Micol de Simoni

Background

About Micol de Simoni

During my Master Thesis, my activity was focused on the development of a new detector, the Dose Profiler, a tracker detector capable of monitoring online Particle Therapy treatments in combination with a PET detector to be operated within the INSIDE (Innovative Solution for monitoring in Hadrontherapy) project. I have assembled and characterized the detector and I have tested it using the Proton and Carbon ion beams available at CNAO (Centro Nazionale di Adroterapia Oncologica) measuring the secondary radiation produced by the interactions PMMA targets and on an anthropomorphic phantom in a treatment room with clinical-like conditions. The obtained results have been published on peer-reviewed journals and I had the opportunity to present them in the context of an international conference. Furthermore I gained experience in dealing with the problems related to the clinical context. During my Ph.D I decided to continue my research activity in the Applied Radiation Physics Group (ARPG) focusing my contribution to the development of tools for quality control of therapeutic Carbon beams with a fast MC code, called FRED (Fast paRticle thErapy Dose evaluator). I'm currently implementing the algorithms needed to account for the Carbon fragmentation as a first step towards the full inclusion of a detailed nuclear model describing the interactions of the 12-C ions with matter. This is a crucial step towards implementation of a complete modeling of the interactions between the beam and the patient body. As the beam fragmentation process is related to the dose release outside the tumor region its description is of paramount importance and has to be accurately modeled.