ANIL K. PRADHAN

Professor, Department of Astronomy, Chemical Physics Program, Biophysics Graduate Program (The Ohio State University)

E-mail: pradhan@astronomy.ohio-state.edu OR pradhan.1@osu.edu, Ph: 614-292-5850, Fax: 614-292-2928



MAIN RESEARCH AREAS

PHOTOIONIZATION
RECOMBINATION
COLLISION STRENGTHS
TRANSITION PROBABILITIES
ASTROPHYSICAL SPECTROSCOPY
OPACITIES
NANOBIOPHYSICS

DATABASE (Updates: Nahar)

ENERGY LEVELS
ELECTRON IMPACT EXCITATION
ELECTRON-ION RECOMBINATION
TRANSITION PROBABILITIES
PHOTOIONIZATION CROSS SECTIONS

COURSES TAUGHT

Astronomy 161 - Solar System
Astronomy 162 - Stars and Galaxies
Astronomy 823 - Astrophysical Spectroscopy (Graduate)
Astronomy 641 - Stellar Astrophysics
Scattering Theory (Graduate), Univ. of Colorado
Atomic Physics (Graduate), Univ. of Windsor

ATOMIC ASTROPHYSICS AND SPECTROSCOPY

AND

BIOMEDICAL NANOSPECTROSCOPY

Greetings! This homepage reports the research by the OSU Atomic Astrophysics and Biomedical Group, with senior Research Scientist Sultana Nahar and several students, postdocs, and collaborators. The research in our group is supported by active grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Department of Energy - -National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE-NNSA).

Research interests are theoretical studies of radiative and collisional atomic processes, and spectral formation in astrophysical and laboratory plasmas - an integrated program of atomic physics, astrophysics, and plasma physics.

This website will also report on the activties of a new interdisciplinary program in biophysics. COMPUTATIONAL NANOSCIENCE and BIOMEDICAL NANOSPECTROSCOPY is an initiative devoted to the spectroscopy of material and biological nanostrcutures. The program was supported by a Large Interdisciplinary Grant Award from the OSU Office of Research, College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and the Department of Astronomy.

Researchers in the group include Sultana Nahar (Astronomy, OSU), Russell Pitzer (Chemistry, OSU), Yan Yu (Thomas Jefferson University Medical School), Jian Wang, Li Kaile, Neil Jenkins (OSU Medical Center), Max Montenegro (Universidad Catholica de Chile), Chiranjib Sur (IBM, India), Enam Chowdhury (Physics, OSU), and graduate students Yi Luo and Sara Lim (OSU Biophysics Graduate Program).

Recent developments include theoretical and experimental studies to implement a new methodology, RESONANT NANO-PLASMA THERANOSTICS, based on the use of monochromatic X-ray sources for imaging, therapy and diagnostics (theranostics) in cancer research, as reported in the following news item.

*** News Items ***

1. X-ray researchers turn focus from black holes to cancer International team leverages resources of Ohio Supercomputer Center

COLUMBUS January 28, 2010

Two Ohio State University astronomy researchers have established an international reputation for using X-rays and supercomputers to search the vast depths of space to identify elusive black holes. Now, they and their interdisciplinary colleagues are repositioning their scientific methodology to peer into the human body to enhance cancer therapy and diagnostics (theranostics).

Led by OSUs Anil Pradhan , Ph.D., and Sultana Nahar, Ph.D., an international research team is using new computer-based models and high-end X-ray spectroscopy to minimize radiation risks and enhance therapeutic efficiency for cancer patients. The X-ray irradiation process causes embedded nanoparticles of iron, gold and other heavy elements to release photons and low-energy electrons to help break up the DNA in malignant tumors. The researchers are also experimenting with bromine, iodine and platinum.

The resonant nano-plasma theranostics or RNPT could revolutionise X-ray diagnostics and therapy, Pradhan told the science magazine Nature. The RNPT approach would reduce radiation exposure by factors from 10 to 100, he added.

The Ohio Supercomputer Center, with our flagship IBM Cluster 1350 system, is well positioned to help researchers with this sort of ground-breaking, critically important investigation, said Ashok Krishnamurthy, interim co-executive director of OSC.

Nature recently reported on Pradhan and Nahars cancer project in its India edition, while just last month, OSC highlighted the duos recent astronomy work in an annual research publication.

Black holes are invisible, but a plasma sea of super-hot atoms spiraling into black holes betrays their existence. Astronomers study the plasma to collect telltale radiation readings, from the visible to the X-ray, using satellites and large telescopes, such as the Large Binocular Telescope.

