Right-time Adaptive Particle Therapy Of canceR - Personalisation through anatomical plus biological adaptation

Objective

The RAPTORplus consortium gathers excellent research institutions, academic hospitals and non-academic particle therapy (PT) centres, industrial corporations and public organisations. It offers a platform for intercultural, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral training and education of doctoral candidates (DCs) in the field of medical physics focussing on right-time adaptive PT. The assembled infrastructure and expertise from academia, clinic and industry is needed to address the challenges of personalised adaptive PT. PT is a precise form of radiotherapy with a growing number of centres treating patients. It targets localised cancers while sparing healthy tissue, but might deliver suboptimal doses in case of anatomical changes. To exploit the full potential of PT, fast and safe online treatment adaptations must be enabled and performed if beneficial, e.g. indicated by image-based biomarkers, biological models or other response data. The research projects conducted at academic and non-academic facilities will tackle (1) the efficient realisation of online-adaptive PT (OAPT), (2) the technological completion for broad and safe use of OAPT, and (3) a further treatment personalisation by biomarker-based adaptation. The network uses a multi-sectoral approach to ensure that the DCs develop scientific, clinical and practical industry-relevant skills. The holistic training programme includes in-person training camps, online trainings, project-specific secondments, training in tutoring, research communication, entrepreneurship and science policy, and opportunities to participate in international conferences and professional networks. RAPTORplus will train the next generation of research leaders, medical physicists and entrepreneurs to be aware of the necessity of right-time adaptive PT. They will drive innovation in the coming era of adaptive PT and improve cancer care through enduring international and cross-sectoral collaborations based on their transformative thinking.