Meeting on the Synergies of the SEEIIST and SIPTC Hadron Therapy Projects a success!
The event was hosted in Ljubljana by the Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI), with the Slovenian Academy of Engineering (IAS) as co-organiser.
The Expert meeting aimed to present to Slovenian medical professionals, industry representatives, the scientific community and the public at large the goals of each of the two presented cancer-fighting projects with ion therapy. A panel then investigated the additional avenues of possible synergy between the two projects – the “European” SEEIIST and the “Slovenian” SIPTC while answering questions and commenting on the viewpoints from members of the audience.
Among distinguished speakers at the event were Dr Sanja Damjanović, Minister of Science of Republic of Montenegro, Prof. Herwig Schopper (CERN), Prof. Primož Strojan (Oncology Institute Ljubljana), Dr Andrej Studen (JSI), Dr Mark Pleško (Slovenian Academy of Engineering and COSYLAB, d.o.o) and Dr Maurizio Vretenar (CERN).
The two projects are complimentary
The participants of the event at the end reached the conclusion that the two projects are not direct competitors, but are complementary in nature. SIPTC is aimed at mostly patient cancer treatment and the clinical educational and health-care development role of proton therapy. On the other hand, the goals of SEEIIST are that 50 % of its activity be geared towards scientific research, and 50 % towards heavy-ion beams treatments with Carbon, Helium and other ions.
One of the viewpoints in the discussion was that multi-phase project development would possibly enable SIPTC to function as a first-phase organizational and best-practices forerunner of the SEEIIST site.
After the successful event, Dr Mark Pleško, Cosylab CEO and President of IAS hosted the meeting of the SEEIIST project group for the preparation of an advanced study. Its whose members took stock of the state of project affairs and defined activities for the possibility of placing the project on the ESFRI 2021 RoadMap.
