NSERC CREATE: Medical Physics Research Training Network (MPRTN)

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Medical physics represents a bridge between physical sciences and medicine. Over the past century, physicists in the field have played a major role in transforming scientific discoveries into everyday clinical applications such as the invention of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or high-energy treatment of cancer, to name a few. However, with the increasingly stringent requirements to regulate medical physics as a health profession, the role of physicists as scientists and innovators has been at serious risk of erosion, furthering the gap between scientific discovery and translation of discovery into medical applications. We propose a new vision for training the new generation of medical physicists that aims to nurture rigorous and innovative multidisciplinary research while addressing societal needs for translating new technologies into clinical practice. In the proposed CREATE program, a network of research training excellence will be created between leaders in the field from academia, industry, and government in which a new curriculum for training is put forth. This new curriculum is composed of three main themes: 1) new developments in radiation physics, 2) imaging & image processing and 3) radiation response and bio-modeling. The trainee will typically perform research in more than one theme as a result of collaboration or sharing of tools across the different themes. Thus, the trainees within the proposed program will be exposed to a unique set of opportunities including fundamental research, internships in leading companies in the field and access to vast clinical expertise, particularly in cancer treatment. This is expected to provide invaluable feedback on how to steer a research solution into a viable clinical tool or process. It is expected that graduates from this program will be better positioned to cope with the ever-increasing complexity of technical developments in medical procedures and to allow them to be at the frontier of research development in physics, biology and medicine. It will also provide a modernized framework to help develop and train the new generation of innovators of the future in Canada and worldwide.