Academic History

Prof. Dirk De Ruysscher, MD, PhD specializes in lung cancer and attained his medical degree at the University of Leuven, Belgium in 1986; here, he became a radiation oncologist in 1991 before earning his PhD on the influence of radiotherapy on immunity. Throughout his work, he has had immense influence on the development of personalized medicine, incorporating molecular imaging techniques into bespoke radiotherapies.

His contribution to developments also include being PI of many studies and supervision of several PhD projects, the co-founding of the Dutch Lung Cancer Research Group, the publishing of over 300 papers and book chapters, and his active involvement in ETOP and ESMO. He was recognized for this contribution in 2019 when he was awarded the ESTRO (European Society for Therapeutic Radiation Oncology) Claudius Regaud Gold Medal.

Speaking on radiotherapy programs for lung cancer

Prof. De Ruysscher continues his involvement in lung cancer radiotherapy studies, having been the main PI of almost a dozen studies relating to individualized radiation-dose escalation combining targeted agents with radiotherapy, the development of new PET tracers, molecular pathways involved in radiation damage, individualized radiotherapy, proton therapy, meta-analyses, cost-effectiveness, radiomics, immune therapy or prophylactic cranial irradiation.

He is head of the Clinical Research Division and Proton Therapy research at Maastro Proton Therapy Center, coordinator of the biobank project in Maastricht (which now has more than 10,000 patients) and chair of the Dutch Platform for Radiotherapy for Lung Cancer (LPRL).