Radiation therapy is a common treatment for cancer, aiming to maximize tumour cell kill while limiting healthy tissue radiation exposure. Sophisticated simulations using the Monte Carlo technique are used to model the passage of radiation through matter and calculate dose, the energy deposited in tissue by radiation. This presentation will focus on the physics of "up close" radiation treatments for cancer, in particular, simulations of radiation treatments, dose calculations, and research aimed at personalizing treatments. Patient-level simulations with direct applications in current treatments, cell-level simulations including applications for prospective treatments involving nanoparticles and, finally, subcellular-level simulations considering possible quantum effects in electron transport will be presented.
Rowan Thomson is Canada Research Chair and Professor in the Department of Physics at Carleton University. She holds a BSc Double Honours Mathematics and Physics from Carleton University. Her PhD research was in theoretical high-energy physics (Superstring Theory) at Perimeter Institute and the University of Waterloo, and was awarded Waterloo’s Pearson Medal. Post-PhD, Prof. Thomson’s research has focused on computational radiotherapy physics; she became a faculty member at Carleton in 2010. Prof. Thomson was awarded Ontario’s Polanyi Prize in Physics (2011), an Ontario Early Researcher Award (2015), and elected a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine in 2020. Her research has been recognized with the Sylvia Fedoruk Prize (best medical physics paper in Canada, 2020) and the Moses & Sylvia Sorkin Greenfield Award (best paper in the journal Medical Physics, 2020). She is very active in professional activities in medical physics, including as a member of various committees and working groups of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. Outside of research, Prof. Thomson has great enthusiasm for teaching and mentoring future generations of physicists, and taking action to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion in Science.