The SARRP User Spring Symposium event gathers together thought leaders, scholars and operators of Xstrahl Small Animal Radiation Research (SARRP) systems from all over the world.
The development and construction of clinical proton therapy centers has almost become the norm for any major cancer treatment center. Roughly 58 proton centers are currently operating throughout the world, and an estimated 52 (this number could be greater) are currently being built or are planned for construction. With the recent emergence of so many proton centers more so than ever, one would think the use of protons in cancer is a new form of treatment. However, the truth of the matter is it’s basically the opposite.
Background and Purpose: Currently, no readily available mitigators exist for acute abdominal radiation injury. Here, we present an animal model for precise and homogenous limb-sparing abdominal irradiation (LSAIR) to study the radiation-induced gastrointestinal...
Radiation is an important treatment modality for gastrointestinal tumors, but intestinal injury is a common side effect. Here we describe a physiologically relevant model for studying the molecular determinants of radiation-induced intestinal damage and testing novel...
Background: Radiation therapy is a standard established treatment modality for many malignancies, including lymphoma. There is growing evidence that the combination of radiation and immunotherapies can have synergistic immune and clinical effects; however, the...
There are many unknowns in the radiobiology of proton beams and other particle beams. We describe the development and testing of an image-guided low-energy proton system optimized for radiobiological research applications. A 50 MeV proton beam from an existing...
In response to the limitations of computed tomography (CT) and cone-beam CT (CBCT) in irradiation guidance, especially for soft-tissue targets without the use of contrast agents, our group developed a solution that implemented bioluminescence tomography (BLT) as the...
Recently, the Radiobiology Research Group from the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology at Queen’s University Belfast published a series of articles using SARRP to explore different translationally focused experimental approaches. The group, led by Prof Kevin Prise and Dr Karl Butterworth, have published three back to back papers within three months which reflect the interests of the research program in nanoparticle theranostics, bystander signaling and novel combination therapy.
Minibeam radiation therapy (MBRT) is an innovative synchrotron radiotherapy technique able to shift the normal tissue complication probability curves to significantly higher doses. However, its exploration was hindered due to the limited and expensive beamtime at...