News 2025

Next year we are hosting our 7th Summer School in Medical Physics 2026 with the topic "3D Printing Concepts and Techniques in Medical Physics". The course will be offered with an online phase (mid of August to mid of September 2026) followed by a hybrid attendance phase taking place from September 28 to October 2, 2026 in Heidelberg, so that participants can attend either in person or 100% virtually from around the globe. 

More information will follow in January 2026 on the course website: www.dkfz.de/summer_school2026

From Nov. 17 to Nov. 21, 2025 we successfully finished our Hybrid Courses in Particle Therapy. The courses were organized under the auspices of the Heidelberg Institute of Radiation Oncology (HIRO) in close cooperation with the Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center (HIT), the University Hospital Heidelberg as well as the heiSKILLS Centre, Department of Postgraduate Studies of Heidelberg University. The week started with interactive online sessions on Zoom with our experts to discuss radiobiological aspects as well as clinical cases in particle therapy. The courses were concluded by our hybrid attendance phase on Thursday and Friday taking place at DKFZ in Heidelberg. It was very nice meeting participants from around the globe both online and in person in Heidelberg. Thanks to everyone who participated, for creating such a nice atmosphere during the course. 

And thanks to our speakers Jeannette Jansen, Jennifer Hardt, Caroline Edel, Oliver Jäkel, Semi Harrabi, Christian Karger, Tobias Becher, Stefan Scheloske. 

Looking forward to the next round scheduled for October and November 2026. For more information go to www.dkfz.de/particle_course_en
 

As part of our cooperation in Medical Physics and Radiotherapy with the Chulabhorn Royal Academy (CRA) in Bangkok, Thailand, the elective module “Particle Therapy” was offered purely virtually in the Master's program in Medical Physics from August to early November 2025. Students learned the physical and radiobiological basics of particle therapy and worked on clinical cases. They presented their results in a live online session at the end of October 2025 and discussed them with Prof. Jäkel (Head of the Division of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology) and PD Dr. Harrabi (Heidelberg Ion Beam Therapy Center (HIT)). As the elective module was very positively evaluated by the students, it will be offered again in 2026.

On October 24, 2025, a group of prospective RTTS (Radiation Therapy Technologist) from the Center for Health Professions at the University Hospital of Tübingen visited the DKFZ as part of their excursion. Jürgen Berger from Strategic Communications and Public Relations welcomed the group and explained the work of the DKFZ. Dr. Michael Deimel (expert in HR marketing at the DKFZ) presented the DKFZ as an employer and outlined career opportunities at the DKFZ. Dr. Dr. Martin Niklas (Medical Physicist and Resident Physician, Division of Radiology and Division of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology presented the latest methods in radiology and radiation therapy and highlighted the importance of the interaction between both fields for successful treatment. After the presentations, the group visited the DKFZ's Radiological Development Center, where the research topic “Imaging and Radiooncology” is located. Here, the group was given a tour of the high-field MRI device (VIDA) and the ETHOS Linear Accelerator. During the tour, the Modular Adaptive Radiotherapy System (MARS) was presented, which was developed in the Clinical Cooperation Unit for Radiotherapy (headed by Prof. Debus).

We are delighted that Dr. Christina Stengl has been awarded the 1st Behnken-Berger Prize 2025 by the Behnken-Berger Foundation. This award recognizes her scientific work on the preclinical use of mini-beam irradiation with carbon ions to improve the treatment of pancreatic cancer, which she completed as part of her dissertation in the Division of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology (Head: Prof. Jäkel) in the group “Medical Engineering” (headed by Armin Runz). The prize was awarded at the annual meeting of the German Society for Medical Physics (DGMP) in Berlin.

Congratulations!

Free registration for this year's Virtual International Day of Medical Physics 2025 at DKFZ (IDMP) on November 7, 2025 is now open. On this day, the Divisions of Medical Physics in Radiology (Head: Prof. Ladd) and Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology (Head: Prof. Jäkel) will host two online events via Zoom. Postdocs and doctoral students will report on their research work. The event will be held in English.

Further information is available here.

