News of our Division Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology 2023

Every year, Heidelberg project teams of the National Center for Tumor Diseases Heidelberg (NCT) can apply for funding from the "Donations for Cancer" program. In 2023 the project about "More precise prostate irradiation using CERN technology" was chosen by the selection committee. The project is headed by Dr. Maria Martisikova (E040), Dr. Semi Harrabi (Heidelberg University Clinic), Dr. Laurent Kelleter (E040) and Prof. Dr. Oliver Jäkel (E040). It is part of "InViMo" project of the NCT Proof of Concept (PoC) Trial Program.

Click here for more information. 

From Dec. 11th to Dec. 15th 2023 the hybrid attendance phase of the Summer School in Medical Physics 2023 in Chile about "The role of imaging in the radiotherapy process" successfully took place at the Heidelberg Center Latin Amercia (HCLA) of Heidelberg University. Participants from Latin America attended the summer school in Santiago together with online participants from around the globe. 

Thanks to the funds from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) we hosted this course in Chile with contributing speakers not only from Chile, but also from Heidelberg. 

Click here to get some impressions of the hybrid attendance phase in Santiago de Chile. 

Two Master's students in Medical Physics from our partner university in Chile (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile) visited the DKFZ in October and November 2023 to further develop their research projects of their Master's Thesis. Isidora Muñoz Hernández joined the research group of Dr. Niklas Wahl (Radiotherapy Optimization) to implement her own software called IS2aR which she had developed during her undergradute studies, into matRad to optimize treatment planning by considering a whole-body CT. Karol Raccoursier also joined Dr. Wahls group to install a Tumor Response Model (TRM) for further research. Additionally, she worked in the team of Dr. Ina Kurth (Morszeck Service Unit for Preclinical Trials) to conduct various biological and radiobiological experiments. 

The visits were part of and finanzed by our collaboration with Chile in the frame of the project "Centers of Excellence in Research and Teaching" at the Heidelberg Center Latin America (HCLA) which is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). 

Two scientists from Chile visited Heidelberg in October and November 2023. Dr. Natalia Jarra Ormazábal (Radiooncologist at the National Cancer Institute of Chile) was in Heidelberg for two months (October and November). During this time she joined the Department of Radiation Oncology (Head: Prof. Dr. Dr. Jürgen Debus) at the Heidelberg University Hospital to learn more complex radiotherapy techniques such as about SBRT or re-irradiation treatments. Dr. Jarra Ormazábal was able to visit us in Heidelberg thanks to the support of the National Cancer Institute of Chile. 

Dr. Daniel Hasson (Radiologist at the Clínica Alemana de Santiago de Chile) visited the Division of Radiology (Head: Prod. Dr. Heinz Schlemmer) from October 6th until October 20th 2023. He got an intense research visit, supervised by Dr. Nikolaus von Knebel Doeberitz (Clinical Scientist of Prof. Schlemmer's Division), focusing on CEST imaging (Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer) for gliomas. His visit was financed by CAS. 

The hybrid attendance phase of the Courses in the Field of Particle Therapy took place at the end of November 2023. The courses were well attended with around 38 participants. 50% attended online only and followed the lectures and interactive sessions (such as with the software matRad) from all over the world, e.g. from the USA, Sweden, Austria or even from Australia. Participants from Germany were able to acquire the so-called "Fachkunde Partikeltherapie" by attending the course and passing the exam.

The next round is expected to take place in Oct./Nov. 2024. Please find further information on the course website here.

We are delighted that three members of our division have been recognized for their respective work:

Luisa Schweins received the Christoph Schmelzer Prize of the Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH (GSI) on November 21, 2023 for her Master's thesis entitled "Implementation and Evaluation of Monte Carlo Simulations for Carbon-Ion Radiotherapy Monitoring". Further information on the award ceremony can be found here.

Christina Stengl, doctoral student in our division, received the poster prize of the DKFZ PhD Retreat 2023 for her poster on the topic "PPIeT: Pancreas Phantom for Carbon Ion beam Therapy".

Patrick Salome, scientist in our division, got the poster award of the Berlin Science Week PostDoc Day 2023 for his poster about "AI & big data in MRI". 

Congratulations to all winners!

On November 7, 2023, an Open Day in Medical Physics took place at DKFZ as part of the International Day of Medical Physics. School classes from Heidelberg were invited to get to know the work of the Division of Medical Physics in Radiology (Head: Prof. Mark Ladd) and our Division Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology (Head: Prof. Oliver Jäkel). After introductory lectures by Prof. Ladd and Prof. Jäkel, the classes experienced and learnt about medical physics in practice at various stations. They visited the 7 Tesla MRI scanner, the Ethos Linac and the clinical 3 Tesla MRI scanner.

