THE RHYTHM OF OXIDATIVE PROCESSES AND 

 ITS DISTURBANCE UNDER THE ACTION OF 



RADIATION 



G. M. FRANK AND A. D. SNEZHKO 



Institute of Biophysics, U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, Moscoiv, U.S.S.R. 



Vast experimental material has been accumulated by now on the 

 principles of biological action of radiation, and promising theoretical 

 generalizations have been made. Despite this, any attempt to approach 

 this problem from new aspects should be sought for and used. 



The present Symposium which focuses attention on the discussion 

 of the current state of this problem, prompts us to put forward some 

 speculations which could bring about a fruitful discussion. 



It may sound paradoxical, but it seems that the development of 

 radiobiology in its attempt to reveal chemical and physico-chemical 

 mechanisms of radiation damage sometimes outraces or, at any rate, 

 tries to out race the general biological level of investigations. That is 

 why in the search for new pathways and viewpoints, in the analysis of 

 the physico-chemical bases of primary and secondary responses to the 

 action of radiation, one should proceed from a thorough analysis of the 

 present-day state of the prol)lem of physico-chemical bases of life 

 phenomena sensu latu. 



Indeed, when one speaks of the extraordinary complexity of primary 

 and initial chemical and physico-chemical processes in cells under the 

 action of radiation, as is often done in the literature, this thesis should 

 really be rephrased in the opposite form. It is the normal, strictly 

 regulated course of life phenomena and the physico-chemical apparatus 

 that ensures this proceeding which are more complicated and puzzling. 

 As to the complexity of radiobiological phenomena, they are compli- 

 cated inasmuch as they represent, figuratively speaking, a breakdown 

 of a complex mechanism. 



It became a tradition underlied by many years of hard work by 

 biologists to regard life phenomena either from the viewpoint of mor- 

 phology, or from that of metabolic processes, i.e. biochemistry. Until 

 recently, the morphological aspect was moving to the background, 

 having a flavour of conservatism, and gave way to the swift rise of 

 biochemical aspects. Lately, however, the submicroscopical cell region, 



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