From 17 to 19 September 2025, the hybrid attendance phase of the Hybrid Summer Workshop in Medical Physics 2025 took place at the DKFZ in Heidelberg (course leaders: Dr. Vanessa Franke and Dr. Martin Niklas). 45 national and international participants were on site in Heidelberg. Another 50 people participated online via Zoom. Thanks to the participation of teachers from the DKFZ and external institutes (such as the Technical University of Munich and the University Hospital in Zurich), the workshop was a great success.

The workshop was jointly organised by the “Division of Medical Physics in Radiotherapy” (headed by Prof. Jäkel), the “Division of Medical Physics in Radiology” (headed by Prof. Ladd) and the “Division of Radiology” (headed by Prof. Schlemmer). 

More pictures of the hybrid attendance phase can be found on the workshop website.

Fighting cancer with compassion and precision: On Sep. 7, 2025 we celebrate World Radiotherapy Awareness Day (WRAD). Listen to PD Dr. Fabian Weykamp's video statement online here and explore more voices for radiotherapy recorded by experts in the field and shared on social media (e.g. on LinkedIn using #WRAD or #WorldRTDay) and on https://www.worldradiotherapy.org/.  

Registration for the “Hybrid Summer Workshop in Medical Physics 2025: Functional Imaging for Diagnostic and Therapy” is now open. The workshop is aimed at national and international students and postdocs from the fields of medical physics, radiation therapy, radiology, and related disciplines, and provides an overview of functional imaging and its use in diagnostics and therapy. The workshop is jointly organized by the Division of Medical Physics in Radiology (Head: Prof. Ladd), the Division of Radiology (Head: Prof. Schlemmer) as well as the Division of Medical Physics in Radiaton Oncology (Head: Prof. Jäkel). The course will be led by Dr. Vanessa Franke and Dr. Martin Niklas.

More information is available on the course website.
 

The final program of the FLASH Workshop 2025 is now available online: 

www.dkfz.de/flash_workshop2025

In addition to national and international invited speakers, there will be further sessions with presentations on submitted abstracts. Booking is still possible until June 16, 2025. 

In April 2025, Dr. Jorge Torres - Radiology Resident at Clínica Alemana in Santiago de Chile - visited the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg for two weeks. During his visit he joined the Division of Radiology under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Heinz Schlemmer to learn more about the latest advances in MRI and PET/CT techniques applied to cancer diagnosis at DKFZ. 

Furthermore, he had the chance to interact with other DKFZ departments such as the Clinical Cooperation Unit Nuclear Medicine (Head: Prof. Dr. Uwe Haberkorn) and the Clinical Cooperation Unit Radiation Oncology (Head: Prof. Dr. Dr. Jürgen Debus), to gain a deeper understanding of the interdisciplinary approach that defines the DKFZ. 

We are delighted that the project “InViMo for in-vivo particle therapy monitoring” has been selected as one of CERN's knowledge transfer highlights for 2024. The project was developed under the leadership of Dr. Mária Martišíková (head of the research group Novel Detection Techniques for Ion Beams in the Division of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology, led by Prof. Oliver Jäkel) in collaboration with the Heidelberg Ion Beam Therapy Center (HIT) and Heidelberg University Hospital. A big thank you and congratulations to everyone involved in the project for this great achievement.

More information is available at https://report2024-kt.web.cern.ch/improving-head-tumour-radiotherapy/ oder in the paper.

Furthermore, you can watch a Podcast Interview with Dr. Mária Martišíková on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBKKzoqH5FI 

The research group Medical Engineering (led by Armin Runz) of the Division of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology (led by Prof. Oliver Jäkel) took part in the Girl's and Boy's Day, which was held on April 3, 2025, at the German Cancer Research Center. Schoolgirls from Heidelberg and the surrounding area visited the working group and learned how 3D-printed organs can be produced for research in radiation therapy. Other stops on this Girls' Day included the DKFZ IT Core Facility and the 7-Tesla MRI scanner in the Division of Medical Physics in Radiology (led by Prof. Mark Ladd). The students participating in Boys' Day visited the Press and Public Relations Department, the library, and the Central Animal Facility.

