Rainer Sachs, PhD

Rainer Sachs, PhD.
Center of Cancer Systems Biology
Caritas St.Elizabeth's Medical Center
Tufts University School of Medicine
736 Cambridge Street
Boston, MA 02135

Ray maintains a webpage at UC Berkeley.

Education and Training:
MIT, Cambridge MA, Sc.B., 1953, Mathematics
Syracuse University, Syracuse NY, Ph.D., 1959, Physics
University of Hamburg, Hamburg Germany, Postdoctoral, 1960, Mathematical Physics
University of London, London, England, Postdoctoral, 1961, Mathematical Physics

Positions and Honors:
1962-63, Assistant Professor, Dept. Physics, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken NJ
1963-66,Associate Professor, Dept. Physics, U. Texas at Austin,
1966, Guggenheim Fellowship
1966-68, Professor, Dept. Physics, U. Texas at Austin
1969-92, Professor, Depts. Physics and Mathematics, University of California at Berkeley
1993-, Prof. Emeritus, Dept. Physics and Dept. Mathematics, UCB
1993-, Research Professor of Mathematics, UC Berkeley
2005-, Adjunct Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine
2008-, Editorial Board, Biology Direct, Mathematical Biology

Ongoing Research Support
NSCOR04-0014-0017/NNJ04HJ12G/NNJ06HA28G (PI L. Hlatky, Assistant Director R. Sachs). NASA. 1/1/05-12/31/09
Solid Tumor Risk Estimation for Astronauts: Incorporating Intercellular Interaction Effects.
The goal of the overall grant is to study radiation solid tumor risk to astronauts on an extended space mission, experimentally and mathematically. A Berkeley subcontract (PI Sachs) emphasizes microdosimetry and the role of chromosome aberrations in carcinogenesis.

DOE/Office of Science Program Office: BER. July 2009-June 2012. PI Philip Hahnfeldt, PhD. Intercellular interactions during tumor progression: implications for low-dose risk. R. Sachs Consultant.
The goal of the grant is to analyze the implications of intercellular interactions on ionizing-radiation induced cancer risks at low and very low doses. Such interactions call into question a standard microdosimetric argument for risk linearity; a key question is to estimate in which direction the possible deviations from linearity may be.

Recently Completed Research Support
1 RO1 GM 068423. (PI Sachs) NIH. 7/1/03-6/30/08
Updating Chromosome Aberration Simulator (CAS) Software.
Main goals were to make CAS freely available to the radiation cytogenetics community and to extend it.

DE-FG02-03ER63668. (PI Sachs) DOE. 09/1/2003-8/31/07
Modeling interellations between the bystander effect, chromosomal instability, and radiation risk.
The major goal of this project was to model signaling in the radiation bystander effect and low-dose cancer risk, using mathematical formalisms and computer simulations.

Publications:

Proceedings of the International School of Physics "Enrico Fermi"(Italian Physical Society), Course 47: General relativity and cosmology, Ed. R.K. Sachs, Academic Press, 1971,

R. K. Sachs, H. Wu, General Relativity for Mathematicians. Graduate Texts in Mathematics, Springer-Verlag, New York, Heidelberg, Berlin, 1977; (Dover paperback edition, 2007, 2008).

Sachs RK, G van den Engh, B Trask, H Yokota and JE Hearst (1995), A random-walk/giant-loop model for interphase chromosomes, PNAS 92:2710-4.

Sachs RK, AM Chen and DJ Brenner (1997), Review: proximity effects in the production of chromosome aberrations by ionizing radiation, International Journal of Radiation Biology 71:1-19.

Sachs RK, WF Heidenreich and DJ Brenner (1996), Dose timing in tumor radiotherapy: considerations of cell number stochasticity, Mathematical Biosciences 138:131-46.

Sachs RK, P Hahnfeldt and DJ Brenner (1997b), The link between low-LET dose-response relations and the underlying kinetics of damage production/repair/misrepair, IJRB 72:351-74.

Sachs R and D Brenner (1998), Mechanistic basis of the linear-quadratic formalism, Med Phys 25:2071-3.

