Preface. Greeting. Addresses. COE Program. International Consortium for Medical Care of Hibakusha and Radiation Life Science: a multidisciplinary program of Nagasaki University for the 21st Century Center of Excellence (COE) in Japan (M. Tomonaga). Keynote lectures. Radioadaptive response and genomic instability: a phenotypic dichotomy of genome-environment interaction (M.S. Sasak). The Chernobyl Tissue Bank - integrating international research on thyroid cancer (G.A. Thomas). Hallmarks of radiation carcinogenesis: ignored concepts (J.E. Trosko, C.-C. Chang). Overview of studies on atomic bomb survivors. The researches at Nagasaki University on atomic bomb survivors (I. Sekine). The scientific program of RERF (B.G. Bennett). Epidemiological and molecular studies in global radio-contaminated areas. Current situation and future planning of molecular epidemiology of radiation health effects around Chernobyl and Semipalatinsk (S. Yamashita). Risk of radiogenic malignant and benign thyroid diseases for the population of Oryol oblast after the Chernobyl accident: outcome of large-scale epidemiological studies (V.K. Ivanov et al.). Regularities of somatic gene mutagenesis in radiation-exposed individuals (A.A. Saenko, I.A. Zamulaeva). Overview of research and future prospects in radiation medicine based on the current health status in Belarus (P.I. Bespalchuk et al.). Thyroid gland and radiation (Ukrainian-American Thyroid Project) (M.D. Tronko et al.). Medical consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident in Ukraine (V.G. Bebeshko). Medical monitoring results of survivors with acute radiation syndrome after Chernobyl disaster (V.G. Bebeshko et al.). Fallout exposure and health condition of the population in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan (M.K. Teleuov). Morphological investigation of thyroid and parathyroid glands of the population living around Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site (Yu.V. Pruglo et al.). Comparative investigation of somatic gene mutagenesis and apoptosis in patients with benign, malignant tumors and healthy individuals (I.A. Zamulaeva, A.A. Saenko). Characterization of a novel rearrangement from the ret/PTC family in a case of radiation-associated human thyroid papillary carcinoma (V.A. Saenko et al.). Modulation of radiosensitivity of thyroid cancer cells by inhibition of NF-eB signaling (D.V. Starenki et al.). Selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor, STI571, inhibits growth of p53 mutant anaplastic thyroid cancer cells by inducing S-G2 transition arrest (A.P. Podtcheko et al.). Molecular features of mitochondrial DNA in radiation-associated thyroid tumors (T.I. Rogounovitch et al.). Characteristics of mitochondrial DNA in the peripheral blood cells of residents of Kazakhstan around Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site (A. Hamada et al.). Involvement of Wnt pathway in thyroid cancer around Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site (S.K. Meirmanov et al.). Research challenge in radiation biology to low level radiation. Ionizing radiation-induced activation of ATF-2 phosphorylation andatf3 expression is dependent on ATM and NBS kinases (J. Kool et al.). Persistent oxidative stress and gene expression changes in radiation-induced genomic instability (A.R. Snyder, W.F. Morgan). Development of photon microbeam irradiation system for radiobiology (K. Kobayashi et al.). The European Masters of Science Course in Radiation Biology (K.M. Prise, B.D. Michael, K.R. Trott). Clusterin: a protein with multiple functions as a potential ionizing radiation exposure marker (D. Klokov et al.). Cellular radiosensitivity and cell-type-specific activation of apoptosis signaling pathways (F. Suzuki et al.). Radiation sensitivity and mutation position of p53 (K. Okaichi, M. Ide, Y. Okumura). Activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway by extremely low-dose ionizing radiation (K. Suzuki, S. Kodama, M. Watanabe). Accumulation of alanine mutant p53 at Ser15, Thr18, and Ser20 after X-irradiation (M. Yamauchi et al.). Radiation-induced genomic instability triggered by telomere dysfunction (S. Kodama et al.). High susceptibility to the induction of genetic instability by radiation in DNA repair deficient cells (A. Urushibara et al.). Radiation-induced delayed chromosomal instability caused by large deletion (M. Ojima et al.). A novel radiosensitizing therapy for anaplastic thyroid cancers (A. Ohtsuru et al.). Heat stress and gap junctions (N. Hamada et al.). Single-particle irradiation system to cell at National Institute of Radiological Sciences (H. Yamaguchi et al.). Developing a scientific basis for radiation risk estimates: major goal of the DOE Low Dose Radiation Research Program (A.L. Brooks). List of participants. Author index. Keyword index.