ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my appreciation to my advisor, Dr. Joe Martin, for his persevering in the lab at a time when many others would have given up; without his committment to research, I would not have been able to complete my doctoral work at this institution, rather than beginning anew at a different one after four years here at Rice.

I also wish to thank the other members of my committee: Dr. Ronald Sass, for being willing to assume the position of commitee director at the last moment; Dr. Stephen Subtelny, for becoming a member of my commitee also at the last moment; and Dr. George Bennett, whose encouragement and timely criticism were extremely helpful.

I am grateful to Dr. Kathy Matthews for opening her lab to me after my advisor's lab was no longer available to me, and to the members of her lab, especially Artemis, Ronit, and Kyle, for welcoming and encouraging me, and even helping with details of my work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv
LIST OF FIGURES vii
LIST OF TABLES xii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xiii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW 1
Oxygen Toxicity 1
Defenses Against Oxygen Toxicity 14
The Photodynamic Effect 27
II. REACTIONS OF DYES 57
Introduction 57
Materials and Methods59
Results 61
III. HYDROXYL RADICAL PRODUCTION IN VITRO82
Introduction 82
Materials and Methods 83
Results 86
IV. DNA DAMAGE IN VITRO 116
Introduction 116
Materials and Methods. 117
Results 118
V. DNA DAMAGE IN VIVO AND OTHER IN VIVO EXPERIMENTS 152
Introduction 152
Materials and Methods 158
Results165
VI. CONCLUSIONS. 178
VII. REFERENCES [have been placed at foot of each web page]185

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