Sachs RK, DJ Brenner, PJ Hahnfeldt and LR Hlatky (1998), A formalism for analysing large-scale clustering of radiation-induced breaks along chromosomes, IJRB74:185-206.

Sachs RK, AM Chen, PJ Simpson, LR Hlatky, P Hahnfeldt and JR Savage (1999), Clustering of radiation-produced breaks along chromosomes: modelling the effects on chromosome aberrations, International Journal of Radiation Biology 75:657-72.

Sachs RK, AL Ponomarev, P Hahnfeldt and LR Hlatky (1999), Locations of DNA double strand breaks along chromosomes: a stochastic cluster process formalism, Mathematical Biosciences 159:165-87.

Sachs RK, D Levy, AM Chen, PJ Simpson, MN Cornforth, EA Ingerman, P Hahnfeldt and LR Hlatky (2000), Random breakage and reunion chromosome aberration formation model; an interaction-distance version based on chromatin geometry, International Journal of Radiation Biology 76:1579-88.

Brenner DJ, JB Little and RK Sachs (2001), The bystander effect in radiation oncogenesis: II. A quantitative model, Radiation Research 155:402-8.

Costes S, R Sachs, L Hlatky, D Vannais, C Waldren and B Fouladi (2001), Low-LET, large-mutation spectra at hemizygous loci: evidence for intrachromosomal proximity effects, Radiation Research 156:545-557.

Ponomarev AL, FA Cucinotta, RK Sachs and DJ Brenner (2001), Monte Carlo predictions of DNA fragment-size distributions for large sizes after HZE particle irradiation, Phys Med Biol 17:153-6.

Ponomarev A, FA Cucinotta, RK Sachs, DJ Brenner and LE Peterson (2001), Extrapolation of dna fragment-size distributions after high-dose irradiation to predict effects at low doses, Radiation Research 156:594-7.

Ponomarev AL and RK Sachs (2001), Radiation breakage of DNA: A model based on random-walk chromatin structure, Journal of Mathematical Biology 43:356-376.

Radivoyevitch T, S Kozubek and R Sachs (2001), Biologically based risk estimation for radiation-induced CML - Inferences from BCR and ABL geometric distributions., Radiation and Environmental Biophysics 40:1-9.

Radivoyevitch T, R Sachs, YE Nikiforov, MN Nikiforova, MP Little (2001), Target cell numbers in radiation-induced H4-RET mediated papillary thyroid cancer, Radiat Environ Biophys 40:191-7.

Sachs RK, LR Hlatky and P Hahnfeldt (2001), Simple ODE models of tumor growth and anti-angiogenic or radiation treatment, Mathematical and Computer Modelling 33:1297-1305.

Brenner DJ and RK Sachs (2002), Do low dose-rate bystander effects influence domestic radon risks?, International Journal of Radiation Biology 78:593-604.

Cornforth MN, KM Greulich-Bode, BD Loucas, J Arsuaga, M Vazquez, RK Sachs, M Bruckner, M Molls, P Hahnfeldt, L Hlatky and DJ Brenner (2002), Chromosomes are predominantly located randomly with respect to each other in interphase human cells, J Cell Biol 159:237-44.

Hlatky L, R Sachs, M Vazquez and M Cornforth (2002), Radiation-induced chromosome aberrations: insights gained from biophysical modeling, Bioessays 24:714-723.

Sachs RK, J Arsuaga, M Vazquez, L Hlatky and P Hahnfeldt (2002), Using graph theory to describe and model chromosome aberrations, Radiation Research 158:556-67.

Vazquez M, K Greulich-Bode, J Arsuaga, M Cornforth, M Brückner, R Sachs, P Hahnfeldt, M Molls and L Hlatky (2002), Computer analysis of mFISH chromosome aberration data uncovers an excess of very complex metaphases., International Journal of Radiation Biology 78:1103-1116.

