April 15, 2016
A topical issue of the European Physical Journal D (EPJD), entitled "COST Action Nano-IBCT: Nano-scale Processes behind Ion-Beam Cancer Therapy", has been published. This topical issue presents a collection of papers based on new data reported at the third Nano-IBCT Conference (Nano-IBCT 2014) of the COST Action MP1002 "Nanoscale Insights into Ion Beam Cancer Therapy", which took place in Boppard, Germany during October 27-31, 2014.
The COST Action "Nano-IBCT", running during 2010-2014 under the coordination of Prof. Dr. Andrey V. Solov’yov, has been devoted to acquiring a deeper understanding of radiation induced damage with ions on the nanoscopic and molecular level. Since its start in December 2010, the Action has brought together more than 300 experts from different disciplines (physics, chemistry, biology, technology and medicine) drawn from more than fifty different institutions including hadron therapy centres and medical institutions. The Action also engaged with colleagues working in countries outside the EU, including Canada, Australia, Japan, India, China and the USA. Two thirds of those participating were early career researches and a quarter were postgraduate students half of which were young female researchers.
Within the framework of the COST Action "Nano-IBCT" three major conferences (held in Caen, France in October 2011; Sopot, Poland in May 2013; Boppard, Germany in October 2014) and 12 workshops were organized. The Action also supported more than 100 short term scientific missions between different institutions and countries, which resulted in more than 200 publications in high impact journals. The book entitled Nanoscale insights into Ion-Beam Cancer Therapy (ed. A.V. Solov’yov) overviewing the state-of-the-art in the field will be published by Springer in 2016.