| Role in the Program | Host, Short-term Research Internships 2023 |
| Hostee | Eurico Pereira and Joana Antunes |
Short Bio
Dr. Sawakuchi is a board-certified medical physicist and Associate Professor (with tenure) at the Department of Radiation Physics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. As the gastrointestinal-physics (GI-physics) service chief in the Department of Radiation Physics he leads a team of seven PhD level board certified medical physicists that oversees the treatment of over 1,000 patients per year. The GI-physics team oversees all clinical physics aspects of the GI radiotherapy program at MD Anderson.
As a Clinician Scientist, Dr. Sawakuchi has about 70% protected time for his research endeavors. Dr. Sawakuchi’s research is at the interface of radiobiology, DNA repair, and immunology and currently focuses on understanding how radiation-induced DNA damage, and repair can be leveraged to radiosensitize tumors and activate the immune system to combat cancer. The Sawakuchi Lab studies how different forms of clinical radiation including photons, protons, carbon ions and alpha particles modulate oxidative stress, DNA damage, DNA repair and immune activation.
