In silico radiotherapy testbed – from tumour modelling to effectiveness of radiation therapy evaluation

In the era of virtual reality, simulation of the effect of radiation on cells, tissues and tumours aiming at better understanding the impact of biological and physical factors on the response to radiation is a natural step forward in the development of radiotherapy.

Furthermore, the interest in particle therapy has increased in recent years due their potential advantages with respect to dose conformation to the target and also the increased relative biological effectiveness.It is therefore the overall aim of this project to develop an in silico testbed for the simulation of the outcome of radiotherapy using photons, protons or heavier ions that would allow the investigation of the influence of various biological and physical factors on the tumour response.The specific aims of this research project are to develop in silico tumours with respect to the tumour microenviroment, intrinsic radiosensitivity and density of clonogenic cells, to integrate the simulated in silico tumours into a research version of a treatment planning system and simulate the effect of photon, proton and ion radiotherapy and to determine the relative clinical effectiveness of protons and heavier ions than protons and identify the key factors influencing the treatment outcome.