POSTDOCTORAL POSITION IN MEDICAL PHYSICS (M/F)

POSTDOCTORAL POSITION IN MEDICAL PHYSICS (M/F)

Date de clôture

07/31/2024

Secteur

Centre de Recherche

Institut CurieInstitut Curie is a major player in the research and fight against cancer. It consists of a Hospital group and a Research Center of more than 1000 employees with a strong international representativeness. The objective of the Research Center is to develop basic research and to use the knowledge produced to improve the diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics of cancers as part of the continuum between basic research and innovation serving the patient. The Orsay Proton therapy Center (CPO) founded in 1991 is part of the radiation oncology department at Institut Curie hospital group, which is one of the European-wide recognition as a Comprehensive Cancer Center of excellence. This position will be associated with a research project at Institut Curie whose goal is to develop new treatment planning methods for very-high energy electrons (VHEE) treatments, and their application to FLASH radiotherapy, and is an exciting opportunity to join the radiation therapy research activities in Orsay, within the hospital and the research center.

Laboratory

The Laboratory of Translational Imaging in Oncology (LITO) is a research unit (U1288) supported by Inserm (= French NIH) and Institut Curie, the first cancer center in France (https://www.lito-web.fr/). LITO has approximately 30 researchers, including physicists, engineers, physicians, pharmacists, and technologists.

Position

Radiotherapy is currently one of the main techniques used for the treatment of cancer. During the last thirty years, numerous technical advances have allowed to considerably improve the conformation of the irradiations to the specific characteristics of each tumour and to reduce their side effects. Nevertheless, the tolerance of healthy tissues remains the main limitation of this type of treatment, especially in the case of particularly radiosensitive patients, such as children, or radioresistant tumours for which the control of the side effects of radiotherapy remains a major therapeutic challenge. The development of innovative approaches that reduce the sensitivity of healthy tissues to irradiation while maintaining the efficacy of the treatment on the tumour is therefore of crucial importance for the progress of the efficacy of radiotherapy. Recently, pioneering work at the Institut Curie has demonstrated that ultra-high dose rate irradiation (so-called FLASH) has a major healthy tissue sparing effect - while preserving anti-tumour efficacy (Favaudon et al 2014).

On the other hand, VHEE radiotherapy (very high energy electrons, in the energy range of 100 to 250 MeV), first proposed in the 2000s, would be particularly accurate and independent of tissue heterogeneities (unlike low energy electrons or protons), and could be applicable in a large number of anatomical locations such as pulmonary and intestinal regions (Fig. 1). It is also potentially less expensive than other radiotherapy techniques, would allow accelerated treatment, for example through magnetic scanning of particle beams, with high doses per fraction thereby improving its effectiveness. VHEE would also take advantage of recent work on FLASH - in which a high dose is administered to the tissues in an extremely short time - allowing the simultaneous reduction in the occurrence and severity of early and late complications affecting normal tissues, while maintaining control of the tumour.

Within the radiation oncology department and LITO team based at the Institut Curie- Hospital Orsay (91), the medical physics' team is recruiting a postdoctoral fellow, with a strong interest in translational research on cancer treatment. As part of the activities of this project, the applicant would be expected to work in the following area:

- Treatment planning modelling (physical and biological optimization considerations for ultra-high dose-rate FLASH therapy, softwares benchmark, accelerator modelling, temporal parameters and phenomenological FLASH-RBE models). A dose calculation engine will be tested and benchmarked or associated with a full Monte Carlo toolkit (TOPAS/Geant4) in order to allow a reliable assessment of clinical VHEE calculations.

- VHEE applications for radiation therapy (clinical simulations, experimental validations, detector benchmark): a side-by-side comparison of possible VHEE treatments with current radiotherapy methods (eg VMAT, protons, etc) will be carried out.

- Radiation therapy dosimetry (protons and electrons), robustness and uncertainties, inter-comparisons and ultra-high dose-rate measurements: several experimental characterisation campaigns are underway with FLASH machines (protons, 7 MeV electrons), and the researcher will participate in these measurements.

The candidate must hold a PhD in radiation physics, medical physics or detection physics • Radiation­ matter interactions / radiation therapy / dosimetry • Preferred expertise and experience in one or more of the following areas: programming skills (MATLAB, Python, C++) – Monte Carlo simulations (ex: Geant4/TOPAS) – Measurements – Treatment planning. You will also be expected to have experience in working as part of a multidisciplinary team.

All our opportunities are open to people with disabilities

Contract information

Type of contract: Fixed-term contract.

Starting date:  as soon as possible

Duration: 18 months

Working time: full time- number of days

Remuneration: according to the current grids

Benefits: Collective catering, reimbursement of transportation fees up to 70%, supplementary health insurance

Location of the position: Orsay

Contact

Please apply by e-mail (CV + application letter + references/support letter)

Institut Curie

Deadline: 2024-07-31
Location: France, Paris
Categories: Medical physics, Medical Sciences, PhD, Postdoc, Radiology,

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