the aim to significantly increase individualized dose reconstruction in case of large-scale radiological emergency scenarios. Results: The network was built on three complementary pillars: (1) an operational basis with seven biological and physical dosimetric assays in ready-to-use mode, (2) a basis for education, training and quality assurance, and (3) a basis for further network development regarding new techniques and members. Techniques for individual dose estimation based on biological samples and/or inert personalized devices as mobile phones or smart phones were optimized to support rapid categorization of many potential victims according to the received dose to the blood or personal devices. Communication and cross-border collaboration were also standardized. To assure long-term sustainability of the network, cooperation with national and international emergency preparedness organizations was initiated and links to radiation protection and research platforms have been developed. A legal framework, based on a Memorandum of Understanding, was established and signed by 27 organizations by the end of 2015. Conclusions: RENEB is a European Network of biological and physical-retrospective dosimetry, with the capacity and capability to perform large-scale rapid individualized dose estimation. Specialized to handle large numbers of samples, RENEB is able to contribute to radiological emergency preparedness and wider large-scale research projects. ARTICLE HISTORY

Uncertainty of fast biological radiation dose assessment for emergency response scenarios

“…Cumulative normal (ISO, IAEA, Merkle and MBD) or Bayesian posterior probabilities of being in correct triage category, given calculated uncertainties, for simulated doses of 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5 Gy. emergency response readiness (Kulka et al 2016). The RENEB 'toolkit' contains a number of assays, including the four assessed in this paper -further details of which can be found in Oestreicher et al (2016) for the dicentric assay; Depuydt et al (2016) for the micronucleus assay; Moquet et al (2016) for the gamma-H2AX assay and Terzoudi et al (2016) for the PCC assay.…”

“…Members of the European Union (EU) 7th Framework Programme (FP7) Realizing the European Network of Biodosimetry (RENEB) retrospective dosimetry mutual assistance network and European Radiation Dosimetry Group (EURADOS) Working Group (WG) 10 on retrospective dosimetry have been developing and validating existing and new physical and biological exposure markers, to ensure that network members are ready to provide retrospective dosimetry to support emergency responders in the event of a large scale radiological event. Rapid biodosimetric categorization of individuals suspected of being exposed to ionizing radiation is based on dose information from the individual RENEB assays -the biological techniques based on scoring of dicentrics (DIC), micronuclei (MN), gamma-H2AX foci, prematurely condensed chromosomes (PCC), and the physical techniques of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) (Kulka et al 2015(Kulka et al , 2016.…”

Radiation protection biology then and now

“…org), emergency preparedness (NERIS, http://www.eu-neris. net), RENEB [http://www.reneb.net, (Kulka et al 2017)] and radiation protection in medicine (EURAMED). Each platform has developed its own SRA.…”

Generation of a Transcriptional Radiation Exposure Signature in Human Blood Using Long-Read Nanopore Sequencing

“…Over the last decade, gene expression analysis has emerged as a realistic approach for assessing radiation exposure in human blood samples after medical exposure or during emergency situations, due to its high throughput and time efficiency (1)(2)(3)(4). Although many studies have used microarrays (5,6), qPCR analyses have proven to provide accurate dose estimates by focusing on specific radiationresponsive genes (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15) in only 7 h (16) and now in only 4 h (17).…”