Brenner DJ, R Doll, DT Goodhead, EJ Hall, CE Land, JB Little, JH Lubin, DL Preston, RJ Preston, JS Puskin, E Ron, RK Sachs, JM Samet, RB Setlow and M Zaider (2003), Cancer risks attributable to low doses of ionizing radiation: Assessing what we really know, PNAS 100(24).

Brenner DJ and R Sachs (2003), Domestic radon risks may be dominated by bystander effects - but the risks are unlikely to be greater than we thought, Health Physics 85:103-108.

Levy D, L Hlatky and RK Sachs (2003), Test Applet for Analyzing Cycle Structure and Apparent Incompleteness, http://radiobiology.berkeley.edu/CAA/.

Arsuaga J, KM Greulich, M Vazquez, P Hahnfeldt, D Brenner, R Sachs and L Hlatky (2004), Radiation-produced interchanges characterize chromosome juxtapositions., IJRB 80:507-516..

Levy D, M Vazquez, MN Cornforth, BD Loucas, RK Sachs and J Arsuaga (2004), Comparing DNA damage-processing pathways by computer analysis of chromosome painting data, Journal of Computational Biology.11:626-641.

Mestres, M., Cabailin, M. R., Schmid, E., Stephan, G., Sachs, R. K., Barrios, L., and Barquinero, J. F., 2004, Analysis of alpha particle induced chromosome aberrations in human lymphocytes, using pan-centromeric and pan-telomeric probes, International Journal of Radiation Biology 80:737-744.

Sachs, R. K., Levy, D., Hahnfeldt, P., and Hlatky, L., 2004, Quantitative analysis of radiation-induced chromosome aberrations, Cytogenetic and Genome Research 104:142-8.

Plan, Y., Hlatky, L., Hahnfeldt, P., Sachs, R., Loucas, B., and Cornforth, M., 2005, Full-color painting reveals an excess of radiation-induced dicentrics involving homologous chromosomes, Int J Radiat Biol 81(8):613-20.

Sachs, R., and Brenner, D., 2005, Solid Tumor Risks after High Doses of Ionizing Radiation, PNAS 102(37):13040-5.

Sachs, R., Chan, M., Hlatky, L., and Hahnfeldt, P., 2005, Modeling Intercellular Interactions During Carcinogenesis, Radiation Research 164:324-31.

Vives, S., Loucas, B., Vazquez, M., Brenner, D. J., Sachs, R. K., Hlatky, L., Cornforth, M., and Arsuaga, J., 2005, SCHIP: statistics for chromosome interphase positioning based on interchange data, Bioinformatics 21(14):3181-2.

Brenner, D., and Sachs, R., 2006, Controverse : les faibles doses de radiations ionisantes sont-elles carcinogéniques ? Point de vue d’experts de l’Université Columbia, New-York, et de l’Université de Californie, Berkeley, BEH 15-16:111-112.

Brenner, D. J., and Sachs, R. K., 2006, Estimating radiation-induced cancer risks at very low doses: rationale for using a linear no-threshold approach, Radiat Environ Biophys 44(4):253-6.

Fakir, H., Sachs, R. K., Stenerlow, B., and Hofmann, W., 2006, Clusters of DNA double-strand breaks induced by different doses of nitrogen ions for various LETs: experimental measurements and theoretical analyses, Radiat Res 166(6):917-27.

Merlo, L. M., Pepper, J. W., Reid, B. J., and Maley, C. C., 2006, Cancer as an evolutionary and ecological process, Nat Rev Cancer 6(12):924-35.

Ponomarev, A. L., Belli, M., Hahnfeldt, P. J., Hlatky, L., Sachs, R. K., and Cucinotta, F. A., 2006, A robust procedure for removing background damage in assays of radiation-induced DNA fragment distributions, Radiat Res 166(6):908-16.

Shuryak, I., Sachs, R. K., Hlatky, L., Little, M. P., Hahnfeldt, P., and Brenner, D. J., 2006, Radiation-induced leukemia at doses relevant to radiation therapy: modeling mechanisms and estimating risks, J Natl Cancer Inst 98(24):1794-806.

