Wednesday

The University of Exeter is home to the TORUS Monte Carlo code that has been used to model a wide variety of astrophysical radiative transfer phenomena. Tim Harries and team have recently extended this code to include the transfer of light through biological tissue. Here I discuss applying and modifying (ARC)-TORUS for ‘Theranostic’ applications for this STFC ‘innovation’ Fellowship.

Theranostics is an exciting new avenue in medicine that seeks to combine diagnostic and therapeutic techniques as a single treatment, with the most immediate applications in cancer therapy. Theranostics are generally based around nanoparticles that both act as imaging agents as well as in a therapeutic capacity.

Many hurdles remain before theranostic technology is seen in the clinic. Critical to its success is the concentration of the theranostic within the tumour, and subsequent ‘killing dose’ that it receives once an external energy source (e.g. Near-Infra-Red light) is applied.

Computational modelling is a crucial tool to quickly and cheaply simulate likely scenarios (e.g. theranostic concentrations in tumours and irradiation doses) in which good imaging contrast can be achieved while subsequent treatment gives acceptable tumour control.

Using ARC-TORUS, we present an optimization of treatment for skin cancers infused with NIR light absorbing gold nanorods, as a showcase for how Monte Carlo modelling can be used to inform experiments, enabling translation to theranostic use in clinical practice.