Dosimetric verification of murine proton irradiations and in vitro analysis of DNA damage repair modulators and FLASH irradiations

With almost 900.000 new patients per year suffering from head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC), who after radiotherapy treatments experience severe side effects, the focus is drawn to proton therapy. Proton therapy results to less side effects since healthy tissues surrounding the tumour receive less radiation dose. This results from...

Explaining the FLASH Effect: Investigating the Oxygen Hypothesis of the Proton FLASH Effect in Zebrafish

This thesis investigates the tissue sparing effect of FLASH (>40 Gy/s) radiation, as opposed to CONV (conventional, dose rates typically between 0.01­0.1 Gy/s) radiation. We irradiated zebrafish embryos (4 days past fertilisation) with 116 MeV protons. The aim was (1) to measure the effect, and (2) if the effect were significant, see whether...