The program and short teaser texts for each station are available online here:

Download: Program, 07. Nov. 2023

Download: Teaser texts of each station

On December 14th and 15th, 2023, the Hybrid Scientific Workshop on Adaptive Radiation Therapy will take place at the Clínica Alemana in Santiago de Chile. The workshop introduces current trends and developments in the fields of radiotherapy, imaging and immunology and is jointly organized together with our division.

Thanks to funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), speakers from Heidelberg will be taking part both on site and via Zoom.

More information is available here.

From Sep. 18th to Sep. 22nd 2023 the hybrid attendance phase of the 5th Summer School in Medical Physics 2023 about "Data Science and Machine Learning in Radiotherapy"  took place in Heidelberg with 26 participants. Further 23 participants attended virtually from around the globe. Lectures, hands-on sessions, discussion rounds with experts as well as a science slam and a poster session made the school a successful event. Congratulations to our winners of the science slam Ivy (1st price), Martina and Odette (2nd price) and Mark (3rd price) as well as to Marte for her poster price.

Thanks to the funds of the Health Life Science Alliance Heidelberg Mannheim we could host such an interesting hybrid event.

Click here to get some impressions from the hybrid attendance phase in Heidelberg.

On September 21st 2023, Prof. Jäkel (head of our division) gave an online guest lecture on the topic of "Current research trends in medical physics". The lecture is part of the "Seminar in Medical Physics and Medical Engineering" of the Chulabhorn Royal Academy (CRA), a cooperation partner of our department (see here). The lecture was aimed at PhD students in the field of medical physics and medical technology and gave an overview of current and future trends and research topics, such as the application of data science, AI and MR in RT.

The overview of the entire course program is available here.

On December 5th, 2023 the "Symposium on Adaptive Radiotherapy" will take place at the DKFZ in Heidelberg from 1.30 to 6pm. In memory of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schlegel (founder and head of our division at the DKFZ) and his late publication "If you can't see it, you can miss it", the event discusses the state-of-the-art and various directions in modern image-guided radiotherapy. 

Participation is free of charge but limited. Registration is from September 09th to November 27th 2023. More information is available here. 

On July 11, 2023, the first status meeting and the project kickoff of our joint scientific project " Online adaptive radiotherapy for locally advanced lung cancer: assessing the patient benefit in a multi-centric comparison of CBCT- and MRI-guidance approaches " took place in Heidelberg at the DKFZ. The project is funded by the German Cancer Aid (German Cancer Aid, funding number 70114708 => 8. Ausschreibungsrunde (2021)).

The next steps were discussed together with our project partners from Tübingen and Munich in order to advance the project. The joint publication of the study protocol (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37143154/) and the start of the so-called PUMA Trial at the three participating locations are considered as first success.

Further information can also be found on the project website here.

The application deadline for our 5th Summer School in Medical Physics about "Data Science and Machine Learning for Radiotherapy" has been extended until June 30th 2023! Hurry up and submit your documents. We look forward to your application!

More information is available online here.

The registration for our summer school in Medical Physics 2023 in Chile about the topic "The role of imaging in the radiotherapy process" is now open. Until the end of July 2023, you are welcome to submit your application via the course website. The course is jointly organized together with our partner institute, the Pontifical Catholic University under the auspice of the Heidelberg Institute for Radiation Oncology (HIRO).

Thanks to the financial support by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), participation is free of charge! More information is available on the course website here.

We are very pleased to announce that Alexandra Walter (doctoral student in our division in the research group "Computational Patient Models") received the prize for the Best Short Talk for her presentation on "Automated CTV Delineation for Head and Neck Cancers respecting Expert Guidelines" as a part of the 5th scientific Retreat of the National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology (NCRO). The lecture was chosen from a total of 18 short talks by anonymous voting by all attendees. Congratulations!

The event took place from May 4th to 6th, 2023 together with the team of OncoRay from Dresden at the DKFZ in Heidelberg. More pictures of the retreat are available here.

The registration for the following courses will be activated on May 09th 2023: 

Course in German: Virtuelle Aktualisierungskurse zum Erhalt der Fachkunde im Strahlenschutz nach § 48 StrlSchV (Oktober 2023):

8-Std. Aktualisierungskurs, Anwendungsgebiet: Röntgendiagnostik

12-Std. Aktualisierungskurs, Anwendungsgebiete: Röntgendiagnostik und Nuklearmedizin / Strahlentherapie

More information is available here.

