NASA Langley Research Center Speakers Highlight Proton Therapy Treatment for Cancer

HAMPTON, Va. – On Tuesday, Feb. 5, at NASA’s Langley Research Center, medical physicist Cornel Butuceanu will present, “Proton Radiotherapy Systems and Clinical Practice,” at 2 p.m. in the Reid Conference Center.

A former postdoctoral fellow at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va., Butuceanu joined the Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute (HUPTI) in 2009 and participated in all aspects of bringing the center to clinical readiness. The $225 million treatment and research center expects to see more than 2,000 patients a year for prostate, brain, lung, pediatric, head and neck, breast and other cancers.

Butuceanu will be available to answer questions from the media during a news briefing at 1:15 p.m. that day. Media who wish to do so should contact Chris Rink at 757-864-6786, or by e-mail at chris.rink@nasa.gov, by noon on the day of the talk for credentials and entry to the center.

That same evening at 7:30, Keith Gregory, deputy executive director at the institute, will present a related presentation for the general public at the Virginia Air & Space Center in downtown Hampton. This Sigma Series event is free and no reservations are required.

As cancer remains the second leading cause of death in the United States according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the institute is the first proton therapy institute in the mid-Atlantic region, and the only facility of its kind in Virginia.

Butuceanu’s presentation will focus on an introduction to proton therapy, its medical advantages over current treatments, the evolution of the accelerators and beam delivery systems, cost effectiveness, applications to clinical radiation oncology, and the future outlook for proton therapy.

For more information about NASA Langley’s Colloquium and Sigma Series Lectures, visit: http://shemesh.larc.nasa.gov/Lectures/