2025
12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Tuesday Tue
Location
Medical Physics Seminar - Manjit Dosanjh
International collaborations for defining and meeting the challenges for delivering cutting-edge radiotherapy globally
Time:
12:00pm – 1:00pm Seminar & Discussion
Location:
Zoom Webinar
Webinar Registration:
https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9WylZAb-Qt2mkqqDptB37g
Check your email for the Zoom webinar link after you have registered
Speaker
Dr Manjit Dosanjh, Visiting Professor, University of Oxford
Manjit Dosanjh is the former senior advisor for medical applications at CERN and Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford. She holds a PhD in Biochemical Engineering from the UK and her professional efforts in the fields of cancer and the medical applications of physics span more than 30 years, during which she has held positions in various academic and research institutions in Europe and the U.S., including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) at the University of California, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) in Italy. She is the Project Leader for STELLA (Smart Technologies to Extend Lives with Linear Accelerators) for ICEC.
She moved to University of Oxford in 2020 and her recent research has also focused on developing robust cheaper Linacs for developing countries. For over 20 years she has concentrated on raising awareness in disparities in access to STEM and highlighting the importance of STEM for empowerment and development. She is actively involved in helping non-profit health and science education and gender related organizations in the Geneva area and has served as the UN representative in Geneva for an NGO in consultative status with ECOSOC and is a long-standing member of the NGO Committee on Status of Women Geneva. She is on the board of directors for ICEC (International Cancer Experts Corps) based in Washington DC and a member of CoNGO (Conference of NGOs) Board.
Abstract
It is estimated that around 50% of all cancer patients worldwide need radiotherapy for curative treatment and palliative care. The definition of cutting-edge radiotherapy can have distinct meaning in different healthcare contexts. In technologically developed nations, hadron therapy has held the promise of superior normal tissue sparing and favourable on-target biological effect, but the technology to achieve this has been prohibitive in cost and scale. In counterpoint, more than half of the patients needing radiotherapy treatment live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and in low-income countries (LICs). High quality x-ray-based radiotherapy is crucial to achieving the targets of major global cancer initiatives defined by WHO, UN and SDGs and yet there is a lack of RT access globally which was articulated in 2015 by the Lancet Commission on Radiation Therapy. In recognition of both the shortfall of RT services in LMICs and the poor performance in LMICs of current linacs designed for use in the developed world, project STELLA (Smart Technologies to Extend Lives with Linear Accelerators) was initiated by ICEC and CERN in November 2016 and later joined and supported by STFC, UK universities and African partners. STELLA is a multidisciplinary international collaborative effort to design and develop an affordable and robust linear accelerator-based radiation therapy treatment system to overcome global disparities.
The seminar will discuss the role of multidisciplinary collaboration in meeting the global challenge of tackling cancer.