Courses in the Field of Particle Therapy (three course types; October - November 2023)

More information about all course types is available here. 

The courses are organized under the auspices of the Heidelberg Institute for Radiation Oncology (HIRO). 

The registration of our 5th Summer School in Medical Physics 2023 about the topic Data Science and Machine Learning in Radiotherapy is now opened! The course is divided into an online phase from Aug. 28th until Sep. 17th 2023 and a hybrid attendance phase from Sep. 18th - Sep. 22nd 2023 in Heidelberg. All sessions of the hybrid attendance phase are available as Live Online Phase via Zoom. Participants can decide to attend the course 100% virtually or online and on-site in Heidelberg

The summer school is designed for students on different levels (BSc, MSc or PhD/MD students). A science slam and a poster session with prizes are part of the course to encourage participants to present their own research. 

More information (e.g. program, fees and application) is available here.

The goal of radiotherapy for lung cancer is to deliver radiation dose to the tumor while minimizing exposure of sensitive organs at risk (OARs) such as the lungs, heart, and esophagus. However, in the lung many times the tumors are moving due to patient breathing. Changes in patient anatomy due to motion can occur at time scales ranging from seconds (intrafractional) to days or even several weeks (interfractional).

The aim of the project is to develop a Helium Imaging Oncology Scanner (HELIOS) to facilitate range guided radiotherapy (RGRT) to reduce toxicity in carbon ion therapy of non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), by in-vivo monitoring of the delivered dose to a moving tumor.

More information about this project can be found here.

The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), Grant No. WA 4707/3-1, Project No. 457509854. More information is also available on the DFG website here. 

From March 13th to March 17th 2023 Chilean Students from our partner university, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (UC), visited our division and other divisions at DKFZ. Furthermore, they were invited to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology as well as to Mannheim University of Applied Sciences. 

Prof. Caprile Etchart from UC applied at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for funds as part of the call "Study Visits for Groups of Foreign Students to Germany". The application was approved and thanks to this funding, the group could stay in Germany for ca. 10 days.

Click here to read on and see some pictures! 

We are very happy to announce that on February 14th 2023 the first patient has been treated on the new treatment machine in the bunker on the basement of the new building "Imaging and Radiooncology" (REZ building) together with our colleagues from the Clinical Cooperation Unit Radiation Oncology (E050) . It has been more than 4 years, since the last patient was treated at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) at the linac in the old radiology building in December 2018. In the meantime, the new REZ building was finalized and its bunker was fully equipped.

Together with our clinical partners we are excited to investigate novel techniques directly at DKFZ. Several clinical trials will be initiated soon, to investigate the potential of adaptive radiotherapy and the integration of MRI into the radiotherapy process, which can be obtained directly in the treatment room adjacent to the new ETHOS Linac.

Please feel also free to watch the short video about the delivery of the Ethos Linac in 2022. The video is available here. Furthere information about the Ethos Linac at DKFZ is available here.

In March 2023, students of the Master's program "Medical Physics" at our partner university, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (UC), will be in Heidelberg for one week together with Prof. Paola Caprile Etchart. In addition to the DKFZ, the Heidelberg University Hospital and the Heidelberg Ion Beam Therapy Center (HIT), the group will also visit the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences. Prof. Anke-Susanne Müller from the Institute for Beam Physics and Technology (IBPT) of the KIT and Prof. Wiegand Poppendieck from the Institute for Biomedical Engineering (BMT) of the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences will present the respective work of their institute.

We are pleased that the trip is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Federal Foreign Office (AA).

In September 2023, our 5th Summer School in Medical Physics about Data Science and Machine Learning in Radiotherapy takes place under the auspice of the Heidelberg Institute for Radiation Oncology (HIRO).

The course is divided into an online phase of three weeks and an attendance phase in Heidelberg of 5 days, hosted as a hybrid event.

More information about the course is available soon on our website here.

We are very glad to announce that the German Academic Exchange Service funds our Summer School in Medical Physics 2023 about The role of imaging in the radiotherapy process, taking place as a hybrid event in Chile from mid October to mid December 2023 at the Heidelberg Center Latin America (HCLA) in Santiago de Chile.

The course is organized jointly with the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (UC) under the auspice of the Heidelberg Institute for Radiation Oncology (HIRO).

More information will follow soon on our website here.