[Molecular epidemiology of the late radiation effects]

The scientific bases, problems, methods and prospects for the development of a new scientific direction "Molecular epidemiology of late consequences of ionizing radiation influence on the man" are reviewed. It is marked, that for two decades on the basis of achievements in the field of molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics and genomics it has arisen and is developing the important direction in infectious and non-infectious epidemiology--molecular epidemiology. Molecular epidemiology is a new section of epidemiology on border with molecular biology and genetics, integrating efforts of epidemiologists, molecular biologists, genetics and researchers from many other areas of knowledge in a direction of an estimation of individual risk of development of chronic diseases at practically healthy people, development of recommendations on their preventive maintenance in cohorts of risk and, hence, in all population by studying by molecular methods of an etiology of illnesses, mechanisms of a susceptibility to them, and also biological mechanisms and frequency of their development in human cohorts. Special development in molecular epidemiology was noticed for the methods named biomarkers, subdivided on 4 categories: 1) markers of an internal dose; 2) markers of an effective dose; 3) markers of preclinical biological effects; 4) markers of a susceptibility. Use of biomarkers in molecular-epidemiological researches appeared especially productive in oncology. As radiogenic cancers are the main remote consequence of exposure to ionizing radiations, approaches and achievements of molecular epidemiology of nonradiation cancers are perspective at becoming of molecular epidemiology of radiation effects, with an object to solve problems concerning mechanisms and features of radiation carcinogenesis, risk assessment, distribution and preventive maintenance of radiogenic cancers in cohorts of professionals of the various branches having contact to sources of ionizing radiation, and the population, exposed to radiation medically.