Group leader: Prof. Uwe Oelfke

The common goal of highly conformal radiation therapy - either delivered with conventional photon beams or realized with proton and heavy ion beams - is the improvement of local tumor control rates while radiation induced side effects in normal tissues are kept below a tolerable level for each patient. We focus on all aspects of modern radiation oncology relevant to reach this aim by providing the physical basis for the design and optimization of innovative treatment strategies and technologies.

Currently our rresearch is focused on the following topics:

• Adaptive and image guided radiation therapy
• Dose calculation models
• Real time inverse planning for photons
• Biological, robust and 4D planning for hadron therapy
• Beam angle optimization and rotational therapy
• Spectral X-ray imaging
• Micro-beam therapy

Our future plans include:

• Development of a small animal irradiation facility
• Development of innovative dose delivery technologies
• Integration of functional and molecular imaging data into treatment optimization
• Development of MR-guidance in radiation therapy
• Modeling of biological radiation effects for hadron therapy

The basic research of our team of physicists and computer-scientists is partly performed in collaboration with a number of national and international research centers. A central objective of our work is the efficient translation of our research results into direct clinical application. Hence, we are also actively involved in collaborations with industrial and clinical partners.