The registration for the Hybrid Courses in the Field of Particle Therapy opens on April 15th 2025. You can register until Sep. 29th 2025. The courses are aimed to physicians and Medical Physics Experts who want to gain the “Fachkunde Partikeltherapie”. Furthermore, national and international students and scientists are welcome to register as well. 

We are happy to offer free course participation to a limited number of participants. More information about the courses, the registration and the free course participation is available here. 

What exactly are we working on in the field of medical physics? What research questions are explored during a master's or doctoral thesis? What does a Postdoc actually research? And what does it look like in our office or laboratory? 

We try to answer these questions in our short video interviews. Click here to watch the videos with young researchers. 

We are very happy to announce our Hybrid Summer School in Medical Physics about Functional Imaging. The workshop is subdivided into an online phase of two to three weeks, followed by the hybrid attendance phase at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg and on Zoom from September 17th to September 19th 2025. The course is designed for students (BSc, MSc, PhD or MD), postdocs as well as young scientists or clinical trainees. 

More information follows soon on the course website here. 

The registration for the FLASH Workshop 2025 about "The Role of Oxygen in FLASH Radiation Therapy" taking place from July 1st to July 3rd 2025 in Heidelberg at the German Cancer Research Center is open. The workshop is organized by Prof. Dr. Joao Seco under the auspices of the Heidelberg Institute of Radiation Oncology. 

Talks by invited speakers will be supplemented by talks and posters of attendees. Therefore, participants can submit abstracts to actively participate in the workshop.

Early Bird Registration Deadline: April 28th 2025

Abstract deadline: April 28th 2025

Registration deadline: June 16th 2025

Further information: www.dkfz.de/flash_workshop2025

We would like to thank our invited speakers and our participants for such a nice matRad User Meeting and Hackathon. It was really a pleasure to welcome everyone from February 17 to 21 2025 in Heidelberg in the Division of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology at DKFZ. 

Congratulations to Remo Cristoforetti from DKFZ for receiving the Creativity Award and to Eric Christiansen from Canada for receiving the Coding Award. 

Click here for more information about the meeting. 

This interdisciplinary starter project will explore visualization concepts and feasibility for a "digital patient twin" - a browser-based software tool that allows patients to access all essential information in radiation therapy, such as imaging data, therapeutic dose distributions and medical decisions. 

The exploratory short-term project, lead by Dr. Martin Niklas and Dr. Kristina Giske, is an example for the excellent integration of different disciplines of modern healthcare at DKFZ combining radiotherapy, radiology, clinical and computational medical physics, AI applications, as well as IT and software engineering aspects. 

More details are available on NCT page and on the website of the research group “Computational Patient Models”.

Annika Schlechter, a master’s student of the research group “Novel Detection Techniques for Ion Beams” in the Division of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology, was awarded the Christoph Schmelzer Prize of the Association for the Promotion of Tumor Therapy with Heavy Ions for her for her outstanding master thesis about “2.5D imaging: Accessing 3D information of a 2D ion-beam radiograph: Accessing 3D information of a 2D ion-beam radiograph)”.

Using an anthropomorphic phantom, Annika Schlechter was the first to experimentally demonstrate that information about the third dimension, i.e. about the depth of potential anatomical changes within the patient, can be extracted from a 2D ion-beam radiograph. She was able to convincingly verify that the accuracy of the depth determination can achieve clinical relevance.

More information about the ceremony is available here. 

From December 12 to 14, 2025, the “PCSM School in Adaptive Radiation Therapy (ART)” took place in Bankok at our cooperation partner “Princess Srisavangavadhana College of Medicine, Chulabhorn Royal Academy (CRA)”. Prof. Jäkel (Head of the Division of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology) and Dr. Fabian Weykamp (Senior Physician of the Clinical Cooperation Unit Radiation Therapy) took part as invited speakers, together with Prof. Richter from OncoRay in Dresden.

The “PCSM School in Adaptive Radiation Therapy (ART)” is another visible component of our successful cooperation with Thailand. Further information on the PCSM School program can be found here.