Dr. Ramin Abolfath (Summit Medical Health, Berkeley Heights, NJ & MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston)

"Modeling FLASH Ultra High Dose Rate: A Multiscale Computational Approaches"

Abstract: Biological systems are exceptionally complex; cancer progression and its treatment present many challenges. Protecting normal cells while targeting the malignant cells is the main challenge in radiation oncology. Owing to the promising outcomes of experimental FLASH ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) irradiation to protect normal tissues, we are at the turning point of a paradigm shift in radiotherapy. Recent observations in aqueous solutions have shown lower production of H2O2, a hallmark of beams at FLASH-UHDR compared to conventional dose rates. In this talk, I present a multi-scale computational approach, the first attempt in resolving the apparent contradiction of Monte Carlo models against the experimental data.