Garchinger Maier-Leibnitz-Kolloquium: The practice-changing impact of physics on medicine

Thursday 19 Oct 2023, 16:15 → 17:15 Europe/Berlin

Lecture Hall, ground floor (west) (LMU building, Am Coulombwall 1, Campus Garching)

While x-rays have been called the greatest gift that physics has ever made to medicine, there are countless other contributions from physical sciences to medicine than x-ray imaging, the earliest ones going back thousands of years ago. They include practice changing physical approaches to improve the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, as well as a deeper physical understanding of the causes of diseases such as cancer, and their growth and evolution.

In this talk we will start from innovations of physics in radiation therapy. The advancement of intensity modulated radiation therapy that mirrors the image reconstruction principles known from computed tomography will be reviewed as an example of disruptive technology in radiotherapy. From there we will move on to the next level of tumor-conformal radiation therapy, which utilizes particle beams of protons or heavier particles. Two of the primary challenges with particle therapy - its high price and uncertain finite range - will be discussed, along with strategies for their solution. A few recent examples of advances in diagnostic imaging and image guidance, such as ultra-low-field magnetic resonance imaging,
will also be presented. A common theme is the democratization of technologies to make them more broadly available and affordable.

Today our ability to focus the treatment beam in space outperforms our ability to demarcate the tumor volume by far. This calls for physical investigations to improve the sensitivity of imaging by orders of magnitude to enable the detection of smaller groups of cells, not only the bulk of the tumor. Another physical dimension that has largely been neglected so far is the optimization of treatment delivery in time.  In terms of understanding the underlying physical mechanisms of cancer growth, the mechanical properties of the tumor and surounding tissues play an important role and deserve further investigation.

Hybrid access via ZOOM:
https://lmu-munich.zoom.us/j/98457332925?pwd=TWc3V1JkSHpyOTBPQVlMelhuNnZ1dz09
Meeting ID: 984 5733 2925
Passcode: 979953

kolloquium-19-10-23.pdf