General Information
The Dept. of Radiation Oncology of the University Hospital Zurich in Zurich, Switzerland is one of the biggest radiation oncology centers in Switzerland in terms of equipment, number of patients, staff and research facilities. Its major goal is to provide excellent patient care by applying state-of-the-art and high quality radiation therapy. Multidisciplinary research is performed on the clinical and preclinical level, including clinical trials as well as basic and applied research in medical physics and radiobiology. As an institutional member of the European Society for Radiation Oncology (ESTRO), it is devoted to training tomorrow's best physicians, nurses, radiobiologists, medical physicists and experts in medical radiation technology. Belonging to the Dept. of Radiation Oncology, the Laboratory for Applied Radiobiology was founded in 1995 and is headed by Prof. Dr. Martin Pruschy. It is located at the University Zurich-Irchel, integrated into the Institute of Physiology and consists of an interdisciplinary group of researchers.
Our research program can be grouped into three major research projects with the overarching goals
i) to understand the dynamics of radiation-induced processes on the molecular, cellular and (patho-)physiological level
ii) to identify novel targets for radiosensitization and to develop novel combined treatment modalities (ionizing radiation with chemotherapy/antisignaling agents)
iii) to implement preclinical tumor models and radiotherapy approaches close to the clinical situation.
Using a small animal image-guided radiotherapy platform, clinically-relevant small animal tumor models are integrated into our research projects to address clinical challenges with the appropriate state-of-the-art preclinical approaches. Thereby the current interest in imaging and immunological endpoints and the role of radiotherapy in a systemic treatment approach are taken into consideration. At he same time we provide preclinically relevant tumor models for experimental endpoints of the physics and clinical research units of our department. Research projects are performed as part of strong academic and industrial collaborations at the local and international level.