Professor Gillies McKenna MD PhD, Director of Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology

Abstract: Radiation Therapy is one of the oldest effective methods of treating cancer, beginning within months of Roentgen's discovery of the X-ray. The first century of the field was characterised by largely empirical development of treatment methods. In the last decade this has dramatically changed; driven by changes in cancer imaging that enable increasingly accurate dose deposition, and advances in molecular biology that lead us to believe that the treatment can be made much more effective. The lecture will discuss this new confluence of physics and biology, and why it is making Radiation Oncologists think of abandoning the X-ray in favour of charged particles.