LANZHOU -- A recent study has made significant progress in uncovering the microscopic mechanism behind heavy-ion cancer therapy, which is expected to optimize cancer treatment strategies and promote the development of new radiotherapy technologies.

The findings, led by researchers from the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators, were recently published as a highlighted paper in the journal Physical Review X.

Heavy-ion therapy, a cutting-edge radiotherapy technique, uses heavy-ion beams to destroy cancer cells. Since the concept was proposed in 1946, over 50,000 patients worldwide have undergone heavy-ion treatment.

"Under the same radiation dose, heavy ions exhibit two to three times greater cancer-cell-killing efficiency than traditional X-ray radiotherapy," said Xu Shenyue, a researcher with the IMP.

Heavy ions can more efficiently cause DNA double-strand breaks in tumor cells, resulting in stronger biological effects. But the specific microscopic mechanism underlying these effects had long been unclear, Xu said.

Researchers conducted experiments at the heavy-ion research facilities in Lanzhou, Northwest China's Gansu province, to address this question. For the first time, they observed an intermolecular energy and proton transfer cascade mechanism triggered by heavy-ion irradiation in biomolecular clusters.

"The observed mechanism sheds light on the molecular mechanisms of radiation damage, and may play an essential role in optimizing radiotherapy techniques in the future," said Ma Xinwen, another researcher with the IMP.

The study was conducted by scientists from the IMP, in collaboration with researchers from Russia's Irkutsk State University, Germany's Heidelberg University, the University of Science and Technology of China, Xi'an Jiaotong University and Lanzhou University.