September 23, 2013
Photo credit: Luther Caverly

Carleton’s David Rogers

Nearly every family has been touched in some way by cancer. Most will know that radiation is used to shrink tumours either as a treatment on its own or combined with chemotherapy and/or surgery.

The science behind radiation treatment is medical physics — an area of research excellence for Carleton University, which has two Canada Research Chairs related to medical physics.
Calibrating the ion chambers used to measure radiation beams requires absolute accuracy. The goal is to damage cancer cells while destroying as little normal tissue as possible is a critical challenge in modern medicine.

“We have a very slim margin of error to work with,” explained David Rogers, an influential radiation physicist concerned with determining dose in a patient, “Too little radiation will not destroy a tumour completely. Too much can cause long-term harm to healthy tissues.”

The goal is to damage cancer cells while destroying as little normal tissue as possible

Good science is 100% teamwork

Calculating radiation doses in a patient that once took hours to complete now is accomplished in only minutes on a desktop personal computer. Rogers, a professor in Carleton’s Laboratory for Radiotherapy Physics in the Physics Department, is a leader in the early development of software code for radiation transport that is currently used in Canada and around the world. He is also Carleton University’s Canada Research Chair in Medical Physics.

The soft-spoken Rogers shuns the personal limelight although his achievements have long been celebrated by his peers. “Good science is 100% teamwork and it takes all the dedication and creativity of a strong team to produce solid research,” he said.
Most recently, Rogers was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in recognition of the significant international impact of his research on cancer radiotherapy. The Royal Society is considered by many to be Canada’s most elite and prestigious body of scholars, established in 1882 to promote learning and research in all areas of science.

In 2010, Rogers was accorded the highest honour from the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), becoming the fourth Canadian to receive the William D. Coolidge Award in tribute to the significance of his research.

Rogers was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in recognition of the significant international impact of his research

Rogers served as head of the Ionizing Radiation Standards Group of the National Research Council of Canada, where he pioneered work on dosimetry (radiation dose) standards and was involved in the preparation of the dose calibration protocol for external beam radiation therapy which was set out by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

Designing the Gold Standard

By developing freely distributed computer codes that are hailed as the gold standard, Rogers stimulated the international use of the so-called Monte Carlo codes in medical physics.

The software is downloaded from the National Research Council more than 3,000 times a year by academic, medical and industrial researchers worldwide. The NRC also teaches Canadian and international physicists on use of the software – a training program taught and originally designed by Rogers.
Today, Rogers maintains a strong research focus in Carleton’s physics laboratory, but one of his most important contributions is mentoring young medical physicists whose new work at the university is also reaching an international audience.

One outstanding example of Rogers’ mentoring success is Rowan Thomson who joined his group as a post-doctoral fellow to ‘do something more practical’ after doing a highly regarded PhD in string theory, an esoteric form of theoretical physics.

After three years working with Rogers she took off on her own and is now the university’s Canada Research Chair in Radiotherapy Physics. She now designs and applies computer-based mathematical models for accurate calculations of radiation therapy for cancer treatment. Thomson also serves on several joint international task groups to study and advance accurate, standard radiation dose calculations.

… one of his most important contributions is mentoring young medical physicists

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