Dr A Subiel
No more applications being accepted
Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
About the Project
Wage: £18,000
Location: Teddington
Closing Date: 30 April 2017
Global Challenge Network+ in Advanced Radiotherapy
PhD Studentship at NPL / UCL
We are seeking a highly motivated student for a PhD studentship in the rapidly developing field of advanced radiotherapy to study dosimetry of ultrashort and high-dose-per-pulse beams.
The Global Challenge Network+ in Advanced Radiotherapy (funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council – STFC) aims to build a new multidisciplinary community bringing together clinicians with scientists and engineers from the STFC community, to work together on advanced radiotherapy technologies. The Network seeks to develop a series of activities, mini-projects and events to promote collaboration in this field, across disciplines and institutions, to identify future Grand Challenges. It also seeks to train the next generation of researchers by providing a number of cross-disciplinary PhD opportunities across institutions to reinforce both the multidisciplinary and the partnership aspects of its remit. This project is co-funded by STFC and NPL (National Physical Laboratory).
Radiotherapy is one of the main cancer treatment methods used for over 50% of all cancer patients and is one of the most cost-effective strategies in oncology. Accurate dosimetry is vital in delivering successful radiation therapy. The UK is heavily investing in new modalities such as proton and MR-guided radiotherapy which will soon be available in the UK but also in leading technological development for the next generation of radiotherapy approaches. Laser- and RF-accelerated very high-energy electron (VHEE) and ion beams (delivering ultrashort pulses of charged particles) show very promising properties for radiotherapy. Unlike conventional photon beams, these emerging technologies use scanned high-dose-per-pulse particle beams. Dose per pulse in these ultrashort beams can be several orders of magnitude higher compared to conventional radiotherapy accelerators. This presents significant dosimetric challenges which need to be addressed to enable further development of this technology and speed up the translation phase. Calorimeters have been well established as primary standard level instruments for dosimetry. However, their application to such beams is not trivial given the distinct time-dependent and instantaneously inhomogeneous dose deposition patterns.
This multidisciplinary project brings together medical physics, particle physics and laser-plasma technology to develop technical and theoretical approaches to characterize calorimeters as well as ionization chambers for supporting measurements in ultrashort and high-dose-per-pulse beams. This project will involve measurements and theoretical modelling of saturation phenomena and perturbations in calorimeters and ionisation chambers using high-dose-per-pulse and scanned beams. The PhD student will benefit from pursuing research in multidisciplinary environment working closely with Medical Radiation Science Group at the National Physical Laboratory, UCL Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering Department and external collaborators, including INFN Laboratories in Frascati and Scottish Centre for the Application of Plasma-based Accelerators (SCAPA) at the University of Strathclyde and MedAustron in Austria.
Requirements:
Applicants must have or expect to obtain, a UK first class or 2:1 honours degree or the international equivalent in the appropriate area of physical science
Applicants must be UK students or EU students who will have spent the previous 3 years in the UK
Clear interest in medical physics
Well-developed experimental skills
Sufficient level of mathematics and numerical skills
Creative and critical thinking
Excellent writing and oral communication skills
Self-management and good working habits
Capability to work independently and used to take initiative
Programming skills are desirable
For further information please contact Dr Anna Subiel, [Email Address Removed] or Prof Gary Royle, [Email Address Removed]