Physics Division

Upcoming Events

17 Oct 2017
12:00PM - 01:00PM
Moritz Rabe, MGH (TBD) (Physics Seminar)
Goitein Room

Physical dose conformation

We explore and develop radiation treatment techniques for optimum physical dose conformation to the tumor target volume. Our efforts are focused on proton radiotherapy and advanced photon treatments, as well as on their comparison.

Biological modeling

As a basis for treatment optimization we work on a variety of modeling projects including relative biological effectiveness in proton therapy, outcome models for the relationship between the dose distribution and clinical outcome, and spatial modeling of microscopic disease for gliomas.

IMXT/IMPT

Intensity modulation is crucial both in photonradiotherapy (IMXT) and in proton radiotherapy (IMPT). In particular, we develop robust optimization methods for handling uncertainty in IMPT, direct aperture optimization algorithms, VMAT plan optimization, and multi-criteria planning methods.

4D

We develop concepts and methods to consider the time component in the whole radiotherapy chain, from imaging over planning and optimization to treatment delivery.

Precision

To increase the precision of the dose application we develop new targeting techniques. To increase the accuracy of the dose prediction we perform Monte Carlo simulations. We develop in vivo range verification to enhance the precision of proton treatment delivery.

Optimization projects: opportunities for students and postdocs

Opportunities for students of operations research, math, physics, computer science who are interested in optimizing cancer therapy, especially in radiation oncology. The projects are suitable as PhD thesis projects, or as part of postdoctoral fellowships. Some may also be suitable for MS theses.

Therapy Imaging Program (TIP)

Supported by Federal Share of program income earned by MGH on C06 CA059267

(T. Bortfeld, G. El Fakhri, R. Jeraj)

TIP Mission

To achieve the best proton therapy treatment through advanced imaging.

To support NCI proton therapy clinical trials at MGH and elsewhere using imaging as a biomarker.

Physics Awards in 2017

July 29, 2017: Harvard Medical Physics residents Elizabeth Huynh PhD and Rongxiao Zhang PhD were selected for the AAPM Science Council Associates Mentorship Program.

Jun 26, 2017: Patrik F. Raudaschl, Paolo Zaffino, Gregory C Sharp PhD, et al. were honored to have their special report "Evaluation of Segmentation Methods on Head and Neck CT: Auto-Segmentation Challenge 2015" selected as Editor's Choice column in Medical Physics.

Jun 9, 2017: Estelle Batin PhD won the Ether Dome Challenge, with her proposal "Creating a tablet app for patient information in waiting rooms".

May 15, 2017: Ehsan Salari PhD and Greg Sharp, PhD were awarded $358,000 from NSF for "Collaborative Research: Optimization Methods for Real-time Organ-motion Management in Radiotherapy."

Physics Awards in 2016

Oct 1, 2016: James Shackleford PhD, Nagarajan Kandasamy PhD, and Greg Sharp, PhD were awarded $500,000 from NSF for "Collaborative Research: SI2-SSE: High-Performance Workflow Primitives for Image Registration and Segmentation."

May 15, 2016: Karen Doppke, MS was awarded Fellow of the American College of Radiology.

May 10, 2016: Thomas Bortfeld, PhD and the Physics Division are co-recipients of the prestigious bi-annual Stifterverband Science Prize 2016 for the work on multi-criteria optimization, together with colleagues from Fraunhofer ITWM.

April 4, 2016: Fazal Khan made 2nd place (out of 400) in the radmed treatment planning challenge.

April 1, 2016: Karen Doppke, MS was elected as one of the 100.

March 14, 2016: Hsiao-Ming Lu, PhD was elected as a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM)

March 5, 2016: Michael Young, MS made 2nd place (out of more than 200) in the AAPM Young Investigator Symposium at the Spring Clinical Meeting for his work "Improving Non-MCO VMAT Planning in RayStation for Prostate Treatment with An Automated Knowledge-Based Model Created Using a Database of Clinical MCO-IMRT Plans."

February 22, 2016: Petra Trnkova, PhD received the Varian "Early Career Medical Physicist Scholarship Award" for her presentation "Proton Spot Scanning Radiosurgery for Static Targets" at the Winter Institute of Medical Physics.