Veni for Jeremy Brown and Zoltán Perkó
NWO has announced the Veni recipients for 2018. Among them are seven Delft scientists, two of whom are from RST: Jeremy Brown and Zoltán Perkó. The Veni grants allow researchers who have recently obtained their PhD to conduct independent research and develop their ideas for a period of three years.
The two RST grantees both work for the section Medical Physics & Technology (MP&T). The first RST grantee is Jeremy Brown: "I am ecstatic about receiving the Veni fellowship. Late last year I came up with a new approach to simultaneous multiple radio-molecular tracer imaging and this fellowship will allow me to further develop it independently. I attribute a large part of the inspiration for this idea to the unique environment within the section Medical Physics & Technology and its close relationship with HollandPTC. It's clear to me that these types of multidisciplinary environments are key to pushing the envelope in medical imaging and cancer treatment."
The other RST grantee is Zoltán Perkó: “I feel very happy and excited to be chosen from the many talented and enthusiastic candidates for the Veni fellowship. With the help of the grant I can work on increasing the precision of radiotherapy treatments and making important steps towards the real-time adaptation of irradiations. Most importantly, due to the strong collaboration between the MP&T group and the newly built HollandPTC proton therapy center, we will have the opportunity to achieve true clinical impact, ultimately improving the lives of cancer patients.”
Dennis Schaart, head of the section MP&T, is also very enthusiastic about the Veni's: “These grants not only give an important impulse to proton research at Delft University of Technology. They also show that, as a technical university, we are able to come up with truly innovative and meaningful ideas. Even in a field such as proton therapy, in which the state-of-the-art has already seen significant development and in which the low-hanging fruit has long been picked. I congratulate Zoltán and Jeremy on their Veni grants and look forward to the results of their research!”
Read more about the research plans of our two Veni grantees:
ACMI: A new tool to investigate the complexities of the human body
Jeremy Brown
Medical imaging is a crucial tool in our endeavour to understand, prevent and combat disease. This research will yield a new radio-molecular imaging technique that can measure more than three biological processes simultaneously, sensitively and specifically. This will help doctors to develop better treatments for aggressive diseases such as cancer.
Algorithm development for next generation radiotherapy: error mitigation in proton and X-ray treatment of cancer
Zoltán Perkó
To provide cutting-edge care for cancer patients, proton therapy is becoming available worldwide. Protons precisely target tumours, but imprecisions – like day-to-day anatomical variations - can degrade their effectiveness. Aspiring for maximal radiotherapy treatment success, this research focuses on computer algorithms to minimize the effects of such unavoidable uncertainties.