Last Updated: 04/06/07
About the Associate Director
C. Norman Coleman, M.D., holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics from the University of Vermont and received his medical training at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Coleman completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a fellowship in medical oncology at NCI.
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Overview
Killing cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy cells is the goal of radiation therapy. About half of all patients with cancer undergo radiation therapy, the majority of these with curative intent. Finding new ways of using radiation therapy more effectively and with fewer side effects is paramount for maintaining patients’ quality of life. This entails innovative uses of technology and biology and integration in multimodality cancer care and research.
As part of an ongoing effort to stimulate research in radiotherapy and radiation biology, the Radiation Research Program (RRP) supports clinical, translational, and basic research at the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD) by:
- Providing expertise to investigators who perform cutting-edge research using radiation and other forms of energy
- Assisting the radiotherapy research community in establishing priorities for the future direction of radiation research
- Providing medically underserved communities with access to radiation therapy
- Evaluating the effectiveness of radiation research being conducted by National Cancer Institute (NCI) grantees
RRP also coordinates its activities with other radiation research programs at NCI, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), other federal agencies, and national and international research organizations. Additionally, RRP serves as a focal point for extramural investigators concerned with clinically related radiation oncology and biology research.
RRP supports research involving a variety of radiation therapeutic modalities:
- Radiation therapy using high-energy photons and new technology for the physical delivery of radiation therapy, including intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) with novel applications of linear accelerator technology, brachytherapy using temporary and permanent implantation of radioactive sources, and particle therapy, in particular the most widely used form, proton therapy
- Other sources of energy to treat cancer, including photodynamic therapy using lasers or other light sources combined with a light-sensitive drug(sometimes called a photosensitizing agent) and hyperthermia (heat), alone or in combination with radiation and/or chemotherapeutic drugs
The RRP encompasses three branches:
- The Radiotherapy Development Branch
- The Clinical Radiation Oncology Branch
- The Molecular Radiation Therapeutics Branch
