2nd OMA Topical Workshop held at CERN
The Optimization of Medical Accelerators (OMA) project, coordinated by QUASAR Group leader Prof Carsten Welsch, held its 2nd OMA Topical Workshop on ‘Diagnostics for Beam and Patient Monitoring’ at CERN on June 4th and 5th. Over 40 delegates attended the two-day workshop, including many OMA Fellows, who presented and discussed updates on their respective research projects.
This workshop linked together two OMA work packages: WP2: Beam Imaging Diagnostics and WP3: Patient Treatment Optimisation. The program included a mix of invited and contributed talks from various OMA partners and external participants. Technologies for non-invasive particle beam imaging were presented, showing very promising results from OMA Fellows. Innovations based on prompt gamma imaging were also discussed as a method of treatment monitoring
Invited talks linked research and development with state-of-the-art clinical treatments. Several industry-based talks gave insight as to the latest developments in clinical hadron therapy. Along the main workshop topic there was a session on knowledge exchange, discussing how expertise at CERN and in wider research can be developed into partnerships with Industry.
The workshop included lively discussion and cross collaboration opportunities between OMA fellows in the fascinating research environment of CERN.
Professor Carsten Welsch says: "There is a growing need of collaboration between different research communities to address some very challenging questions in ion beam therapy. In this workshop we brought together experts specialized in monitoring patients with those developing technologies for imaging the particle beam used for the treatment. We saw lively discussions throughout the event and many ideas of how to enhance existing monitoring systems. OMA organizes a number of challenge-based workshops and it is a pleasure to see the interesting research ideas emerging from these discussions."
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