Keynote Speakers

Dr Chia-Ho Hua
Director of Medical Physics Research, Department of Radiation Oncology
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
United States

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Dr Chia-Ho Hua earned his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he studied radionuclide tomographic imaging. He received postdoctoral and clinical training in therapeutic medical physics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York before being certified by the American Board of Radiology in Therapeutic Medical Physics in 2004. Dr Hua joined the faculty at St. Jude in 2005 and is currently a full member and the Director of Medical Physics Research in Radiation Oncology. His research aims to improve proton therapy targeting accuracy, advanced imaging for precision radiation oncology, and predictive modeling for tumor response and radiation late effects in children. Dr Hua is also the Physics Committee Chair of the Children’s Oncology Group Radiation Oncology Discipline and the steering committee member of the Pediatric Normal Tissue Effects in the Clinic (PENTEC) international consortium. In 2023, Dr Hua was elected as a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (FAAPM).

Prof Ehsan Samei
Professor in Radiology, Physics, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Medical Physics
Duke University
United States

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Ehsan Samei is the Reed and Martha Rice Distinguished Professor at Duke University where he holds five departmental affiliations. He directs the NIH-sponsored Center for Virtual Imaging Trials (CVIT) and co-directs the FDA-sponsored Triangle Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (Triangle-CERSI). His expertise includes clinical physics, quantitative imaging, and relevant use of AI. His passion is to position medical physics and in silico methods to generate and accelerate patient-centric care, and do so through innovative design and compassionate practice. He has authored over 400 referred papers and four books, is a fellow of five professional societies, and was the recipient of the 2022 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award by the International Organization of Medical Physics. He is the founder of the Medical Physics 3.0 initiative.

Prof Marie-Catherine Vozenin
Department of Radiation Oncology/Department of Oncology/CHUV
Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne
Switzerland

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The research projects that Prof Vozenin has developed with her team primarily aim to discover innovative tools to protect normal tissue and enhance tumor control. Her significant accomplishment has been the development of a groundbreaking radiation therapy technique called FLASH-Radiotherapy, which offers to reduce normal tissue toxicity and eradicate tumors in various organs, including the brain, lungs, and skin. She has successfully tested this new approach of RT on multiple species, including mice, zebrafish, mini-pigs, and cats. Her efforts have primarily focused on exploring the distinct biological reactions triggered by FLASH exposure on normal tissue and tumors, and recently, we found that FLASH could overcome radiation resistance. A crucial aspect of her work involves ensuring the advancement of FLASH-RT into safe and meaningful clinical trials for human cancer patients.