Research Summary

Dr. Faddegon is a board certified clinical medical physics who is internationally recognized for his research in developing and using Monte Carlo methods for treatment head simulation and dose calculation and his development of new technology to improve accuracy and precision in radiotherapy. The overall objective of Dr. Faddegon’s research is to allow for more aggressive treatment in sites where side effects, local control, and metastases are a problem through cost-effective solutions to improve the therapeutic ratio.

Current research on Monte Carlo involves the development and application of TOPAS, the Tool for Particle Simulation, a collaboration of UCSF, MGH and SLAC. The work was supported by NIH 2009-2024 to improve advanced simulation of radiotherapy in conjunction with the open source Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit. The initial R01 grant focused on proton therapy, the renewal on organ and cell radiobiology. An NIH U24 grant through the NCI Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR) followed, to extend TOPAS to conventional radiotherapy and imaging. Work in parallel is being done to develop TOPAS-nBio with enhanced track structure simulation capabilities in conjunction with Geant4-DNA for physicists, chemists and biologists to better establish the relationship between ionization deposition details, radiation chemistry, and biological effect. This work continues to be supported by an NIH R01 awarded in 2015. 

Dr. Faddegon retired from clinical duty in 2022 and continues as Recall Faculty. The focus is on incorporating cluster dose in treatment planning to fully exploit the high potential of ion therapy to cure a broad range of cancers. After introducing cluster dose to the world, Dr. Faddegon is taking advantage of this ground-breaking work to take full account of the dramatic effect of the character of particle tracks on patient outcome in ion therapy. He also continues with development and application of TOPAS and TOPAS-nBio. 

Research Funding

  • April 1, 2015 - March 31, 2025 - TOPAS-nBio, A Monte Carlo tool for radiation biology research , Co-Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R01 CA187003
  • June 4, 2018 - May 31, 2023 - The TOPAS Tool for Particle Simulation, a Monte Carlo Simulation Tool for Physics, Biology and Clinical Research , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: U24CA215123
  • February 10, 2015 - April 30, 2018 - NAPTA: Optimizing clinical trial design & delivery of particle therapy for cancer , Co-Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: P20CA183640
  • April 15, 2017 - April 14, 2018 - PRISM: Precision Radiotherapy and Imaging of Small Mammals , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: S10OD021818

Education

University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada, B.Sc., 1977, Physics (honors)
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, M.Sc., 1983, Physics (radiobiology)
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, Ph.D., 1990, Physics (radiotherapy)

Qualified Medical Physicist by the standards of Cancer Care Ontario (1987)
Certified clinical physicist as member (1987) by Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine

Honors & Awards

  • 1980
    National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) scholarship for M.Sc. studies
  • 1982
    NSERC scholarship for Ph.D. studies - declined
  • 1986
    Ontario Cancer Foundation fellowship for Ph.D. studies
  • 1988
    Ontario Graduate Scholarship for Ph.D. studies
  • 1989
    American Association Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Young Investigator's Award, Second Prize
  • 1991
    Farrington Daniels Award (AAPM)
  • 1992
    Runner-up to Sylvia Fedoruk Prize (Canadian Organization of Medical Physics)
  • 1996
    Elected Fellow of the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine
  • 2007
    Appointed Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine

