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National Cancer Institute U.S. National Institutes of Health www.cancer.gov
About DCEG

Nickolas Luckyanov, Ph.D.

Expert

Location: 6120 Executive Blvd., EPS 7096
Phone: 301-594-7656
Fax: 301-402-0207
E-mail: luckyann@mail.nih.gov

 Nickolas Luckyanov, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Luckyanov received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, Computer Science from the Institute of Medico-Biological Problems in Moscow, Russia in 1974. He was employed at the Institute of Medico-Biological Problems, and later at the Computer Center of the Soviet Academy of Science as a Senior Researcher, from 1965 to 1977, and 1977 to 1991 respectively. Dr. Luckyanov served as the Secretary of the Soviet National Committee for Scientific Committee on Problems of Environment (SCOPE) from 1978 to 1991. He was with the University of Miami, Miami, Florida as an Instructor of Mathematics from 1991-1996. Dr. Luckyanov has been with the Radiation Epidemiology Branch as a Special Expert since 1996.

Research Interests

  • Radiation doses assessment for people.
  • Mathematical modeling of medical-biological processes.
  • Properties of mathematical models.

Chornobyl Studies:

The Chornobyl accident that took place in Ukraine on April 26 1986 is the most serious that ever occurred in the nuclear power industry. Large amount of radioactive materials was released into the atmosphere and contaminated huge territories in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. A few million people were exposed to radiation due to fall out. In addition a few hundred thousand people (liquidators) participated in clean up operations of the reactor and surrounding environment. The National Cancer Institute is involved in 3 epidemiological studies related to health effects from the accident. One of the projects deals with Ukrainian liquidators. Dr. Luckyanov is involved in the study that tries to find out whether the liquidators have an increased risk of leukemia that could be attributed to radiation they were exposed to during their clean up work after the Chornobyl accident. The dosimetry task to which Dr. Luckyanov contributes is to estimate individual doses for more than 700 liquidators included in the study. He interviews the clean-up workers to find out when they were participating in the clean up operation, where they worked, what kind of work they did, and for how long. Then based on this information and on historical data on radiation fields in different places in and around the Chornobyl Power Plant at different time periods, the doses obtained by liquidators are estimated.

The other 2 projects, one in Belarus and one in Ukraine, are on thyroid diseases in people who were less than 18 years old when they were exposed to radiation within a few weeks after the Chornobyl accident. The radioactive iodine that was released during the accident led to contamination of milk, and in turn, to accumulation of it in the thyroid gland of the children who drank that milk. The task of the dosimetry team is to estimate the thyroid dose received by those people. Two sources of information are present. On one hand there are results of dose rate measurements near the thyroid that were made in May-June 1986. More than 100,000 measurements were made at that time. Besides, personal interviews were conducted to obtain information on personal behavior of all study participants (more than 12,000 in Belarus and more than 13,000 in Ukraine). Then using special models that describe the behavior of radioiodines in the environment and human beings, the thyroid dose for every study participant is estimated.

Selected Publications

  • Luckyanov NK. "On adequacy of ecological models." Ecological Modelling 93;68(1):51-65.
  • Luckyanov NK, Cropper WP, Harwell MA. "State analysis of ecological models." Ecological Modelling 1995;82:99-104.
  • Bouville A., Anspaugh L., Balonov MI, Gordeev KI, Kiselev VI, Loborev VM, Luckyanov NK, Pauli E, Robinson WL, Savkin M, Sudakov VV, Zelentsov S. "Estimation of Doses," in F. Warner and R.J.C. Kirchmann Eds. ANuclear Tests Explosions- Environmental and Human Impacts @, SCOPE 59, John Wiley and Sons, 115-178, 1999.
  • Doody M.M., Lonstein J.E., Stoval M., Hacker D.G., Luckyanov N., Land C.E. "Breast cancer mortality after diagnostic radiography." SPINE, 2000, 25(16):2052-2063.
  • Shinkarev S, Gavrilin Y, Khrouch V, Minenko V, Shemyakhina E, Tretyakevich S, Bouville A, Voilleque P, Luckyanov N. "Chernobyl accident: preliminary estimates of thyroid dose based on direct thyroid measurements conducted in Belarus." Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of the International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA-10). Paper P-11-260. Hiroshima, Japan; May 14-19; 2000.
  • Minenko V., Shemyakina E., Tretyakevich S., Ulanovsky A., Shinkarev S., Gavrilin Yu., Khrouch V., Bouville A., Voilleque P., Luckyanov N.; "Chernobyl Accident: Revision of individual Thyroid Dose Estimates for the Children included in Cohort of the Belarusian-American Study;: Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of the International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA-10). Paper T-12-2. Hiroshima, Japan; May 14-19; 2000.
  • Bouville A., Luckyanov N.; "Environmental Dose Assessment: Methods, Results, and problems;" Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of the International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA-10). Paper P-4b-237. Hiroshima, Japan; May 14-19; 2000.
  • Bouville A., Simon S., Beck H., Anspaugh L., Luckyanov N.; "Estimation of Doses to Members of the Public Resulting from Atmospheric Nuclear Tests at the Nevada Test Site;" International Conference on Radiation Legacy of the 20-th Century, Moscow, 2000, 34.
  • Simon SL, Gordeev K, Bouville A, Luckyanov N, Land C, Carr Z, Weinstock R, Anspaugh LR, Beck H, Romanyukha A. "Estimates of radiation doses to members of a cohort residing villages near the semipalatinsk nuclear test site." Workshop on dosimetry of the population living in the proximity of the Semipalatinsk atomic weapons test site, Proceedings STUK-A187, 2002, 48-54 (Helsinki, STUK - Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority).
  • Carr ZA, Bouville A, Luckyanov N, Simon SL, Weinstock R, Gusev B, Hartshorne M, Crooks L, Land C. "Thyroid disease prevalence and fallout exposure In Kazakhstan." Workshop on dosimetry of the population living in the proximity of the Semipalatinsk atomic weapons test site, Proceedings STUK-A187, 2002, 55-61 (Helsinki, STUK - Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority).
  • Gordeev K, Vasilenko I, Lebedev A, Bouville A, Luckyanov N, Simon SL, Stepanov Y, Shinkarev S, Anspaugh L. "Fallout from the Semipalatinsk Test Site: Dosimetry." Radiat Environ Biophys 2002; 41: 61-67.
  • Minenko V, Gavrilin Yu, Shinkarev S, Khrouch V, Shemyakina E, Drozdovich V, Bouville A, Voilleque P, Luckyanov N. "Chernobyl accident: assessment of the collective thyroid dose for the Belarusian population;" IRPA-10, Hiroshima, 2000, P-11-263.
  • Luckyanov NK. "Aggregation of models in ecology." In: Patten BC, Jorgensen SE, eds. Complex Ecology, Prentica Hall 1995;242-61.
  • Simon SL, Luckyanov N, Bouville A, VanMiddlesworth L, Weinstock RM. "Transfer of 131I into human breast milk and transfer coefficients for radiological dose assessments." Health Phys (Submitted).