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11th May 2021

Cancer has been identified as one of the fastest growing global healthcare concerns of our time, and, while radiation therapy (RT) is now one of the most widely-used and cost-effective treatments available, great inequalities still exist in gaining access to RT in low and middle income countries (LMIC) across the globe, and that’s where Manjit Dosanjh comes in.

 
This is not Prof. Dosanjh, but rather our misconception of what her proposed process would probably look like.

A background in medicine and physics enabled Prof. Dosanjh to come to the realisation that the developments at CERN's Compact Linear Collider (CLIC), making high-energy electron accelerators more compact and affordable, could, alongside ultra-high dose rate (FLASH) radiotherapy, lead to a revolution in cancer treatment availble to all, join us to find out more.

 

Meanwhile, what psychological factors drive the popularity of conspiracy theories, and are there any consequences to holding such beliefs? Join Cambridge Skeptics: Live! at 7:00pm (BST) on 18th May to discuss with us.

Cambridge Skeptics

Project STELLA: From Higgs to Healthcare in Challenging Environments
with Prof Manjit Dosanjh
Thursday, 13th May 2021 at 7:00pm
 
 
If you have cancer and you live in a low or middle-income country, you’re unlikely to have access to the radiotherapy treatments that patients in higher-income countries take for granted. A global collaboration including engineers and physicists from the Large Hadron Collider with International Cancer Expert Corps (ICEC), the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Daresbury Laboratory, Lancaster and Oxford University and users in Africa and other Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) is aiming to change the current status quo. 

Professor Manjit Dosanjh is the Project Leader for STELLA (Smart Technologies to Extend Lives with Linear Accelerators), honorary CERN Staff, the particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland and Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford. She holds a PhD in Biochemical Engineering from the UK and her professional efforts in the fields of biology and the medical applications of physics span more than 30 years, during which she has held positions in various academic and research institutions in Europe and the U.S., including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) at the University of California, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) in Italy. Dosanjh joined CERN in 1999 where she has worked to apply technologies originally developed for particle physics to the domain of life sciences, aiming to translate and transfer knowledge about physics to society at large. She played a key role in launching the European Network for Light Ion Hadron Therapy (ENLIGHT), a multidisciplinary platform that takes a collaborative approach to particle and radiation therapy research in Europe, and she is the coordinator of the network since 2006. She is also actively involved in helping non-profit gender-related organisations in science and technology for development in Geneva and is a board of director for ICEC (International Cancer Expert Corps).

Useful Links:
enlight.web.cern.ch
iceccancer.org

GET THE BOOK
 
Hadron therapy is a groundbreaking new method of treating cancer. Boasting greater precision than other therapies, this therapy is now utilised in many clinical settings and the field is growing. More than 50 medical facilities currently perform (or are planned to perform) this treatment, with this number set to double by 2020. This new text covers the most recent advances in hadron therapy, exploring the physics, technology, biology, diagnosis, clinical applications, and economics behind the therapy. Providing essential and up-to-date information on recent developments in the field, this book will be of interest to current and aspiring specialists from a wide range of backgrounds.
FIND OUT MORE
 
Researchers at CERN are investigating how very high-energy electrons could help target tumors, writes Sarah Charley for Symmetry.
SEE ALSO
 
Stories of spontaneous human combustion have been retold since the 1920s, but do those retellings reflect the truth? Asks Matt Mills for The Skeptic.
When new medical breakthroughs occur, pseudoscientists are often quick to jump on the bandwagon in order to sell their quackery, writes David Weinberg for The Skeptic.
From 5G fears to antisemitism and QAnon - graffiti that promotes conspiracies around Liverpool and beyond are more harmful than you think - writes Mark Horne for The Skeptic.
CATCH UP
 
Join Skeptics in the Pub Online guest Prof. Alex Vitale to discover why calls to Defund The Police will not necessarily lead directly to The Purge. This event, which was streamed live on 6th May 2021, is now available for catch up on the SitP Online YouTube channel.
Catch up with Cambridge Skeptics: Live for our discussion on the origins and spread of HIV/AIDS. This event, which was streamed live on 4th May 2021, is now available for catch up on our YouTube channel.
Particle physicist Harry Cliff starts SITP Online's new crash course on the latest findings from the Large Hadron Collider with the ultimate apple pie recipe. This event, which was streamed live on 15th April 2021, is now available for catch up on the SitP Online YouTube channel.
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Cambridge Skeptics is a not-for-profit community organisation run by volunteers. To support our online presence during the pandemic, we are currently looking for:
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Please get in touch if you'd like to get involved. 
info@cambridgeskeptics.org.uk

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GROUPS WE COLLABORATE WITH
We are a coalition of UK-based Skeptics groups. Formed as the COVID-19 pandemic brought our country to a standstill, we are working to deliver high-quality online events focusing on Science, reason, and critical thinking. Every Thursday at 7 pm BST, you will find us presenting live-streamed talks, all for free – you don’t even need to create an account. Simply open up twitch.tv/sitp. Take a look at our events, past and future, we’re sure you’ll see a lot of content you will find interesting.
The Good Thinking Society is a nonprofit organisation promoting scientific scepticism established by Simon Singh in September 2012. ​The society aims to raise awareness of and fund sceptical projects. The goal of the society is 'to encourage curiosity and promote rational thinking'. In partnership with its advisory board the organisation has run several successful campaigns promoting public awareness of such issues. To find out more about The Good Thinking Society, please visit www.goodthinkingsociety.org.

The Cambridge Humanist Group is a welcoming and diverse community of atheists and secularists. We are committed to good company and a good life without religion. We stand up for the right of non-believers to be free from imposition by religious views and organisations. We run Sunday coffee mornings at CB2 Bistro, hold a pub social at a central Cambridge venue on most 1st Thursdays of the month, hold discussions and various social events throughout the year.

The Cambridge Alehouse Philosophers are a group of people who enjoy talking about ideas, and who are philosophically inclined or would like to find out more about philosophy. Once per month, one of our members will prepare a short talk for the evening and discussions will start to spin off from that; we also have organised debates; otherwise, we simply meet up for a sociable chat. Everyone is welcome, we have absolute beginners to philosophy as well as people who been involved in the subject for some time.

The effective altruism community is a global community of people who care deeply about the world, make benefiting others a significant part of their lives, and use evidence and reason to figure out how best to do so. In Cambridge, our local effective altruism community runs plenty of events each week, including lectures, workshops, discussion groups, socials and trips away.
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