Physicists and medics set out strategy on physics for health
Geneva 3 June 2010. Following a workshop hosted by the CERN 1 European particle physics laboratory in February, doctors and physicists today published a strategy for harnessing physics for health. Techniques developed for physics research have a long history of application in medicine. Today’s news recognises that synergy, and sets out a programme of strengthened collaboration. The workshop , which was the first of its kind, brought together some 400 healthcare professionals, biologists and physicists to examine the increasingly important interface between physics and health. Over recent decades, many important diagnostic and therapeutic techniques have been built on either basic physics principles, or the tools developed to conduct physics research. Notable examples are the technique of positron emission tomography (PET), which emerged in the medical community, but whose technology owes much to research in particle physics.
