Background study of absorbed dose in biological experiments at the Modane Underground Laboratory

Abstract

Aiming to explore how biological systems respond to ultra-low background environ-ments, we report here our background studies for biological experiments in the Modane Under-ground Laboratory. We find that the minimum radioactive background for biology experiments is limited by the potassium content of the biological sample itself, coming from its nutritive me-dium, which we find in our experimental set-up to be 26 nGy hr-1. Compared to our reference radiation environment in Clermont-Ferrand, biological experiments can be conducted in the Modane laboratory with a radiation background 8.2 times lower than the reference above-ground level. As the radiation background may be further reduced by using different nutritive media, we also provide measurements of the potassium concentration by gamma spectroscopy of yeast extract (63.3±1.2 mg g-1) and tryptone (2.5±0.2 mg g-1) in order to guide media selection in future experiments.