Project Abstract
Radiotherapy (RT) is used in the treatment of over 50% of cancer patients. Despite major
technological developments, RT is still critically limited by normal tissue toxicity, and curative
treatment is restricted to localized tumors. Pervasive disparities also exist in access to RT in the
USA and in global health due to treatment costs, distance-time barriers, cultural and
infrastructure/technology barriers. These disparities are also fundamentally reflected in the
radiotherapy workforce. There are now emerging transformative RT research areas and initiatives
that can address the toxicity limitations in substantial ways, extend RT to curative treatment of
both local and metastatic disease, and reduce disparities with innovations to reduce treatment
time and cost, enhance patient convenience, and significantly increase survival and quality of life
for patients. Some of the exciting emerging transformative areas of RT research include: Radio-
Immunotherapy, FLASH RT, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in RT, smart RT biomaterials, MRI-guided
RT, and new technology and approaches for global health, all with tremendous potential to
engage students/trainees and faculty to advance innovation and reduce disparities. These
emerging areas are exciting and there is great need for concerted and accelerated efforts in
training a diverse next generation of research leaders in these areas. To address this unmet
need, the overall goal and innovation of this project is to establish a premier CaREER (Cancer
Research Education Excellence in Radiotherapy) program to train the next generation of
scientists, technologists and physicians skilled in research in emerging transformative areas of
RT and with innovation focus on addressing RT disparities. The proposed CaREER program will
leverage a strong institutional environment at Johns Hopkins in collaboration with faculty at
Historically Black Colleges and Universities like Howard University and global health partners to
attract and retain significant number of underrepresented minorities, who will be empowered to
pursue careers and higher education programs involving cancer research. The highest
significance of the CaREER program is expected in the concerted training of diverse next
generation leaders in the newly emerging and transformative research areas of radiotherapy, to
drive innovation in overcoming current RT limitations and reducing disparities.