Selected Publications

  1. Shin WG, D-Kondo JN, Ramos-Mendez JA, LaVerne JA, Rothwell BC, Bertolet A, McNamara A, Faddegon BA, Paganetti H, Schuemann J. Investigation of hydrogen peroxide yields and oxygen consumption in high dose rate irradiation: a TOPAS-nBio Monte Carlo study. Phys Med Biol. 2024 Dec 10.  View on PubMed
  2. D-Kondo JN, Masilela TAM, Shin WG, Faddegon BA, LaVerne JA, Schuemann J, Ramos-Mendez JA. Modeling the oxygen effect in DNA strand break induced by gamma-rays with TOPAS-nBio. Phys Med Biol. 2024 Oct 16.  View on PubMed
  3. García García OR, Ortiz R, Moreno-Barbosa E, D-Kondo N, Faddegon B, Ramos-Méndez J. TOPAS-Tissue: A Framework for the Simulation of the Biological Response to Ionizing Radiation at the Multi-Cellular Level. Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Sep 19; 25(18).  View on PubMed
  4. Meyer I, Peters N, Tamborino G, Lee H, Bertolet A, Faddegon B, Mille MM, Lee C, Schuemann J, Paganetti H. A framework for in-field and out-of-field patient specific secondary cancer risk estimates from treatment plans using the TOPAS Monte Carlo system. Phys Med Biol. 2024 Aug 06; 69(16).  View on PubMed
  5. Ortiz R, Sawkey D, Faddegon B, D-Kondo N, Ramos-Méndez J. An interface tool to parametrize treatment plans for the TrueBeam radiotherapy system into TOPAS parameter control files for Monte Carlo simulation. Phys Med. 2024 Aug; 124:104485.  View on PubMed
  6. D-Kondo N, Ortiz R, Faddegon B, Incerti S, Tran HN, Francis Z, Moreno Barbosa E, Schuemann J, Ramos-Méndez J. Lithium inelastic cross-sections and their impact on micro and nano dosimetry of boron neutron capture. Phys Med Biol. 2024 Jul 15; 69(14).  View on PubMed
  7. Ramos-Mendez J, Ortiz CR, Schuemann J, Paganetti H, Faddegon B. TOPAS simulation of photoneutrons in radiotherapy: accuracy and speed with variance reduction. Phys Med Biol. 2024 May 14; 69(11).  View on PubMed
  8. Ortiz R, Faddegon B. Creating uniform cluster dose spread-out Bragg peaks for proton and carbon beams. Med Phys. 2024 Jun; 51(6):4482-4488.  View on PubMed
  9. Faddegon B, Descovich M, Chen K, Ramos-Méndez J, Iii MR, Wahl N, Taylor P, Griffin K, Lee C. A digital male pelvis phantom series showing anatomical variations over the course of fractionated radiotherapy treatment. Med Phys. 2024 Apr; 51(4):3034-3044.  View on PubMed
  10. Faddegon B, Blakely EA, Burigo L, Censor Y, Dokic I, Domínguez Kondo N, Ortiz R, Ramos Méndez J, Rucinski A, Schubert K, Wahl N, Schulte R. Ionization detail parameters and cluster dose: a mathematical model for selection of nanodosimetric quantities for use in treatment planning in charged particle radiotherapy. Phys Med Biol. 2023 08 14; 68(17).  View on PubMed
  11. D-Kondo JN, Garcia-Garcia OR, LaVerne JA, Faddegon B, Schuemann J, Shin WG, Ramos-Méndez J. An integrated Monte Carlo track-structure simulation framework for modeling inter and intra-track effects on homogenous chemistry. Phys Med Biol. 2023 Jun 09; 68(12).  View on PubMed
  12. Lee H, Cheon BW, Feld JW, Grogg K, Perl J, Ramos-Méndez JA, Faddegon B, Min CH, Paganetti H, Schuemann J. TOPAS-imaging: extensions to the TOPAS simulation toolkit for medical imaging systems. Phys Med Biol. 2023 04 03; 68(8).  View on PubMed
  13. Bertolet A, Ramos-Méndez J, McNamara A, Yoo D, Ingram S, Henthorn N, Warmenhoven JW, Faddegon B, Merchant M, McMahon SJ, Paganetti H, Schuemann J. Impact of DNA Geometry and Scoring on Monte Carlo Track-Structure Simulations of Initial Radiation-Induced Damage. Radiat Res. 2022 09 01; 198(3):207-220.  View on PubMed
  14. Ramos-Méndez J, García-García O, Domínguez-Kondo J, LaVerne JA, Schuemann J, Moreno-Barbosa E, Faddegon B. TOPAS-nBio simulation of temperature-dependent indirect DNA strand break yields. Phys Med Biol. 2022 07 08; 67(14).  View on PubMed
  15. D-Kondo N, Moreno-Barbosa E, Štephán V, Stefanová K, Perrot Y, Villagrasa C, Incerti S, De Celis Alonso B, Schuemann J, Faddegon B, Ramos-Méndez J. DNA damage modeled with Geant4-DNA: effects of plasmid DNA conformation and experimental conditions. Phys Med Biol. 2021 12 15; 66(24).  View on PubMed
  16. Ramos-Méndez J, LaVerne JA, Domínguez-Kondo N, Milligan J, Štepán V, Stefanová K, Perrot Y, Villagrasa C, Shin WG, Incerti S, McNamara A, Paganetti H, Perl J, Schuemann J, Faddegon B. TOPAS-nBio validation for simulating water radiolysis and DNA damage under low-LET irradiation. Phys Med Biol. 2021 09 03; 66(17).  View on PubMed
  17. von der Linden J, Ramos-Mendez J, Faddegon B, Massin D, Fiksel G, Holder JP, Willingale L, Peebles J, Edwards MR, Chen H. Publisher's Note: "Dispersion calibration for the National Ignition Facility electron-positron-proton spectrometers for intense laser matter interactions" [Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 033516 (2021)]. Rev Sci Instrum. 2021 May 01; 92(5):059902.  View on PubMed
  18. von der Linden J, Ramos-Méndez J, Faddegon B, Massin D, Fiksel G, Holder JP, Willingale L, Peebles J, Edwards MR, Chen H. Dispersion calibration for the National Ignition Facility electron-positron-proton spectrometers for intense laser matter interactions. Rev Sci Instrum. 2021 Mar 01; 92(3):033516.  View on PubMed
  19. Tran HN, Ramos-Méndez J, Shin WG, Perrot Y, Faddegon B, Okada S, Karamitros M, Davídková M, Štepán V, Incerti S, Villagrasa C. Assessment of DNA damage with an adapted independent reaction time approach implemented in Geant4-DNA for the simulation of diffusion-controlled reactions between radio-induced reactive species and a chromatin fiber. Med Phys. 2021 Feb; 48(2):890-901.  View on PubMed
  20. Arce P, Bolst D, Bordage MC, Brown JMC, Cirrone P, Cortés-Giraldo MA, Cutajar D, Cuttone G, Desorgher L, Dondero P, Dotti A, Faddegon B, Fedon C, Guatelli S, Incerti S, Ivanchenko V, Konstantinov D, Kyriakou I, Latyshev G, Le A, Mancini-Terracciano C, Maire M, Mantero A, Novak M, Omachi C, Pandola L, Perales A, Perrot Y, Petringa G, Quesada JM, Ramos-Méndez J, Romano F, Rosenfeld AB, Sarmiento LG, Sakata D, Sasaki T, Sechopoulos I, Simpson EC, Toshito T, Wright DH. Report on G4-Med, a Geant4 benchmarking system for medical physics applications developed by the Geant4 Medical Simulation Benchmarking Group. Med Phys. 2021 Jan; 48(1):19-56.  View on PubMed

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