About me
I am Professor in Medical Physics at the Department of Physics, Stockholm University and the Head of the Medical Radiation Physics division at Stockholm University which is affiliated to the Department of Oncology and Pathology at Karolinska Institutet. My main current research area concerns the biologically-optimized and adapted radiotherapy with respect to the adverse tumour response phenotypes as well as the quality of radiation, irradiation technique and fractionation regime.
Research description
PROJECT 1 - Biologically Optimised Adaptive RT
Aim: To combine the advantages of intensity modulated radiotherapy for photons, protons and light ions and molecular and functional imaging in order to exploit the potential to target precisely the adverse factors in the tumours and thus to tailor the treatment to the individual needs of the patients by developing quantitative methods for incorporating biological and functional information on adverse outcome treatment factors into the treatment planning and optimisation codes and the implementation of the computational models and algorithms for dose prescription and treatment adaptation in the clinical treatment planning system.
Part of this project is conducted within the EU-financed ARTFORCE project (www.cancerartforce.eu).
PROJECT 2 – Stereotactic Radiation Therapy – key factors and novel approaches
Aim: To analyse and quantify a multiobserver variability of target and organs at risk delineation and to evaluate the clinical potential impact of the differences for radiosurgery.
To analyse of the impact of the fractionation schedule in which the prescribed dose is delivered in Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) on the tumour control probability for NSCLC depending on the intrinsic sensitivity of the cells to radiation and the oxygenation of the tumour and to explore the possibilities for the clinical validation of the theoretical findings.
PROJECT 3 – Risk for secondary cancers after photon and proton radiotherapy
Aim: The aim of this research project is the investigation of the risk for secondary cancers associated with modern radiotherapy implying not only new irradiation techniques like IMRT and proton therapy but also additional radiation exposure due to repeated imaging sessions. Three major directions of investigations will therefore be explored in this project. One research direction will be concerned with the development, adaptation and validation of models and parameters to be used for risk predictions in radiotherapy. A second direction of research will be concerned with the optimisation of treatment approaches from the point of view of the associated risks for cancer induction. A third direction of investigation will deal with the estimation of risks from new forms of therapy employing protons which are currently being developed in Sweden and are estimated to be used on patients in a couple of years-time.
PROJECT 4 – Proton therapy - impact of variable RBE
Aim: To explore the impact of variable proton RBE on dose fractionation for clinically-relevant situations. A generic RBE=1.1 is generally used for isoeffect calculations, while experimental studies showed that proton RBE varies with tissue type, dose and LET.
Education
2005 PhD in Radiation Physics at Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden 2005 Certification as Medical Physicist in Sweden 2010 Associate Professor (Docent), Medical Radiation Physics, Stockholm University, Sweden
2018 Professor, Medical Radiation Physics, Stockholm University, Sweden
Academic honours, awards and prizes
Member of the Council of the Centre for Radiation Protection Research (www.crpr-su.se)