Particle physics pushing cancer treatment boundaries
Researchers at Europe's science lab CERN, who regularly use particle physics to challenge our understanding of the universe, are also applying their craft to upend the limits to cancer treatment.
The physicists here are working with giant particle accelerators in search of ways to expand the reach of cancer radiation therapy, and take on hard-to-reach tumours that would otherwise have been fatal.
In one CERN lab, called CLEAR, facility coordinator Roberto Corsini stands next to a large, linear particle accelerator consisting of a 40-metre metal beam with tubes packed in aluminium foil at one end, and a vast array of measurement instruments and protruding colourful wires and cables.
The research here is aimed at creating very high energy beams of electrons -- the negatively charged particles in the nucleus of an atom -- that eventually could help to combat cancerous cells more effectively.
The idea is to use these very high energy electrons (VHEE) in combination with a new and promising treatment method called FLASH.
This method entails delivering the radiation dose in a few hundred milliseconds, instead of minutes as is the current approach.
This has been shown to have the same destructive effect on the targeted tumour, but causes far less damage to the surrounding healthy tissue.
Construction of the prototype is scheduled to begin next February, and patient clinical trials could begin in 2025, "if everything goes smoothly".
