Institutional responsibilities • Vice-director, Institute of Radiation Physics, Lausanne, Switzerland • Group Leader, Institute of Radiation Physics, Lausanne, Switzerland: • State appointed leader of a verification laboratory active in ionizing radiation measuring instruments (radiation protection, radiotherapy, nuclear medicine) • Leader of the designated national metrology institute for the unit of activity (Bq) • Leader of an state approved personal dosimetry service • State appointed manager of interlaboratory comparison in the field of gamma spectrometry, radionuclide calibrators, uncertainty evaluation, and radiotherapy • Radiometrology support for the University hospitals of Lausanne IRA’s radiometrology group and Claude Bailat, its leader for over 15 years, are well recognized by the radiometrology community as well as stake holders in nuclear medicine, radiotherapy, medical physics and radiation protection. This recognition was achieved thanks to the synergy of the primary and secondary calibration laboratory (Eichstelle I02 certified by the State) fostered by Claude Bailat. The group of radiometrology has provided various research, support and consulting services to the ionizing radiation community. This synergy between radiometrology various fields is a unique asset for the university hospital of Lausanne, and IRA has developed the knowledge and equipment required of a top radiometrology institute. The group of radiometrology at IRA aims at reaching a high level of metrology and promotes the use of the scientific method.

I trained as a Therapeutic Radiographer at Kingston & St. George’s University of London in 2011 and commenced working at The Royal Preston Hospital in 2014. I worked in pre-treatment and treatment radiotherapy prior to commencing a role as a Proton Senior Radiographer in 2018 at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, before the proton service became clinical. I gained invaluable experience working in a new proton service, such as developing quality documents, ProBeam applications training and end to end testing. Myself and my colleague treated the first NHS proton patient in the UK in December 2018 and managed public proton enquiries with the governance team. My proton experience also includes proton pre-treatment expertise in mould room, CT and MR-Sim. I have a strong passion for learning and research. In 2021, I completed my MSc in radiotherapy and oncology and commenced a year secondment in radiotherapy research, which involved managing radiotherapy patients’ pathways through clinical trials and working clinically on the MR-Linac. I am often involved in teaching through The Christie Summer School and The Christie Proton School. I look forward to meeting you at the FRPT 2022 conference.

In Mexico, Paola Ballesteros-Zebadúa obtained her Master's degree in Medical Physics at the Institute of Physics of the UNAM receiving the Alfonso Caso Medal for Merit. Later she obtained honors for her Ph. D. in Biomedical Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine of the UNAM. Thanks to a grant from the Mexican National Council of Science, she started radiobiology research at the National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery to investigate the undesired late effects of radiotherapy in the CNS. Her laboratory was the first in Mexico dedicated to applied neurosciences focused on brain response after conventional radiotherapy. In parallel, she has worked on diverse neuroscience topics and dosimetry for small-animal irradiation. In Mexico, she organized and participated in several workshops for medical specialists and medical physics students about topics in radiobiology. She was a regular radiobiology lecturer at UNAM Mexico. She has also established close collaborations with other institutions and more recently with Prof. Vozenin at CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland, and Prof. Limoli at UCI, Irvine, USA. In collaboration with them and with an SFNS grant she is now focused on exploring the feasibility of FLASH-RT as medulloblastoma treatment using orthotopic cerebellar injections of MB human cells in juvenile mice.

Lara Barazzuol obtained her PhD in 2012 at the University of Surrey followed by a postdoc at the Genome Damage and Stability Centre, University of Sussex in the UK. During this period, Lara developed a keen interest in the DNA damage response of the developing and adult brain. In 2016, Lara moved to the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), in the Netherlands, to establish her own group within the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Biomedical Sciences of Cells & Systems. Lara Barazzuol’s research focuses on assessing the effect of cancer treatment, primarily radiotherapy, on the brain. Her group is also interested in investigating how defects in DNA repair impact on human health, with a particular focus on neurodegenerative diseases. Highlights from her career include several young investigator awards, including the 2015 British Institute of Radiology Nic McNally Award, the 2017 Adrian Begg Award and the 2017 Bas Mulder Award. She is currently project leader and/or partner in KWF (Dutch Cancer Society), CRUK and SU2C funded grants.

Marco Battestini is a PhD student at University of Trento, working on FLASH radiotherapy in the Bio-Medical Radiation physics (BiMeR) research group, between the Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications (TIFPA), a research center of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), the University of Trento and the Trento Proton Therapy Center, with an international collaboration with GSI (Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ions Research). In particular, he is focusing on understanding and optimization of physical parameters dependence for FLASH proton therapy scanning. He got the bachelor’s degree in physics at University of Trento in 2018. He achieved the master's degree in physics at University of Trento in 2021, with a thesis on including volume effects in treatment plan optimization for particle therapy.

Dr Annaïg Bertho is a post-doctoral researcher in the “New Approaches in Radiotherapy” team, led by the doctor Yolanda Prezado at Curie Institute, France. She joins this multidisciplinary team as a radiobiologist with the aim of strengthening and energizing their research program in radiobiology on the response of tumoral and healthy tissues to spatially fractionated radiation therapy and in particular proton minibeams radiation therapy. Her current research goal is to highlight the involvement of the immune system in the response to minibeams radiation therapy.

Dr. Elke Beyreuther finished her study on Applied Natural Sciences with a Diploma in 2005 and moved to Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf for PhD studies dealing with radiobiological cell studies at various radiation sources. After receiving her PhD in 2010 she became a scientist at HZDR/OncoRay focussing on small animal in vivo experiments with protons and on the investigation of radiobiological effects of ultra-high dose rates. This includes radiobiological studies at a clinical cyclotron as well as at different research accelerators and laser driven particle beams.

I’m a certified medical physicist with clinical expertise in photon, proton and carbon ion beam therapy and experience with the commissioning of new treatment units. My research interests include treatment planning, Monte Carlo, biological modelling, and FLASH RT with a focus on electron beams.

Marco Borghesi is Professor of Plasma Physics at the Queen’s University of Belfast, where he is employed as an academic since 1999, and he is the director of the Centre for Plasma Physics since 2017. After undergraduate studies in Italy (Laurea in Physics at Pisa University, and PGDip in Optical Technologies at AILUN, Nuoro), he obtained a PhD in Plasma Physics at Imperial College London in 1998. His research interests lay in the area of intense laser-plasma interactions, with particular expertise in laser-driven acceleration of ion beams. He has led as PI large UK-wide EPSRC projects such as LIBRA (Basic Technology, 2007-12) and more recently A-SAIL (Programme Grant, 2013-20), aimed to the advancement of laser-ion acceleration towards future medical applications. Within these projects, he has provided key contributions to the development of innovative ion acceleration schemes, and of ultra-high dose-rate radiobiology applications employing laser-driven ions. He received in 2017 the APS John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research for pioneering applications of proton radiography in high-energy density plasma.

PostDoctoral fellow at the national institute of metrology of Germany, the PTB, since September 2020 in the working group 6.2, Dosimetry for radiation therapy and diagnostic radiology. My research focus is on dosimetry for ultra-high-pulse-dose-rate (UHPDR) electron beams, more specifically using calorimeters, ion chambers, alanine dosimeters and diamond detectors.