Monte Carlo Techniques in Radiation Therapy

Joao Seco graduated with a PhD from the University of London, at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and Royal Marsden Hospital in London, UK. He then went on to become an Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, working at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He then returned to Europe to work at the German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ in Heidelberg, heading up a new group dedicated to ion beam research and with the focus on 1) novel imaging technologies to reduce Bragg peak positioning errors in patients and 2) on investigating the mechanism of radiation triggered DNA damage via reactive oxygen species. He is also presently the Chair of Medical Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Heidelberg University and is a member of the EFOMP Scientific Committee, representing the DGMP, German Society for Medical Physics. Frank Verhaegen is Head of Clinical Physics Research at the MAASTRO Clinic in Maastricht, the Netherlands. He holds a professorship from the University of Maastricht. Formerly, he held an Associate Professorship at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He earned his PhD from the University of Ghent in Belgium in 1996. He held research positions at the Royal Marsden Hospital and the National Physical Laboratory (UK) for several years. Dr Verhaegen is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine and the Institute of Physics. His group has published about 250 research papers, a significant fraction of them about Monte Carlo modelling. His interests range broadly in imaging and dosimetry for photon, proton and electron therapy, brachytherapy and small animal radiotherapy. He also founded a company that offers Monte Carlo-based treatment planning for preclinical precision radiation research. Dr Verhaegen has been passionate about Monte Carlo simulations since the days of his Masters thesis in the late eighties.

1. Applications of Monte Carlo to Ionization Chamber Dosimetry in External Photon Beams. 2. Monte Carlo calculations for proton and ion beam dosimetry. 3. Monte Carlo for Megavoltage Imaging. 4. Monte Carlo Studies of Prompt Gamma Emission. 5. Recent developments in proton imaging. 6. Monte Carlo for Cone Beam CT imaging. 7. Monte Carlo calculations for PET-based treatment verification of ion beam therapy. 8. Monte Carlo Modelling in small animal photon radiotherapy. 9. Monte Carlo Modelling of Proton Beams for Small Animal Irradiation. 10. Monte Carlo Studies for Microbeam Radiation Therapy. 11. Monte Carlo in micro and nano-dosimetry. 12. Monte Carlo Modeling in Magnetic Fields. 13. Geant4-DNA modeling of radiation effects in biological systems. 14. GPU-Based Fast Monte Carlo Simulations for Radiotherapy. 15. Application of Monte Carlo Methods to Radionuclide Therapy. 16. Monte Carlo for Shielding of Radiotherapy Facilities.