ELIMAIA-ELIMED: A new user platform for radiobiological research utilizing laser-driven protons

Pavel Bláha ^1,2* Kevin Prise ³ Marco Borghesi ² Francesco P. Cammarata ^4,5 Roberto Catalano ⁴ Pankaj Chaudhary ^3,6 Giuseppe A. P. Cirrone ⁴ Marie Davídková ⁷ Domenico Doria ⁸ Giusi I. Forte ⁵ Filip Grepl ¹ Katalin Hideghéty ^10,9 Valeriia Istokskaia ¹ Lorenzo Manti ¹¹ Adrian McCay ^1,2 Matěj Navrátil ¹² Jakub Novák ¹ Alfio Pappalardo ⁴ Giada Petringa ⁴ Giorgio Russo ^4,5 Giuseppe Schettino ⁶ Francesco Schillaci ¹ Emília R. Szabó ^10,9 Petr Szotkowski ¹ Maksym Tryus ¹ Luca Vannucci ¹³ Vladimír Vondráček ¹² Daniele Margarone ^1,2 Lorenzo Giuffrida ¹

• ¹ ELI Beamlines Facility, The Extreme Light Infrastructure ERIC, Dolní Břežany, Czechia
• ² School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom
• ³ The Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom
• ⁴ National Institute for Nuclear Physics - Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Catania, Italy
• ⁵ Institute of Bioimaging and Complex Biological Systems (IBSBC) – National Research Council (CNR), Cefalù Secondary Site, Italy
• ⁶ National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, United Kingdom
• ⁷ Nuclear Physics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Řež, Czechia
• ⁸ ELI-NP, “Horia Hulubei” National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania
• ⁹ University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary
• ¹⁰ ELI-ALPS, The Extreme Light Infrastructure ERIC, Szeged, Hungary
• ¹¹ Department of Physics, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
• ¹² Proton Therapy Center Czech, Prague, Czechia
• ¹³ Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (MBU ASCR), Prague, Czechia

The ELIMAIA-ELIMED beamline, powered by the L3 HAPLS petawatt laser, enables the irradiation of biological samples with intermediate-energy laser-driven protons (LDP) in a multi-shot regime. In the pilot radiobiological experiment, protons with a mean energy of ~ 24 MeV and doses up to ~ 14 mGy per shot, with ~ 4 ns bunch duration, were used to irradiate AG01522 normal human skin fibroblasts. The shortest irradiation time achieved was down to ~ 17 min/Gy, while the mean and peak dose rates reached ~ 1 × 10 -3 and 3.5 × 10 6 Gy/s, respectively. The cells were exposed to doses ranging from ~ 0.4 to 1.5 Gy and analyzed for DNA damage, with double-strand breaks visualized as 53BP1 foci. Despite the differences in shot exposures between the multi-shot LDP and the previous experiments (at other facility) with single-shot LDP, similar DNA damage responses were observed. Results with conventionally accelerated protons align closely with the corresponding single-shot LDP samples. These experimental results were achieved as part of the flagship experiment FLAIM (within the IMPULSE EU-funded project) and serve as an initial demonstration of the ELIMAIA-ELIMED platform's potential for advanced radiobiological research, creating new opportunities for such studies utilizing laser-driven ion sources.