Kathryn D. Held started collaborating with Betsy in 2003, when Betsy had already established herself as a pioneer in studying clustered DNA damage due to ionizing radiation.
Ionizing radiation has high enough energy to eject an electron from an atom in a molecule. X-rays and gamma rays are ionizing radiation that consist of photons. When they interact with DNA, the ionizations they cause produce random breaks in the DNA strand
Cosmic rays are ionizing radiation that consist of particles, including protons and atomic nuclei. When they penetrate tissues or cells, they cause lots of ionizations in a tiny region of DNA, resulting in clustered lesions.
Held is a radiation biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and the chief scientific officer and executive director of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.
Kathryn D. Held started collaborating with Betsy in 2003, when Betsy had already established herself as a pioneer in studying clustered DNA damage due to ionizing radiation.
Ionizing radiation has high enough energy to eject an electron from an atom in a molecule. X-rays and gamma rays are ionizing radiation that consist of photons. When they interact with DNA, the ionizations they cause produce random breaks in the DNA strand
Cosmic rays are ionizing radiation that consist of particles, including protons and atomic nuclei. When they penetrate tissues or cells, they cause lots of ionizations in a tiny region of DNA, resulting in clustered lesions.
“It’s like punching a huge hole through DNA, rather than the pin-prick damage caused by photons,” says Held, who is a radiation biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and the chief scientific officer and executive director of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.
Betsy was a special collaborator and friend. She was wonderful to work with. She was always very thoughtful. She had a good analytical mind, asking penetrating questions: What do these data really mean? What will you get out of that experiment? Why do you want to do this? What results do you expect to obtain?