Combating cancer: UOW hosts two international workshops

Dec 08, 2005

Radiation scientists, medical physicists and clinicians from all over the world visited the University of Wollongong this week (5-8 December) to discuss the latest ground-breaking developments in cancer detection and treatment.

UOW hosted the International Workshop on Micro and Mini-Dosimetry (radiation protection and therapy) and the International Prostate Cancer Treatment Workshop this week to discuss innovative multidisciplinary approaches to reach common goals in the advancement of radiation technology.

Prominent medical physicists from the USA included Dr Katja Langen (M.D.Anderson Cancer centre , Orlando) and Charles Shang (Lynn Regional cancer Centre , FL) who both presented talks on new technology of prostate cancer treatment, tomotherapy and image guided radiation therapy.

The workshops featured speakers from the University of Trieste (Italy), National University of Singapore, University of Wisconsin-Maddison (USA), Torronto-Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre (Canada), the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York and the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Krakow (Poland).

Issues covered in the conferences included microbeam radiation therapy applied to brain tumours, the dosimetry of clinical neutron and proton beams, image guided therapy, radiation protection, space science and the effects of radiation on astronauts, photo detectors and prostate brachytherapy.

The workshops were presented by UOW’s Centre for Medical Radiation Physics (CMRP) and were chaired by Professor Anatoly Rozenfeld from the Engineering Physics Unit.

Excellence in cancer research at the CMRP continues to be recognised nationally and internationally, most recently when The Australasian College of Physicists, Scientists and Engineers in Medicine (NSW Branch) held its annual competition for the best research in the field of medical physics. In both Masters and PhD sections students from the CMRP were recognised as the best and were awarded the Curie Prize. The CMRP was also part of a team that last year won a prestigious research grant from the US National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NASA) to begin work on the development of space qualified instrumentation for assessment of radiobiological effects on humans during long-term space missions.

PhD student Andrew Wroe also received a Fulbright Award this year for his innovative research into the interaction of proton radiation on the cellular and DNA level. University of Wollongong researchers are working on a device that will improve treatment for prostate cancer by reducing unpleasant side effects and therefore encourage more Australian men to seek medical advice if they have symptoms of the deadly disease.

The centre has been strengthened by the recent appointment of Professor Peter Metcalfe to a Chair funded by the NSW Cancer Institute.