We have opportunities for students of mechanical/electrical engineering, robotics control, accelerator physics, imaging and computer science who are interested in democratizing proton radiation therapy. These projects are suitable as Master thesis or PhD thesis, part of postdoctoral fellowships or (summer) internship.
Project overview: Proton therapy has a great physical advantage over conventional photon therapy. The availability of and the demand for proton therapy is growing exponentially. However, in absolute terms, the availability is still very low. Only less than 1% of all radiation therapy patients receive proton therapy, even though between 15% and 50% would benefit from it. The reason for this discrepancy is the high cost and the large size of the equipment, which does not fit in conventional treatment spaces. The primary factor contributing to the size and cost is the big 100-ton proton gantry that bends the beam around the patient to bring in the radiation beam from different directions of incidence.
Our strategy is to reduce the size and the cost of the proton therapy system by removing the gantry. The solution is to use a fixed horizontal beam-line for treatment. To maintain the same quality of treatment, the patient needs to be moved relative to the fixed beam-line [1], [2].
In this project, we focus on three main research area: pencil beam scanning, robotic patient positioner, and real-time imaging, for the development of our compact proton therapy system.
Project 1: Design patient positioner
We are prototyping a robot system for the compact proton therapy system. Our aims and more specific projects are:
1) to develop a comfortable chair for the positioning
2) to develop the controller and real-time feedback loop for the robotic patient positioner to achieve the clinically required accuracy
We are looking for people with the following specialties for this project:
Mechanical/electrical engineering/Robotics: candidates have background or strong interests in these areas; familiar with control electronics and programming, CAD software (e.g. Solidworks or Autodesk).
This project will be a collaboration project with Prof. Daniela Rus at MIT CSAIL.
Project 2: Compact proton beam-line design and simulation
The goal of this project is to simulate the beam-line geometry and the beam geometry in the nozzle for the horizontal beam-line. Specific projects are the followings:
1) We will simulate the compact proton therapy system beam-line with a second-order matrix multiplication or ray-tracing program. Optimization will be applied to the beam delivery system.
2) The pencil beam scanning (PBS) requirements within the limited space will be calculated. The dosimetry system parameters, requirements and locations in the nozzle will be investigated.
We are looking for people with the following specialties for this project:
Accelerator physics or nuclear engineering: candidates have background or strong interests in accelerator physics and beam-line design; familiar with simulation software such as TRANSPORT.
Project 3: Imaging for compact proton therapy system
The goal is to design and develop an imaging system for our compact proton therapy system. Treating patients with a horizontal beam-line in different positions may require different imaging geometry and treatment planning workflow. We will work on three specific aims:
1) improving CBCT image quality for proton planning
2) developing limited angle image reconstruction of CBCT for quick target/position verification before/during treatment
3) developing work-flow/technique to achieve fast and online real time adaptive planning
We are looking for people with the following specialties for this project:
Medical imaging: candidates have background or strong interests in medical image reconstruction
Computer science: candidates have background in machine learning algorithms. Strong interests and math background to learn these algorithms
Team
• Susu Yan, PhD (
• Thomas Bortfeld, PhD (
• Jay Flanz, PhD (
• Thomas Buchner
• Clemens Schmid, MS
• Fernando Hueso González, PhD
Collaborator
• Daniela Rus, PhD, MIT CSAIL
Please email Susu Yan your CV and the project you are interested.
References
[1] T. R. Bortfeld and J. S. Loeffler, “Three ways to make proton therapy affordable,” Nature, vol. 549, 2017.
[2] S. Yan, H. M. Lu, J. Flanz, J. Adams, A. Trofimov, and T. Bortfeld, “Reassessment of the Necessity of the Proton Gantry: Analysis of Beam Orientations from 4332 Treatments at the Massachusetts General Hospital Proton Center over the Past 10 Years,” International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics, vol. 95, no. 1, pp. 224–233, 5 2016.
