Medical Applications at CERN and the ENLIGHT Network.

State-of-the-art techniques derived from particle accelerators, detectors, and physics computing are routinely used in clinical practice and medical research centers: from imaging technologies to dedicated accelerators for cancer therapy and nuclear medicine, simulations, and data analytics. Principles of particle physics themselves are the foundation of a cutting edge radiotherapy technique for cancer treatment: hadron therapy. This article is an overview of the involvement of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in medical applications, with specific focus on hadron therapy. It also presents the history, achievements, and future scientific goals of the European Network for Light Ion Hadron Therapy, whose co-ordination office is at CERN.

Introduction to the EC's Marie Curie Initial Training Network Project: The European Training Network in Digital Medical Imaging for Radiotherapy (ENTERVISION).

Between 2011 and 2015, the ENTERVISION Marie Curie Initial Training Network has been training 15 young researchers from a variety of backgrounds on topics ranging from in-beam Positron Emission Tomography or Single Particle Tomography techniques, to adaptive treatment planning, optical imaging, Monte Carlo simulations and biological phantom design. This article covers the main research activities, as well as the training scheme implemented by the participating institutes, which included academia, research, and industry.

ENLIGHT: The European Network for Light Ion Hadron Therapy.

The European Network for Light Ion Hadron Therapy (ENLIGHT) was established in 2002 to coordinate European efforts on hadron therapy (radiotherapy performed with protons and light ions instead of high-energy photons). The ENLIGHT network is formed by the European Hadron Therapy Community, with more than 300 participants from 20 different countries. A major success of ENLIGHT has been uniting traditionally separate communities so that clinicians, physicists, biologists, and engineers with experience and interest in particle therapy work together. ENLIGHT has been a successful initiative in forming a common European platform and bringing together people from diverse disciplines. ENLIGHT demonstrates the advantages of regular and organized exchanges of data, information, and best practices, as well as determining and following strategies for future needs in research and technological development in the hadron therapy field.