Research summary
Although more Canadians are surviving at least five years past a cancer diagnosis, cancer continues to be the leading cause of death in Canada, with about 30% of Canadians expected to die from cancer. Two novel radiotherapy treatments — FLASH therapy and therapy delivered with microbeams — have shown promise in improving outcomes of cancer radiotherapy. Unfortunately, highly specialized, expensive machines are needed to test these treatments and implement them clinically. Dr. Magdalena Bazalova plans to build and test three irradiation FLASH/microbeam platforms that will serve as an ideal environment for scientists to thoroughly investigate these techniques, which will accelerate their introduction to clinical settings.