4 Research and Development

Group name: Accelerator and Radiation Physics 

PARTREC operates a superconducting cyclotron AGOR, providing proton and ion test beams to several test beam rooms. In addition to operating, maintaining and upgrading the facility, the Accelerator and Radiation Physics Team is working on further development of the accelerator system and its components for boosting of beam intensity and extension of accelerated particle types, as well as on advanced beam control, beam and patient diagnostics and dosimetry.

Topics within the research line:

• Development of novel dose delivery methods and dose application techniques
• Increase of the beam intensity for FLASH irradiations
• Development of dosimetry and dose control for irradiations with ultra-high dose rates
• Extension of the ion cocktail to heavier ions
• Production of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine
• Combination of boron proton capture with FLASH irradiation

Group name: Accelerator Physics

Research is focused on the optimization and development of new technologies for the use of the beams from AGOR. Beam development procedures are improved by developing and implementing standardized procedures. Driven by ongoing scientific projects, investigations are performed on methods of beam delivery under specific conditions.

Group name: In vivo verification of proton therapy

We investigate positron emission imaging for real-time dose delivery verification during proton therapy. We focus on the translation of nitrogen-12 imaging to the clinic, and on combining this with proton radiography.

Group name: In vivo verification of proton therapy

We primarily focus on advancing particle radiotherapy. Our expertise spans accelerator physics and technology, radiation physics, and medical physics. We lead projects in developing image-guided preclinical particle therapy research and supervise technical and engineering staff in accelerator R&D. Our work in radiation physics is dedicated to enhancing particle therapy, aiming to improve its efficacy and precision in medical treatments.

Group name: Nuclear chemistry & physics

Our research focuses on exotic, atomic nuclei far away from the valley of stability. In particular, we are interested in heavy, neutron-rich nuclei which are relevant for the synthesis processes of heavy elements in our universe. At PARTREC we are building a new experiment called NEXT to study Neutron-rich, heavy, EXOTIC nuclei produced in multinucleon Transfer reactions.

Group name: Radiation-induced adverse effects in the brain

When using radiotherapy in the treatment of brain tumours, damage to normal brain tissue is an unavoidable side effect. Lara Barazzuol’s research group aims to understand the underlying biological and molecular mechanisms of radiotherapy-induced neurocognitive dysfunction.

Group name: Translational normal tissue radiobiology

At the interface between lab and clinic, we use animal models to elucidate processes leading to normal tissue damage and translate this knowledge into clinically applicable strategies to reduce the side effects of radiotherapy.These strategies are subsequently tested in clinical studies.

Group name: Effects of radiation on normal tissues

Our lab is investigating how radiation-induced environmental changes influence the regenerative response of tissues:

• Our main goal is to understand the molecular mechanism related to stem cell functioning after irradiation.
• We aim to unravel the processes that inhibit stem cell functioning after irradiation using in vivo and in vitro organoid models.
• We dissect changes in gene expression of cells in the tissue stem cell niche post-irradiation to study the interaction between stem cells and their surrounding cells to find tools to optimize regeneration.
• With this knowledge we aim to understand how to optimize stem cell therapies to ameliorate radiation-induced normal tissue side effects

Group name: Instrumentation and FLASH Dosimetry

Our research is focused on proton radiography measurements and interpretation towards clinical translation for static and moving targets. Currently materialized in two clinical programs in Head and Neck Cancer and Lung.

Flash research is focused on small animal high-precision irradiation employing conformal flash and experimental setup optimization in radiobiology. The first experiments were conducted in organoids and mice to follow.