Excellent research in lung cancer therapy is honored
High honor at the - corona-conditionally virtual - 51st Annual Meeting of the German Society for Medical Physics: Dr. Kilian Baumann received the second place Behnken-Berger Award, endowed with 10,000 euros. The prize is awarded by the foundation of the same name to young scientists who have made outstanding achievements in the research fields of radiation protection, radiation therapy, treatment of radiation damage and application of physical methods in radiology. The jury considered Baumann's doctoral thesis "Investigation of the modulation properties of lung tissue in radiation therapy with protons" to be worthy of the award.
The thesis is a cooperative doctorate from Philipps-Universität Marburg and Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen. Baumann, who was born in Munich, had already completed his master's degree in medical physics with distinction at the THM in 2015 in the working group of Prof. Dr. Klemens Zink from the "Life Science Engineering" department, who is also scientific and technical director at the Marburg Ion Beam Therapy Center (MIT). After completing a master's degree in physics at LMU Munich, he returned to Central Hesse in 2016 to conduct research at the Department of Medicine at Philipps University and to do his doctorate under Prof. Dr. Rita Engenhart-Cabillic and Prof. Dr. Klemens Zink.
His dissertation deals with the irradiation of lung tumors with protons as a promising alternative to existing therapy concepts. Up to now, the safety of the applied radiation dose has been lacking due to the peculiarities of lung tissue. Baumann developed a method to estimate these dose uncertainties based on clinical image data. In addition, concepts were developed to compensate for an underdosage of the tumor volume caused by the lung tissue and thus a deterioration in the success of the therapy.
Baumann's dissertation lays the scientific foundation for treating lung tumors more specifically with protons in the future. "I'm delighted that my work has received such recognition," says the honoree, who has worked as a medical physicist at MIT since completing his dissertation. "But most of all, I'm happy if my work increases the chances of treatment for cancer patients."