The group at LIP develops this project in collaboration with ICNAS, the structure belonging to the University of Coimbra that hosts a proton cyclotron for applications in nuclear medicine. The collaboration has already moved forward in its goals in several aspects related with (1) instrumentation for proton beam measurements, and (2) automatic irradiation and quantification of doses of several Gy down to one hundred mGy. The final goal of the project is to provide the end user with a setup offering the possibility of carrying out proton dosimetric experiments together with small-animal radiotherapy studies. One of the goals of the project is to allow studies in the field of radiotherapy comprising total doses between a few cGy to a few Gy, as well as studies in the field of radiation protection, hence comprising doses of the order of a few hundreds down to tens of mGy.

In 2014 several developments were accomplished within the aforementioned objectives. We are now able to control a homogeneous beam spot on target with a diameter of 16 mm, and excluding the (computed) outer skirts of the beam where non-homogeneity occurs. This was intended in order to allow the controlled irradiation of cell cultures located in typical biological multi-well dishes with diameters of 16 mm. The control of the magnetic field applied inside the cyclotron plays a major role for achieving said homogeneity. A scan revealing a quasi-gaussian shape must be performed before any irradiation, with the final shutter closed, so that the optimum magnetic field can be applied hence producing a homogeneous target dose. Inhomogeneity quantification is ongoing, with first results pointing to values inferior to +/- 3%. A setup for cell-culture irradiation has also been constructed. Plans are to perform first dose-survival curves soon.