11/13/2023
By Joanne Gagnon-Ketchen

Physics Colloquium, Wednesday, November 15 at 4 p.m. in Ball 210.

Dr. Ross Berbeco, associate professor, Radiation Oncology, Harvard Medical School, director of Medical Physics Research, Radiation Oncology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will give a talk on “Designing nanoparticles for image-guided radiation therapy”.

Abstract: Over half of all cancer patients will receive radiation therapy at some point during their care. While modern radiation delivery techniques ensure high accuracy and precision, treatment efficacy is often limited by the need to minimize normal tissue damage. Nanoparticles can be designed to collect in tumors and present a larger interaction cross-section for radiation beams, thereby creating localized damage to cancer cells. In this talk, we will cover past efforts, current successes, and future perspectives.

Bio: Dr. Berbeco, is a board-certified medical physicist and Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He earned his Ph.D. in High Energy Experimental Physics at the University of Michigan before transitioning to medical physics. Dr. Berbeco began a beam's eye view imaging workshop during his postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital and has since continued to research BEV imaging for tumor localization to facilitate applications like delivered dose reconstruction, adaptive radiation therapy and tumor tracking. He is a board-certified medical physicist and Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He earned his Ph.D. in High Energy Experimental Physics at the University of Michigan before transitioning to medical physics. Dr. Berbeco began a beam's eye view imaging workshop during his postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital and has since continued to research BEV imaging for tumor localization to facilitate applications like delivered dose reconstruction, adaptive radiation therapy and tumor tracking.