Medical Breakthrough with synchrotron

Thursday 16 September 2010

Professor David Bradley appears in the Malaysian New Straits Times in August.  David was in Malaysia in July giving a talk to students at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia who are pursuing Masters and PhD programmes. 

David says “Radiation physics is used in several manufacturing applications such as the car industry which uses high energy x-rays to evaluate engine performance, the oil industry in the treatment and production of petroleum products, and as an important part to safe production of nuclear energy. These are just a few examples of the growing field known as applied radiation physics,” he adds. A particular field that has gained a tremendous boost from radiation physics is medicine, as through the application of physics, scientists have developed methods of using ionising radiation for diagnosing and treating medical conditions. This includes not only the traditional forms of x-rays, but also magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nuclear medicine. The majority of nuclear medicine involves imaging and employs computers, sensors and radioactive materials. “Radiation therapy is used for treatment of cancerous tumours but can also extend to treatment of non-cancerous conditions. This usually involves depositing high energy x-rays into the unhealthy cells,” says David,  who is secretary of the International Radiation Physics Society (IRPS) and editor-in-chief of the Elsevier journal Applied Radiation and Isotopes.

Read the article in full here.