Principal investigator dr. Marta Rovituso

“My main goal is to build a research beam line which can support different types of research from advanced technology to animal irradiation. Pre-clinical research is of key importance for the evolution of the technology and the proton treatment. The experiments can be tuned and selected in the R&D beam line and then brought into the patient gantries. My goal is to build a beam line that can mimic a therapeutic beam but can offer way more flexibility in terms of irradiation and setup. Equip the proton beam line of HollandPTC in such a way that we become one of the main facilities around the world is my ultimate goal. Research always needs to be one step ahead from reality, imagination is what brings progress.”

Research focus

My research focuses on advanced beam line technology in order to perform any kind of radio biological experiments which go from cell to animal irradiation, physics, dosimetry and space applications. Since 2019 I performed experiments in the R&D beam line for beam characterization, beam development and beam dosimetry.

Scientific career

Current positions:

Beam line scientist at HollandPTC

Past positions

Post doc at the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics on “nuclear interaction of therapeutic proton beam with matter”
PhD thesis at the Technical University of Darmstadt within GSI, focusing on the physical characterization of Helium ions for application in cancer treatment, especially suited for pediatric patients.

Publications

“Study for a passive scattering line dedicated to radiobiology ex- periments at the Trento Protontherapy Center”. Tommasino, M Rovituso, S. Lorentini, C. La Tessa, G. Petringa, P. Cirrone, F. Romano, E. Scifoni, M. Schwarz, M. Durante. Radiat Prot Dosimetry, submitted (2018)

“Nuclear interactions of new ions in cancer therapy: impact on dosimetry ”.M Rovituso and C La Tessa. Transl Cancer Res, 6, S914-S933 (2017)

“Proton beam characterization in the experimental room of the Trento Proton Therapy facility ”. F Tommasino, M Rovituso, S Fabiano, S Piffer, C Manea, S Lorentini, S Lanzone, Z Wang, M Pasini, W Burger, C La Tessa, E Scifoni, M Schwarz and M Durante. NIM, A 869, 15-20 (2017)

“Fragmentation of 120 and 200 MeV u−1 4He ions in water and PMMA targets”. M Rovituso, C Schuy, U Weber, S Brons, M A Cortès- Giraldo, C La Tessa, E Piasetzky, D Izraeli, D Schardt, M Toppi, E Scifoni, M Krämer and M Durante. Phys Med Biol 62, 1310-1326 (2017)

Accelerator-based tests of shielding effectiveness of different ma- terials and multilayers fusing high energy light and heavy ions”. M Giraudo, C Schuy, U Weber, M Rovituso, G Santin, J W Norbury, E Tracino, A Menicucci, L Bocchini, C Lobascio, M Durante, C La Tessa. Radiat Res, accepted for submission (2018)