From bilateral to multi-countries cooperation

In 2010, the Office for Science and Technology of the French Embassy in Washington DC provided seed funding to enable a new scientific collaboration between the US and France. The work primarily focuses on the understanding of the interaction of particles with the DNA. The National Society of Black Physicists managed the funds. This so-called G4TRAP work is an extension of the ESA-funded G4DNA project that uses the Geant4 Monte Carlo toolkit and is spearheaded by the University of Bordeaux 1 in France. This initiative spawns to new areas (ultrafast lasers, nuclear/high energy physics, radiation biology and space science) and includes US industries, thanks to the interdisciplinary activities needed to advance this project. In addition, the bi-lateral collaboration was expanded to two other countries: Canada and Senegal. Subsequent funding requests were made to US agencies (NSF and DoE) as well as other French programs. More are anticipated that will also include NIH, NASA and the Canadian programs. A review of this multidisciplinary effort will be presented along with the present status on the various aspects of the G4TRAP project.