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Principal Investigator

Prof. M.S. (Mischa) Hoogeman

Head of Medical Physics

  • Department
  • Radiation Oncology
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About

Introduction

Mischa Hoogeman works as a licensed medical physicist at the Radiotherapy department of ErasmusMC and the Holland Proton Therapy Center (HollandPTC). Since 2015, he has been appointed Head of Medical Physics and since 2017 he has been appointed as Professor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam on High-Precision and Adaptive Radiotherapy. Since April 2018, he also holds the position as Head of Medical Physics of the HollandPTC and since 2019 Mischa Hoogeman has a part-time appointment as professor at the TU Delft (Department of Radiation Science & Technology).

The overarching aim of his research is to widen the therapeutic window by the development, implementation and evaluation of high-precision radiotherapy techniques. Supported by two projects of the Dutch Cancer Society, he lead the research group that developed and implemented a novel plan-of-the-day technique to accurately irradiate the highly-deformable target volume of cervical cancer patients. Current research aims to further improve this technique, translate it to Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy, and aims to clinically evaluate the benefit in terms of reduction in side effects and improved quality of life.

With the introduction of proton therapy in the Netherlands the focus of research has shifted to proton therapy. Research in this area includes developing online-adaptive proton therapy by near-real-time daily re-optimization of the treatment plan, quantifying the uncertainties during the delivery of proton therapy that may impair the theoretical benefit, and developing methods to account for those by designing robust treatment plans.

Field(s) of expertise

  • High-precision adaptive radiotherapy and proton therapy
  • Treatment planning for proton therapy
  • Robust optimization and evaluation for proton therapy
  • Online-adaptive radiotherapy and proton therapy
  • Normal tissue complication modelling
  • Deformable registration of medical images
  • Stereotactic (Body) Radiation Therapy

Education and career

Mischa Hoogeman studied experimental physics at the University of Amsterdam. He continued his education as Ph.D. student at the Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (Amolf) of the Dutch Organization for Fundamental Research (FOM) studying atomic-scale dynamics of crystalline surfaces with variable-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1998 at Leiden University with honours. After his Ph.D. he switched to the field of radiotherapy working at the NKI-AVL in Amsterdam on dose-volume effect relationships for normal tissue complications for prostate cancer. After having completed the medical physicist training program at the NKI-AVL and Erasmus MC, he was appointed as permanent staff member of the sector Medical Physics at Erasmus MC Cancer Institute in 2006.

Publications

Teaching activities

Mischa Hoogeman co-coordinates the course module Complex Diagnosis-Treatment Combinations, which is part of the Bachelor study Clinical Technology (Erasmus MC, LUMC, and TU Delft), and the module Radiation Therapy of Master programme Technical Medicine. He is faculty member of two international courses of the school of the European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology (ESTRO) and course director of the ESTRO course IMRT, VMAT and Other Highly Conformal Techniques in Practice. He also teaches for the Medical Physics course of the TU Delft and at the Erasmus MC Zorgacademie (MBR-RTL). Mischa Hoogeman supervised MSc as well as PhD theses in the field of radiotherapy and proton therapy.

Other positions

  • Member of HollandPTC R&D Program Council and Executive Team
  • Member of the scientific advisory committee of the Daniel den Hoed foundation
  • Part-time professor at the TU Delft (Department of Radiation Science & Technology)

Scholarships, grants, and awards

Mischa Hoogeman received grants from the Dutch Cancer Society, ZonMw, HTSM, Erasmus Mrace, and various companies in the medical device industry. His PhD thesis was awarded Cum Laude and he received the Nottingham Prize, 58th Annual Physical Electronics Conference, Penn State University, USA.

More

Participating in research group Medical Physics and Technology