Accelerating Innovation... in Medicine | Seminar by Eleanor Blakely | 10 July

Reflections and perspectives on 60 years of particle therapy, by Eleanor A. Blakely, Ph.D., Senior Staff Biophysicist, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is the first of a new series of seminars proposed by the Medical Applications Team.

 

Thursday 10 July
4.30 p.m. - 5.30 p.m. (*)
CERN Main Auditorium

Please register at: https://indico.cern.ch/event/326070/

 

Dr John H. Lawrence successfully treated the first patient with proton therapy in September 1954, the very month and year CERN was created. The treatment of certain cancers and metabolic and neurological diseases followed with protons and alpha particle beams produced in his brother Ernest's Nobel-Prize-winning accelerators. Recent successes in the treatment of specific cancers with heavier ions such as carbon are being reported in several continents. This presentation will briefly review the six decades of the entwined histories of CERN and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in developing this field, and their dual efforts to continue to develop the scientific basis, technology, co-ordination support and training opportunities needed to meet the challenges for the future.

 

(*) Coffee served at 4 p.m.

Eleanor A. Blakely

Eleanor A. Blakely is a Senior Staff Biophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with more than 38 years of professional experience in molecular, cellular and animal radiobiological research directed at studying the basic mechanisms of radiation responses, with an emphasis on charged particle radiation effects. She also holds a Faculty Affiliate Appointment in the Department of Radiological Health Sciences at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, and is a Clinical Professor of Radiation Medicine (nontenured) at Loma Linda University, School of Medicine, Loma Linda, California. Dr Blakely earned a PhD in Physiology from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana as a U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Special Fellow in Radiation Science and Protection. Her professional activities have included service on advisory panels for several hospitals, universities and numerous federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); on Editorial Boards for several journals: Space Power, Radiation Research and Journal of Radiation Research; Appointed Member, Diagnostic Radiology Study Section-Division of Research Grants, NIH; Advisory Committee Member, International Atomic Energy Agency; Scientific Director, NASA Space Research Summer School; and Elected Officer of the Radiation Research Society: Biology Councillor and Secretary-Treasurer. In 2000 she was elected to NCRP, and has served on Scientific Committee (SC) 75 that produced NCRP Report No. 132, Radiation Protection Guidance for Activities in Low-Earth Orbit; and SC 1-7 that produced NCRP Report No. 153, Information Needed to Make Radiation Protection Recommendations for Space Missions Beyond Low-Earth Orbit. She has received several awards including the Robert Emerson Graduate Teaching Award, School of Life Sciences, University of Illinois, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Outstanding Performance Award, the DOE Office of Science Outstanding Mentor Award, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Technology Transfer Award, and a RD100 award from Research and Development Magazine. In 2011, she was chosen to give the NCRP 35th Lauriston S. Taylor Lecture. She serves as consultant in support of clinical radiotherapy trials and of issues pertinent to radiation protection.