Stanford School of Medicine
Radiation Oncology–

David J. Carlson

Ph.D.,  Medical Physics, Purdue University, Indiana, 2006
B.A., Physics, Middlebury College, Vermont, 2002

Research

My dissertation research at Purdue was focused on radiobiological modeling and the mechanisms of intrinsic radiation sensitivity.  The effects of DNA damage repair, oxygen, and radiation quality on intrinsic radiosensitivity were investigated.

My current research objectives are to develop methods to incorporate biological information into the treatment planning process.  Biologically guided radiation therapy (BGRT) offers the potential to significantly enhance radiation therapy because prescription doses are still commonly derived from clinical data through trial and error.  However, prescription doses derived from the BGRT process also have large uncertainties because of uncertainties associated with estimates of radiobiological parameters. Radiosensitivity parameters are difficult to derive from clinical and in vitro data with a high level of confidence because of the many biological, experimental, and clinical factors that influence tumor and normal-tissue responses to radiation. Also, the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the responses of tumor and normal tissues to radiation are not fully understood. Because the models used to relate dose to response are non-linear, estimates of radiosensitivity parameters derived from clinical and laboratory datasets are sometimes sensitive to seemingly small physical and biological factors. The lack of accurate models and radiation response parameters for normal and malignant tissues is one of the major factors hampering the effective use of BGRT in the clinic. The central hypothesisof my research is that BGRT can be enhanced by improving our understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms relating the induction of DNA damage to cell killing and by better quantifying the effects that various physical and biological processes have on estimates of radiosensitivity parameters.


Specific Areas of Interest


Publications

  1. Carlson DJ, Stewart RD, Semenenko VA, Sandison GA. Combined use of Monte Carlo DNA damage simulations and deterministic repair models to examine putative mechanisms of cell killing. Submitted to Radiat. Res. (2007).
  2. Carlson DJ, Stewart RD, Semenenko VA. Effects of oxygen on intrinsic radiation sensitivity - a test of the relationship between aerobic and hypoxic linear-quadratic (LQ) model parameters. Med. Phys. 2006; 33: 3105–3115.
  3. Carlson DJ, Stewart RD. Radiosensitivity parameters for aerobic and hypoxic cells are related by a simple formula [abstract]. Med Phys 2005; 32: 2062-2063.
  4. Wang JZ, Stewart RD, Carlson DJ, Jennings K, Guerrero M, Li XA. Reply to 'Comments on the 'Comparison of in vitro and in vivo a/b ratios for prostate cancer" In response to Drs. Dasu and Fowler [letter]. Phys Med Biol 2005; 50: L5-L8.
  5. Carlson DJ, Stewart RD, Li XA, Jennings K, Wang JZ, Guerrero M. Comparison of in vitro and in vivo a/b ratios for prostate cancer. Phys Med Biol 2004; 49: 4477-4491.

Conference Proceedings

  1. Carlson DJ, Stewart RD. Effects of linear energy transfer (LET) on intrinsic radiation sensitivity tests of the putative mechanisms underlying the cell killing effects of ionizing radiation. Spotlight presentation at the 7th Annual Symposium on Biomedical Computation at Stanford (BCATS), Stanford, CA, October 21 (2006).
  2. Carlson DJ, Stewart RD, Sandison GA. Tests of the putative mechanisms underlying the cell killing effects of low and high LET ionizing radiation. Poster presentation at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Radiation Research Society, Philadelphia, PA, November 5–8 (2006).
  3. Carlson DJ, Stewart RD. Strategies to predict the effect of hypoxia on intrinsic radiosensitivity parameters. Oral presentation at the 47th Annual Meeting of the AAPM in Seattle, WA, July 25 (2005).
  4. Carlson DJ, Stewart RD. Effects of hypoxia on radiation response and implications for biologically based treatment planning. Oral presentation at the Workshop on Frontiers in Targeted Radiation Therapies at Purdue University in W Lafayette, IN, April 12-13 (2005).
  5. Carlson DJ, Stewart RD, Jennings K, Park J. A mechanism-based method to predict LQ radiosensitivity parameters for hypoxia. Poster presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Radiation Research Society in St. Louis, MO, April 24-27 (2004).
  6. Greist TM, Stewart RD, Carlson DJ, Jennings K, Park J. Optimal Experimental Designs for the Estimation of LQ Radiosensitivity Parameters. Poster presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Radiation Research Society in St. Louis, MO, April 24-27 (2004).
  7. Carlson DJ, Stewart RD, Li XA, Wang JZ, Guerrero M. Can intrinsic radiosensitivity be reliably estimated from survival data for high dose rate irradiation conditions? Poster presented at the 12th International Congress of Radiation Research (ICRR 2003) in Brisbane, Australia, August 17-22 (2003).
  8. Stewart RD, Carlson DJ, Jennings K. The Virtual Cell and Multi-Endpoint Data Analysis. Poster presented at the 12th International Congress of Radiation Research (ICRR 2003) in Brisbane, Australia, August 17-22 (2003).

Further information can be found at Dr. Carlson's personal web site.

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