Pradhan, Nahar and their team leveraged OSC resources to perform high-accuracy energy calculations to compare with the radiation readings. The most precise large-scale calculations ever made for iron were done by Nahar, who thus is known among astronomers as the Iron Lady.

Astrophysicists also use supercomputers to virtually create the conditions found inside a star and compare their results with laboratory measurements made from nuclear fusion devices. OSC hosts the teams unique on-line interactive databases (OPSERVER and OSU-NORAD) that are accessed by astronomers and physicists worldwide

2. Tailored X-rays for cancer , news story published in Nature-India, 29 November 2009.

New computer-based models along with high-end X-ray imaging could aid the use of nanoparticles of gold and other heavy elements in cancer therapy and diagnostics1.

To minimize radiation risks and enhance therapeutic efficiency, researchers have used X-rays at precisely tuned 'resonant' energies efficiently absorbed by nanoparticles of gold and iron.

Upon irradiation by mono-energetic X-ray beams, the embedded nanoparticles emit photons and low-energy electrons breaking up the DNA in malignant tissues.

In addition to iron and gold, the researchers are also experimenting with bromine and iodine, which are active elements in radiological contrast agents used for imaging, as also the high atomic number element platinum.

"The resonant nano-plasma theranostics or RNPT could revolutionise X-ray diagnostics and therapy," says lead researcher Anil Pradhan. The RNPT approach introduces atomic and molecular spectroscopy in X-ray imaging in conjunction with nanobiotechnology, reducing radiation exposure by factors from 10 to 100, he adds.

The authors of this work are from: Department of Astronomy, and department of Chemistry, The Ohio State University, Ohio; department of radiation oncology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Applied physics division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, US and High Performance Computing Group, ISL, IBM India, Bangalore, India.

References: Pradhan, K. A. et al. Resonant X-ray Enhancement of the Auger Effect in High-Z Atoms, Molecules, and Nanoparticles: Potential Biomedical Applications. J. Phys. Chem. A. 113, 12356-12363 (2009) |

3. "FROM ASTROPHYSICS TO BIOMEDICINE VIA NANOTECHNOLGY (In OSUToday): A cover-story in Radiation Therapy magazine IMAGE reported on novel developments in the use of X-rays and nanoparticles for cancer diagnostics and therapy by an interdisciplinary group at Ohio State and other institutions. The article, The X-Ray Reloaded: Rearming Radiography with Resonant Theranostics , may be accessed on-line. The collaboration at OSU is led by Prof. Anil Pradhan (Astronomy and Chemical Physics), and includes researchers from the College of Biological and Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and the OSU Medical Center. The overall multi-disciplinary effort, theoretical and experimental, involves atomic and molecular physicists and chemists, astrophysicists, radiation therapists, and X-ray instrumentalists."

The Opacity Project and the Iron/RmaX Project

The OSU group represents the U.S. participants in the international Opacity Project (OP) , and the Iron Project (IP/RmaX) Network aimed at large-scale atomic calculations using the relativistic R-matrix method for iron-peak elements and X-ray astrophysics. The databases TIPTOPBASE and OPSERVER offer OP and IP atomic data, and on-line calculation of "customized" astrophysical opacities, at the Ohio Supercomputer Center in Columbus Ohio.

This homepage is also intended as a guide to recommended ATOMIC DATA for astrophysical and laboratory applications. In addition, the database Nahar OSU Radiative Data (NORAD) contains a large number of datafiles for energy levels, transition probabilities, photoionization cross sections, and total and partial (electron+ion) recombination rate coefficients (including radiative and dielectronic recombination processes in a unified and ab initio manner using the R-matrix method).

The radiative data supercede earlier TOPbase data.


HIGH ACCURACY ATOMIC PHYSICS IN ASTRONOMY

Workshop organized by Anil Pradhan and Sultana Nahar, sponsored by the Institute of Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Astrophysics (ITAMP) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge (MA), jointly with the Iron Project, in honor of Michael J. Seaton, Professor Emeritus, University College London, London, UK, for monumental contributions to atomic physics and astrophysics and as founder of the Opacity Project, the forerunner of the Iron Project. Mike passed away in May 2007; his last paper "Updated Opacity Project radiative accelerations" appeared after his death in August 2007 (Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 382, 245). Obituary: "Michael J. Seaton", by Anil Pradhan and Sultana Nahar, Bulletin of American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, No. 4, 1081, 2007.


PUBLICATIONS: 1995 -