ASPIRE: An automated sample positioning and irradiation system for radiation biology experiments at Inter University Accelerator Centre, New Delhi

• Automated positioning and irradiation setup for biology samples at IUAC is built.
• Loading and unloading of 20 biology samples can be automatically carried out.
• Biologicals cells keep growing during entire experiment.
• Fluence and dose of heavy ions are measured by two silicon barrier detectors.
• Uniformity of fluence and dose of heavy ions at sample position reaches to 2%.

An automated irradiation setup for biology samples has been built at Inter University Accelerator Centre (IUAC), New Delhi, India. It can automatically load and unload 20 biology samples in a run of experiment. It takes about 20 min [2% of the cell doubling time] to irradiate all the 20 samples. Cell doubling time is the time taken by the cells (kept in the medium) to grow double in numbers. The cells in the samples keep growing during entire of the experiment. The fluence irradiated to the samples is measured with two silicon surface barrier detectors. Tests show that the uniformity of fluence and dose of heavy ions reaches to 2% at the sample area in diameter of 40 mm. The accuracy of mean fluence at the center of the target area is within 1%. The irradiation setup can be used to the studies of radiation therapy, radiation dosimetry and molecular biology at the heavy ion accelerator.