Radiation is an important treatment modality for gastrointestinal tumors, but intestinal injury is a common side effect. Here we describe a physiologically relevant model for studying the molecular determinants of radiation-induced intestinal damage and testing novel...
SARRP
Intratumoral G100 Rescues Radiation-Induced T Cell Depletion and Has Synergistic Anti-Tumor Effect with Local Irradiation in A20 Lymphoma
Background: Radiation therapy is a standard established treatment modality for many malignancies, including lymphoma. There is growing evidence that the combination of radiation and immunotherapies can have synergistic immune and clinical effects; however, the...
An image-guided precision proton radiation platform for preclinical in vivo research
There are many unknowns in the radiobiology of proton beams and other particle beams. We describe the development and testing of an image-guided low-energy proton system optimized for radiobiological research applications. A 50 MeV proton beam from an existing...
Evaluation of On- and Off-Line Bioluminescence Tomography System for Focal Irradiation Guidance
In response to the limitations of computed tomography (CT) and cone-beam CT (CBCT) in irradiation guidance, especially for soft-tissue targets without the use of contrast agents, our group developed a solution that implemented bioluminescence tomography (BLT) as the...
Queen’s University Belfast is the latest Xstrahl User Spotlight
Recently, the Radiobiology Research Group from the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology at Queen’s University Belfast published a series of articles using SARRP to explore different translationally focused experimental approaches. The group, led by Prof Kevin Prise and Dr Karl Butterworth, have published three back to back papers within three months which reflect the interests of the research program in nanoparticle theranostics, bystander signaling and novel combination therapy.
Xstrahl In Action: Transfer of Minibeam Radiation Therapy into a cost-effective equipment for radiobiological studies
Minibeam radiation therapy (MBRT) is an innovative synchrotron radiotherapy technique able to shift the normal tissue complication probability curves to significantly higher doses. However, its exploration was hindered due to the limited and expensive beamtime at...
MRI-guided radiotherapy of the SK-N-SH neuroblastoma xenograft model using a small animal radiation research platform
OBJECTIVE: Neuroblastoma has one of the lowest survival rates of all childhood cancers, despite the use of intensive treatment regimens. Preclinical models of neuroblastoma are essential for testing new multimodality protocols, including those that involve...
Validating clinical practice using SARRP; simulating clinical radiotherapy in a model mimicking spontaneous occurring NSCLC
Over 60% of cancer patients worldwide will receive radiotherapy as a part of their overall treatment plan. Recently, stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) has been recognized as a favorable treatment option for those cancer types that remain inoperable. SBRT administers very high doses of radiation in a small number of fractions, and has been shown to achieve 3-year control rates of roughly 90% in stage 1 NSCLC’s.
Immunotherapy and SARRP; a breakthrough investigation using a clinically relevant model to yield clinically relevant data
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is characteristically radioresistant tumor type with roughly 25% of patients requiring radiotherapy as form of treatment. With poor clinical outcomes (5-year survival of 7%) new and innovative treatments are required to improve patient outcome. Due to the lack of an effective treatment in the clinic for PDAC, translational research yielding clinically relevant results is necessary to develop new and effective treatment.