Rongxiao Zhang
University of Missouri-Columbia, MO·Biomedical Engineering
Radiation delivered in a fraction of a second, rather than over minutes, may harm healthy tissue much less while killing tumors just as well. This approach is called FLASH radiotherapy (FLASH-RT), using ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) beams.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Physics
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
FLASH radiotherapy
ultra-high dose rate
electron radiotherapy
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Build beam models for FLASH-capable linear accelerators, the machines that produce the radiation, so planning software can accurately predict the dose that ultra-high dose rate electron beams deliver.
- Develop treatment planning for the Mobetron FLASHIQ that uses passive intensity modulation, which shapes the beam with physical devices, to make FLASH and conventional plans comparable for larger, deeper targets.
- Create tumor control probability and normal tissue complication probability models, which estimate cure and side-effect chances, that can run inside the FLASH planning system.
- Deliver optimized FLASH plans and verify them with ultra-high dose rate dosimetry and quality-assurance systems, which measure the dose actually given, using realistic treatment cases.
More about the research
Studies suggest it spares normal brain, colon, lung and skin, and some report up to 40% less damage, although the evidence is still debated. Tumors do not seem to share this protection. That could let doctors treat radiation-resistant cancers that would otherwise need doses too toxic to give. Most FLASH work so far has been done in small animals, so it is unclear how uneven dose and dose rate behave in larger, deeper and irregularly shaped bodies. Moving FLASH into large animals and people requires software that can plan these treatments.
Why it matters
FLASH radiotherapy could let cancer patients receive effective tumor doses with less injury to surrounding healthy organs. This may matter most for radioresistant tumors, which are hard to treat safely with conventional radiation. A validated, openly shared planning system could help researchers run controlled large-animal and human FLASH studies, a key step toward testing the approach in the clinic.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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University of Pennsylvania, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Develop density optimization algorithms that determine the internal, voxel-wise density distribution a range modulator needs in order to spread a mono-energetic proton beam into the desired mix of energies.
Sally Amundson
Columbia University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether MIIST305, a drug that protects the gut from x-ray damage, also improves survival and reduces gut injury in rats exposed to nuclear-device-spectrum neutrons or ultra-high dose rate radiation.
Xiaofeng Yang
Emory University, GA·Biomedical Engineering
Develop and refine a deep learning method that reconstructs real-time on-board volumetric images from very few two-dimensional projections for direct, markerless three-dimensional lung tumor tracking.
The school
University of Missouri-Columbia: 21 labs on PI Pages, $509M a year on research, 260 research doctorates a year.
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