Ion implantation of organisms

This paper describes keV ion interactions with bio-molecules and organisms by illustrating the general concepts and discussing emerging applications. We begin with a systematic discussion on the theories and fundamental issues pertaining to this young and promising field, including radiation damage and sputtering of organisms, chemical reactions between incident ions and biological targets, ion penetration and distribution in plant seeds, fragmentation of biological building blocks, disruption of plasmid DNA under ion impact, and gene mutation induced by keV ions in plants and microbes. Recent developments in experimental methodologies which play an important role in driving the technology and the scientific progress are reviewed. Representative applications and achievements in agriculture, fermentation industry and biology are described and finally, outstanding questions and future research directions are presented and discussed. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.