Carine Michiels is a full professor at the Department of Biology of UNamur and honorary research director of the FNRS. She is the author of more than 180 articles published in international journals and leads a team of researchers in the Cell Biology Research Unit (URBC).
Particles to fight cancer
Her research work, in collaboration with Professor Stéphane Lucas and Professor Anne-Catherine Heuskin at the NARILIS Institute, aims to improve anti-cancer therapies, including radiotherapy and more specifically proton therapy. Conventional radiotherapy uses photons (particles of light) whereas proton therapy uses protons (particles of matter). These particles are heavier and have more energy, which allows them to target the tumour more effectively and thus cause less damage to the surrounding tissue.
The Bacq and Alexander Award is presented at the Society's annual meeting. This year's annual meeting took place in Catania, Sicily, from 21 to 24 September. Professor Carine Michiels gave an inspiring lecture entitled "How cell biology and radiation physics meet to boost radiotherapy", which showed how fruitful interdisciplinary research can be.
