Top-10 Physics World 2020 Breakthrough
"In this top-10 is the research on mixed beams particle therapy by Heidelberg´s team lead by João Seco, partner of LIP in ProtoTera, the proton therapy facility to be installed in Portugal"
The team headed by Joao Seco at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg and Simon Jolly at University College London has shown that mixed ion beams could enhance particle therapy accuracy, and thus made it to Physics World Breakthrough 2020 shortlist.
In practice, their results demonstrate how a mixed particle beam can enable simultaneous cancer therapy and treatment monitoring. They used a beam containing both carbon ions, which provide therapeutic irradiation of the target tumor, and helium ions, which travel straight through the patient and can be used for imaging. Experiments at the Heidelberg Ion Beam Therapy Center showed that even small inflations of an air balloon inside a phantom caused an observable change in the helium range. Small phantom rotations were also shown to change the measured signal.
Read more on this research here
Read more on Physics World 2020 Breakthrough and shortlist here
When in 2017 a working group was created by the Ministers of Science, Technology and Higher Education and of Health to study the installation in Portugal of a unit to treat cancer patients using high-energy particle technologies, João Seco, from Heidelberg University, was part of the international commission of experts that supported this group, coordinated by Gaspar Barreira, from LIP. Since then, João's expertise and enthusiasm for the project have always been present, and has been of the utmost importance.
The Portuguese Association of Proto-Therapy and Advanced Technologies for the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer (ProtoTera) was created in December 2019. The founding members are Grupo Hospitalar Instituto Português de Oncologia Francisco Gentil, Instituto Superior Técnico (through Campus Tecnológico e Nuclear, CTN), the University of Coimbra (through ICNAS), and LIP. In its initial phase, ProtoTera will have a node in Lisbon and another in Coimbra, in articulation with reference centers, namely Heidelberg, Trento, CNAO, CERN, GSI and MD Anderson.
Read more about ProtoTera on the LIP-News bulletin
