Professor Jerimy Polf, University of Maryland School of Medicine and Dr. Dennis Mackin, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, will present the Department of Physics seminar with a talk entitled, "Prompt Gamma Imaging". 

 Proton beams exhibit a sharp increase in the rate of dose deposition toward the end of their range, known as the Bragg peak.  The sharp fall-off of delivered dose both laterally and beyond the Bragg peak leads to the ability to deliver highly localized doses to a tumor while sparing surrounding healthy tissue in the patient.  Because of the highly conformal dose distributions, the use of proton therapy is rapidly growing worldwide.  This seminar will provide an overview of current research into the development of a 3-dimensional gamma imaging system based on the detection of prompt gammas produced by inelastic nuclear scattering.  Progress towards a clinical treatment verification system using this in-vivo imaging technique will be discussed as well as the potential use for tissue/material spectroscopy and nuclear imaging.