• Question: What do you think the next major breakthrough in medical physics will be?

    Asked by ✰ScienceNerd✰ to Mohan, Jen, Dan on 9 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Daniel Fovargue

      Daniel Fovargue answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      Hmm, in medical physics specifically, I’m not sure. In medicine more generally I would guess that the next breakthrough might be in genetics. We seem to be understanding this more and more. Maybe soon we will be able to prevent genetic diseases before birth.

    • Photo: Jen Dennis

      Jen Dennis answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      I’d have to say it would be something in targeted radiotherapy. Patients can be given radioactive materials that specifically go to where their tumour is and kills the tumour cells whilst not really irradiating any surrounding tissues. There are a number of these types of therapy out there already but if they could find one that specifically targets a large number of breast or prostate cancer tumours, there would be a huge number of people that could benefit from it.

    • Photo: Mohan K

      Mohan K answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      I, like Jen, think that radionuclide therapies currently have untapped potential. Radioimmunotherapy is a big long word but sounds quite exciting. Use the body’s own immune system to deliver a therapeutic dose of radiation specifically to the disease site without irradiating the rest of the body.

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