ANSTO's research capabilities, led by the OPAL nuclear research reactor and associated instruments provide access to users investigating areas as diverse as materials, life sciences, climate change and mining/engineering.
LifeSciences Research Themes
Our over-arching research theme is radiation and living matter. This encompasses the impact of the environment on human health and the interactions of radiation with living matter.
Within the theme the impact of the environment on human health, ANSTO LifeSciences focuses on nuclear medicine and public health. Two major programmes underpin this theme:
Both of these programmes include multidisciplinary research incorporating our capabilties in Investigations with Imaging, Radio-halogen and -carbon Probes, as well as Radio-metal Probes.
The interactions of radiation with living matter theme focuses on a better understanding of radiation effects and adaption processes in living organisms from biomolecules to complex systems. In particular, ANSTO LifeSciences seeks to understand the fundamental mechanisms that drive the adaptive biological response from environmental to medical radiation dose rates.
The research work within these programmes focus on R & D of new methods to increase the scientific impact of our research capabilities and their synergies with other ANSTO capabilties. Once validated, these new methods and tools are brought into collaborative research projects applying our multidisciplinary resources to help answer our collaborators questions.