Ellen Gleditsch Prize for outstanding research achievements awarded to Professor Marco Durante
08.10.2024 |
Professor Marco Durante, head of the Biophysics Research Department at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, was recently awarded the Ellen Gleditsch Prize by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters. The award ceremony took place during the Academy's public conference on “Proton Therapy - Physics meets Medicine” in Oslo.
The Ellen Gleditsch Prize is presented to scientists who gave outstanding contribution in the field of radiation research and/or radioactivity. The award that consists of a bronze statue representing Ellen Gleditsch and a diploma honors Professor Durante for his important work in the field of biophysics and the application of particle therapies in cancer research. Marco Durante, who also gave a lecture at the Academy in Oslo, was very pleased to receive the award in memory of Ellen Gleditsch.
Ellen Gleditsch was a Norway-born chemist and one the first female members of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters. As a student and colleague of Marie Curie, she made a decisive contribution to the development of radioactivity research in Norway. The prize is named after her to honor the legacy of this pioneer. Marco Durante is the first winner of this innovative prize.
At the award ceremony, he gave a lecture at the Academy in Oslo on the progress of particle therapy and the challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration between medicine, oncology and biophysics in order to realize optimally the great potential of tumor therapy with charged particles for the future. His presentation met with great interest and was accompanied by a lively Q/A session. Two proton therapy facilities are currently being built in Norway, at Radiumhospitalet, Oslo University Hospital, and at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen. These facilities, with a total investment of several billion Norwegian kroner, are due to go into operation soon.
Marco Durante is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of radiation biology and medical physics, especially for therapy with heavy ions and radioprotection in space. He made important scientific progress in the field of biodosimetry of charged particles, optimization of particle therapy, and shielding of heavy ions in space. He studied physics and got his PhD at the University Federico II in Italy. His post doc positions took him to the NASA Johnson Space Center in Texas and to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan. During his studies, he specialized in charged particle therapy, cosmic radiation, radiation cytogenetics and radiation biophysics.
He has received numerous awards for his research, including the Galileo Galilei prize from the European Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics (EFOMP), the Warren Sinclair award of the US National Council of Radiation Protection (NCRP), the IBA-Europhysics Prize of the European Physical Society (EPS), the Bacq & Alexander award of the European Radiation Research Society (ERRS) the Failla Award of the Radiation Research Society and the Henry Kaplan Prize of the International Association of Radiation Research (IARR). Additionally, he has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant of the European Union for the continuation of his research activities and is president of the Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group (PTCOG), a global organization of researchers and professionals in the field of radiation therapy with protons, light ions, and heavy charged particles. (BP)
More information
The event on the YouTube channel of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters
More about the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters
More about the research of Professor Marco Durante and the Biophysics Department at GSI
