Medical Physics PhD candidate, Suk Whan Yoon (first author), along with Zachary Shrock, Boyu Meng (MS 2017), faculty members Dr. Mark Oldham, Dr. Justus Adamson, and Dr. Mark Dewhirst (Radiation Oncology), and collaborators from Departments of Radiology and Neurosurgery recently received “The Best Paper” award from the Southeast Chapter of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (SEAAPM). The paper, titled “Enhancing Radiation Therapy through Cherenkov Light Activated Phototherapy,” discusses a newly-investigated approach to enhance radiotherapy through a photo-therapeutic agent activated by Cherenkov light produced from the megavoltage photon beam, termed Radiotherapy Enhanced with Cherenkov photo-Activation (RECA). This work demonstrates for the first time the potential for photo-activation of psoralen directly in-situ, from Cherenkov light generated by a clinical megavoltage treatment beam.
