Medical Physics
News
We will host an international workshop on computational methods to support and improve clinical target volume definition in radiotherapy, hosted at Monte Verità in March 2026. For more information click here.
Introduction
Over the past 20 years, research and development in medical physics has improved the accuracy and conformity of radiotherapy tremendously. This includes the development of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), which allows the delivery of highly conformal dose distributions to complex shaped tumors. More recently, the development of image guided adaptive radiotherapy has provided means to correct for geometric changes and organ motion over the course of therapy. The medical physics group contributes to these technological advances of radiotherapy through both clinically applied and fundamental research projects.
For a general introduction to the technology of modern precision radiotherapy, you may watch this presentation given at the Scientifica 2019 (in german).
We focus on 4 areas of research:
- Radiotherapy treatment planning: We conduct research on mathematical optimization methods for radiotherapy planning to further improve treatment planning systems. This includes both X-ray therapy and proton therapy, and the combination of protons and X-rays.
- Target volume definition: We work on computational methods to support the definition of the clinical target volume (CTV), i.e. the volume to be irradiated. We focus on quantitative modeling of cancer progression to predict microscopic extensions of the tumor that cannot be detected on medical images.
- Medical image analysis and Artificial Intelligence: We work on quantitative analysis of CT, MR and PET image with the goal of predicting a patient's progrosis and response to treatment. In addition, we work on Artificial intelligence applications such as the automated segmentation of tumors.
- Adaptive radiotherapy: We work on the development and clinical translation of state-of-the-art radiotherapy technology, focusing on MR-guided treatments. Our department is the first in Switzerland to install a MRI-Linac, a combination of MRI scanner and radiotherapy device.