Welcome New Students

(2018-09-21) The Duke University Medical Physics Program is pleased to welcome a new cohort of first-year students in the Fall 2018 semester, consisting of 13 M.S. and 7 Ph.D. students. The Program held a Welcoming Picnic on Thursday, Aug 23 2018 at the Duke Faculty Club to acquaint them with returning students and faculty members, while enjoying authentic North Carolinian BBQ complete with all the fixings.

F31 Fellowship Awarded

(2018-09-21) Isabella Duarte (PhD’20) was recently awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (F31 Fellowship) by the NIH, under the mentorship of her co-advisors Drs. Fang-Fang Yin and Jing Cai. This fellowship enables pre-doctoral students to develop into productive, independent researchers, while also aiming to enhance diversity in the health-related research workforce. During this two-year fellowship, Isabella will be working on a project titled ‘Lung Ventilation Mapping Based on Biomechanical Motion Modeling for Radiation Therapy’, which seeks to develop and evaluate a highly efficient and robust biomechanically-based hybrid deformable image registration method for lung ventilation applications. Radiation-induced pulmonary toxicity poses a serious challenge and limiting factor in delivering a sufficient amount of dose to eradicate thoracic tumors without compromising lung function. Once fully developed and validated, this method can potentially be used for functional-based treatment planning and adaptive radiotherapy to improve the outcome of lung cancer treatments by minimizing dose deposition to functional lung tissue.

Wong to chair Radiation Safety and RDRC Committee

(L to R): Don Frush, Lee Craddock, Grant Smith, Terry Wong, Neil Petry, Len Spicer, Bob Reiman, Terry Yoshizumi

(2018-09-21) Medical Physics Faculty, Terence Wong, MD PhD (Radiology), has been selected to chair the Radiation Safety Committee at the Duke University Medical Center and the Duke FDA Radioactive Drug Research Committee (RDRC). In these roles, Dr. Wong oversees efforts to help research subjects better understand any risks due to exposure to radiation and new radioactive drugs to participation in Duke clinical trials. We look forward to your continued success in these roles.

Reiman Appointed to State Commission

(2018-09-21) Dr. Robert Reiman (Radiology and Medical Physics) was recently appointed by North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper as a voting member of the North Carolina Radiation Protection Commission. The purpose of this twenty-one member Commission is to advise NC Department of Health and Human Services in the development of comprehensive policies and programs for the evaluation, determination, and reduction of hazards associated with the use of radiation. Congratulations Dr. Reiman!

Contrast-Enhanced CT Grant

(2018-07-20) Dr. Ehsan Samei’s laboratory recently received a two-year grant of $238,000 from Bracco Imaging to conduct a study on contrast-enhanced CT exam protocol. Optimizing and personalizing contrast-enhanced CT exams is an important task considering that more than 60% of clinical CT imaging involves the use of iodinated contrast materials. Variability in factors such as body habitus, gender, age, and cardiac output can also significantly affect the outcome of the scan. Thus, to address this problem, the project will systemically evaluate the impact of contrast material concentration on dose exposure and image quality, in addition to developing a set of validated correlations between enhancement result and patient attributes.