Brenner DJ, Shuryak I, Russo S, & Sachs RK, 2007, Reducing second breast cancers: a potential role for prophylactic mammary irradiation, J Clin Oncol 25:4868-72.

Duesberg P, Li R, Sachs R, Fabarius A, Upender MB, & Hehlmann R, 2007, Cancer drug resistance: The central role of the karyotype, Drug Resist Updat.

Hodgson DC, Koh ES, Tran TH, Heydarian M, Tsang R, Pintilie M, Xu T, Huang L, Sachs RK, & Brenner DJ, 2007, Individualized estimates of second cancer risks after contemporary radiation therapy for Hodgkin lymphoma, Cancer 110:576-86.

Koh ES, Tran TH, Heydarian M, Sachs RK, Tsang RW, Brenner DJ, Pintilie M, Xu T, Chung J, Paul N, & Hodgson DC, 2007, A comparison of mantle versus involved-field radiotherapy for Hodgkin's lymphoma: reduction in normal tissue dose and second cancer risk, Radiat Oncol 2:13.

Levy D, Reeder C, Loucas B, Hlatky L, Chen A, Cornforth M, & Sachs R, 2007, Interpreting chromosome aberration spectra, J Comput Biol 14:144-55.

Ponomarev AL, Belli M, Hahnfeldt PJ, Hlatky L, Sachs RK, & Cucinotta FA, 2007, Subtraction of background damage in PFGE experiments on DNA fragment-size distributions, Radiat Environ Biophys.

Sachs RK, Shuryak I, Brenner D, Fakir H, Hlatky L, & Hahnfeldt P, 2007, Second cancers after fractionated radiotherapy: Stochastic population dynamics effects, J Theor Biol 249:518-531.

Shuryak I, Sachs RK, & Brenner DJ, 2007, Biophysical models of radiation bystander effects: 1. Spatial effects in three-dimensional tissues, Radiat Res 168:741-9.

Fakir H, Hofmann W, Tan W, & Sachs R, 2009, Triggering-Response Model For Radiation Induced Bystander Effects, Radiation Research 171:320-31.

Brenner D, Shuryak I, & Sachs R, 2009, Radiotherapy-Induced Carcinogenesis and Leukemogenesis: Mechanisms and Quantitative Modeling, in: ALERT Adverse Late Effects of Cancer Treatment. Volume 1: General Concepts and Principles (P. Rubin, L. S. Constine, L. B. Marks, J. P. Williams, and J. T. Hansen, eds.), Springer, New York. In Series: Medical Radiology -- Radiation Oncology, Brady LW, Heilmann H-P, Molls M, Nieder C (Series Editors).

Li L, McCormack AA, Nicholson JM, Fabarius A, Hehlmann R, Sachs RK, Duesberg PH: Cancer-causing karyotypes: chromosomal equilibria between destabilizing aneuploidy and stabilizing selection for oncogenic function. Cancer Genet Cytogenet 2009, 188:1-25.

Fakir H, Tan W, Hlatky L, Hahnfeldt P, & Sachs R, 2009, Stochastic population dynamic effects for lung cancer progression, Radiation Research Suppl, 172:383-393.

Shuryak, I., Hahnfeldt, P., Hlatky, L., Sachs, R. K. and Brenner, D. J., 2009. A new view of radiation-induced cancer: integrating short- and long-term processes. Part I: approach. Radiat Environ Biophys 48, 263-74.

Shuryak, I., Hahnfeldt, P., Hlatky, L., Sachs, R. K. and Brenner, D. J., 2009. A new view of radiation-induced cancer: integrating short- and long-term processes. Part II: second cancer risk estimation. Radiat Environ Biophys 48, 275-86.

R. Sachs, The Synergy Between Mathematics and Physics. In Finding the Big Bang by JE. Peebles, RB Partridge, LA Page Jr. (Editors) Cambridge University Press 2009.

Fakir H, Tan W, Hlatky L, Hahnfeldt P, & Sachs R, 2009, Stochastic population dynamic effects for lung cancer progression, Radiation Research Suppl, 172:383-393. Radiat Res. 2009 Sep;172(3):383-93.