Congratulations to UF Medical Physics Graduate Program Faculty Dr Bo Lu (Associate Professor, Radiation Oncology) and his colleague Dr Hongcheng Liu (Assistant Professor, Industrial & Systems Engineering), who were awarded funding ($350,000) by the National Science Foundation to support their research in the area of health system engineering.
Their proposal (High-Fidelity Radiotherapy Treatment Planning via Almost Dimension-Free Zeroth-Order Algorithms) focuses on creating algorithms to improve methods of radiation therapy used in cancer treatments by optimizing the treatment planning process.
Radiotherapy treatment planning (RTP) is one of the most common and effective treatment methods of cancer. Performing radiotherapy involves complex optimization algorithms that help determine the best and safest treatment plans for cancer patients. However, creating highly accurate plans for individual patients can be time-consuming due to the high dimensionality of the problems as well as uncertainties in the physical treatment process.
In their project, Drs Liu and Lu hope to develop new modeling and optimization approaches to provide precision radiation therapy treatment for cancer patients.