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Ideas on Getting into Particle Therapy

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 2:43 pm
by mfc51
I am interested in studying and researching in the field of particle therapy, but I really can't find a lot of information on how to get into this area, which institutions have such programs, etc...

I've looked into medical physics as a possibility, but it seems to be the wrong field for those interested in research. Do people get into particle therapy with a background in accelerator physics, biophysics, radiation oncology?...

I found this nice little list of institutions with accelerators to study hadron therapy: http://www.iss.infn.it/webg3/toptera/hadthe.html (almost every link is broken, but the list seems accurate)

Any institutions I've found doing research in this field don't really have helpful information on prospective students.

Anyone have ideas, insights, advice, recommendations?

Thanks all!

Re: Ideas on Getting into Particle Therapy

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 12:49 pm
by grae313
Particle Therapy: Because there's really nothing that can't be fixed by bombarding it with high energy particles. Nothing.

Re: Ideas on Getting into Particle Therapy

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 1:30 pm
by arieszen
It took a lot out of me to not crack a joke about this!
sorry mfc51, you meant theoretical particle physics. there have been recent posts about this topic. you should check that out. it gives rankings as well.

Re: Ideas on Getting into Particle Therapy

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 6:05 pm
by grae313
No, he didn't. This dude's serious. That's why he was looking at medical physics programs.

Re: Ideas on Getting into Particle Therapy

Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:21 am
by arieszen
haha, the joke's on me. wow! there is actually something called particle therapy. sorry mfc51, I had no idea.

Re: Ideas on Getting into Particle Therapy

Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 12:42 pm
by canadiana
If you want to go into Particle Therapy, Medical Physics would be the area of study but there is more research on it in Europe. I would suggest looking into Medical Physics programs that are not accredited. The accredited ones are more focused on covering material related to current clinical work a medical physicist would be responsible for in a hospital. The non-accredited ones are more research based, focusing on applying physics to treating/detecting diseases. I think you should try looking for Medical Physics programs that collaborate with European labs.

I'm still an undergrad, but the grad program in my school for Medical Physics collaborates with the Medical Physics Department in a lab in Germany which does Hadron and Heavy-ion therapy. You do your courses at the school, but your research can be done in Germany...and my department wants to send people over there. My prof works on nano-particle thermal therapy and has collaborations in Europe (there are some European labs advancing in nano-fabrication). His grad student does purely theoretical work, computational modeling but he sent him to France to get all the experimental data. My school is in Canada, but I'm sure you'll find something like that in the US.

Re: Ideas on Getting into Particle Therapy

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 5:49 pm
by newton2012
Hey everyone, I will be finishing this coming May with a M.S. from an CAMPEP accredited program. I decided that rather than pursuing the MP residency, I want to pursue a PhD involving particle therapy (high-LET radiation therapy). I am just having a tough time finding actual program to apply to where their research is in particle therapy. I have applied to University of Texas - Houston (MD Anderson), but would like to apply to some other places. I would also like to consider programs outside MP departments because I already have my CAMPEP accreditation - perhaps physics. I too also heard that the Europeans are doing work in this area, but can't find any institution. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.