"The radiotherapy department is pre-eminently the place where the latest scientific developments are put into practice. Since 2016, we have had the MR-Linac here, an accelerator with an MRI scanner. This device can take detailed pictures of the tumor and surrounding tissue during radiotherapy. As a physicist, this immediately appealed to me because an MRI scanner can also be used as a scientific measurement tool. For example, with MRI it is possible to measure the diffusion of water. That sounds difficult, but the bottom line is that you can measure where cells are denser or less densely packed. In tumors, diffusion is generally low because, by comparison, many cells there are very densely packed together. It is a dream to be able to use these kinds of measurements in the near future to see how well the radiotherapy works and adjust the treatment regimen accordingly. I have not abandoned the idea of extracting knowledge from data even after my doctoral research. I am currently a data science consultant at Valcon, in Utrecht."
Ernst Kooreman will defend his thesis on June 13.
Promotor
prof. dr. U.A. van der Heide
Copromotor(s)
dr. P.J. van Houdt