After a careful review of more than 50 applications, all of which were of a very high quality, and with some very interesting ideas and research concepts, a final shortlist was agreed. Again, Compusys completed an exhaustive review of each submission, and chose the winning entry.
Martin Farrow, Director of HPC at Compusys said “It was a very close run thing, and the final decision was extremely difficult to make. The judges were looking for truly innovative uses of HPC and grid solutions, especially those with a possible commercial development opportunity. They were also looking for projects that would provide something for the greater good of humanity. Of the short-listed entries, the bid by the University of Leicester and Newcastle General Hosp provided what the judges felt was a unique project with very innovative use of HPC and cluster technology”.
After hearing the news, Stuart Poulton of the University of Leicester's E-Science Centre said “We are very excited by the news of the award. Our project can really start to make progress”.
The winning entry is a unique and very clever way of applying the power of a HPC commodity cluster. The project is seeking to better understand the treatment and application of radiotherapy for cancer patients. Using the HPC cluster’s power to use the Monte Carlo method to simulate the transport and interaction of radiation in matter, the research hopes to better understand and calculate a more accurate dosage of radiation used in cancer treatment. This involves tackling specific problems such as dosage computations based on using patient datasets from CT scans, and calculating doses of radiation received by healthy tissue in the treatment of localised disease. Current methods of dose computation for cancer patients often compromise accuracy for speed due to the limited time and computing resources available in the clinical environment. The Radiation Physics group at the Regional Medical Physics Department at Newcastle General Hospital has been investigating radiation transport problems in diagnostic and radiotherapy applications. The additional power of a HPC commodity cluster offered by this grant will enable more studies to be carried out and results to be generated faster, ultimately improving patient care.
Martin Farrow adds “Providing a tangible link between the power of HPC Clusters and the treatment of cancer is fantastic. By supporting this project, the use and accuracy of radiotherapy treatments can be improved, resulting in more effective treatment and less exposure to potentially harmful radiation”.
Leicester E-Science Centre
Web: http://www.e-science.le.ac.uk
E-Mail: e-science@astro.le.ac.uk
Regional Medical Physics Department
Web: http://www.rmpd.org.uk
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/medphys |