From Colliders to Cancer Care: Precision Physics in Medicine

by Dr Vincent Fave (H. de La Tour)

Monday 17 Nov 2025, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

BSP 626 (EPFL)

Radiotherapy is where high-energy physics meets biology and where accuracy becomes a matter of patient survival. This talk will trace the evolution of radiation therapy from early empirical treatments to today’s image-guided and adaptive techniques. We will examine the role of the medical physicist in bridging accelerator technology and clinical safety. The focus will be in the various tools such as dose models, imaging systems and delivery systems required to achieve millimeter accuracy in a moving and heterogeneous human body. Finally, we’ll explore the modern quest for precision: from small-field dosimetry and Monte-Carlo dose calculation to motion management, adaptive radiotherapy, and the emerging role of AI in treatment planning and quality assurance.

Precision Physics in RT.pdf