Combating cancer: UOW to host two international workshops

Dec 02, 2005

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

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

The Keynote speaker for the event is Dr John F. Dicello – the only professor in medical physics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the United States. He has been leading one of the world’s largest research programs in radiation oncology and is presently associate editor for Medical Physics and past associate editor for Radiation Research.

He is the principal investigator for a human protocol at Johns Hopkins studying the effects of improved technologies on treatment planning and patient outcome. He is also the principal investigator on a human study to examine buccal cells from astronauts for radiation damage and is principal investigator on a protocol to image superficial fiducial markers on volunteers.

The workshops will feature 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 to be covered in the conferences will include 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 are presented by UOW’s Centre for Medical Radiation Physics (CMRP) and will be 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.

When: 5-6 December (Micro and Mini-Dosimetry Workshop) and 7-8 December (Prostate Cancer Treatment Workshop)

Where: UniCentre Function Rooms, University of Wollongong

For further information or abstract papers: contact Professor Anatoly Rozenfeld on 4221 4574 or 0402 058 181 or visit: CMRP Workshops

For more information, contact:

media@uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong
Ph: (02) 4221 5942; fax (02) 4221 3128