UCLA Biomedical Physics Graduate Training in Breast Cancer
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: The UCLA Biomedical Physics Graduate Program has provided graduate education in Medical Physics and Radiation Biology for 30 years. It is the third Ph.D. program in Biomedical Physics to be accredited by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. It will award its 117th Ph.D. this spring. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 At this time, its 44 graduate students are specializing in either Medical Imaging, Nuclear Medicine, Radiation Oncology, or Radiation Biology. Many of these students are interested in some aspect of detecting, treating, or preventing breast cancer, but have been unable to pursue these research interests because of a lack of funds for projects in breast cancer related research. This training grant renewal would complete the training of two Ph.D. students currently supported by the training grant and would allow two more students to be trained. In addition, the program requires courses, practical training and participation in seminar series on topics critical to understanding breast cancer, creating a group of future medical school faculty and hospital physicists who are literate in breast cancer related issues.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Those students selected for this training program will have a required course of study, preparing them for general medical physics topics, in addition to the current program's core courses, which will include a course in Breast Imaging Physics and Instrumentation, Medical Ultrasound, a Seminar in Breast Cancer Detection and Treatment, the Breast Center's Multidisciplinary Conference, and the Breast Imaging Center's Pathology-Radiology Correlation Conference. Appreciation of the clinical realities of breast cancer will be provided by requiring at least 36 hours in clinical settings, including radiology mammography reading, interventional procedures, and pathology techniques. At the end of their second year of study, but their first year on this training grant, all students will have selected an area of specialization in breast cancer related research. By the beginning of their third year of graduate study, or second year of this training program, they will be working on a specific research project in breast cancer. The two students who will continue on this grant have one and two years to complete specific Ph.D. projects. Two new students will work on early detection projects in ultrasound and digital mammography.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Many breast cancer researchers have very narrow, specialized understanding of the disease or misunderstand the relationship of their research to breast cancer detection and treatment. Our training program would provide a broad base of knowledge to allow our graduates to be resources for other researchers as well as principal investigators on their own. Our trainees will be particularly well suited to develop research and clinical approaches for improvements in breast cancer detection, for improvement of the positive predictive rate of identifying malignant versus benign lesions (minimizing unnecessary biopsy), and for improvement of the therapeutic ratio in treatment of breast cancer by radiobiological research. The graduates of this program, through their competence and broad scope of training, will have the tools to help to reduce the human and economic costs of breast cancer in California and will be the leaders of the future in breast cancer research.