Course Overview
The MSc in Radiobiology is scheduled to run over one academic year as a full-time course consisting of eight compulsory taught modules and a research-based dissertation.
The course aims to provide a broad training in the scientific and clinical disciplines involved in radiation oncology and radiobiology. The course is supported by Oxford based researchers with backgrounds in diverse disciplines such as medical physics, molecular biology, DNA repair, theranostics, drug development, radiation biology, tumour immunology, and the tumour microenvironment. Translational and clinical input is provided by clinicians and physicists with expertise in clinical oncology, radiotherapy physics, medical imaging and nuclear medicine.
Key components of the taught course include:
-
An understanding of the fundamental physics and radiobiology that are relevant to radiotherapy, and how these are implemented in clinical practice. This includes the delivery of sophisticated modern treatments such as stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy, and proton therapy.
-
Explaining how ionising radiation interacts with tissues and detailing the DNA damage that it causes to cells, along with the sophisticated molecular processes which cells have developed to detect and repair this damage. Established and emerging drug treatments that have been developed to disrupt these DNA repair processes will be discussed.
-
Highlighting the roles that the immune system and the abnormal tumour microenvironment play in the response to radiation and placed in the context of how these affect the outcomes of patients treated with radiotherapy.
-
An overview of how combining radiotherapy with different classes of drugs can enhance the efficacy of radiotherapy, but potentially increase the risk of side-effects. The data behind this is outlined from both a laboratory and clinical perspective. New drugs that are being combined with radiotherapy in pre-clinical studies and clinical trials will be highlighted.
-
Exciting developments around the use of radioligand therapy to selectively target the delivery of radioisotope treatments directly to cancer cells.
-
Translational aspects such as how important laboratory discoveries are developed into clinical trials and ultimately lead to patient benefit.
The research-based dissertation provides students with a unique opportunity to undertake novel research in a specific area of research that is of interest to them. Our group leaders supervise laboratory research projects in innovative radiotherapy areas such as ultra-high dose rate radiation (FLASH) therapy, DNA repair, hypoxia, immune radiation biology, drug plus radiation testing, and work related to theranostic treatments.
Our laboratories are on the same campus as our clinical radiotherapy department. These close links provide opportunities for students to undertake more clinically related projects such as retrospective studies of patient outcomes and image analysis studies.
In addition to the structured teaching modules, students will be exposed to the outstanding pre-clinical and clinical infrastructure housed within the Oxford centre. This includes pre-clinical access to molecular imaging facilities, state of the art pre-clinical radiation facilities with FLASH and spatially fractionated irradiation capacities. There are also opportunities to view clinical radiotherapy facilities (including a state-of-the-art MR linear accelerator), and theragnostic treatment areas. There is the potential for interested students to arrange shadowing experiences with clinical oncologists.