The Los Angeles Times featured Dr. Gregory Czarnota’s research in their Science Now section on July 10, 2012, which reports on discoveries from the world of science and medicine (update: the article is no longer available online).

Czarnota, a researcher at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, is working with MaRS Innovation to license his patented technology: radiosensitization of tumour cells using a combination of microbubbles and targeted, high-intensity, focused ultrasound.

Here’s an excerpt from the Times article:

The conventional assumption about radiation therapy is that it destroys tumor cells by disrupting their DNA, interfering with replication. That is certainly true, as far as it goes, according to Dr. Gregory Czarnota, a radiation oncologist at the University of Toronto’s Sunnybrook Research Institute. But a growing body of evidence indicates that the radiation also affects blood vessels feeding the tumor — the X-rays cause cells within the blood vessels to self-destruct, a process called apoptosis.

Czarnota is also cross-appointed as an assistant professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. His original research findings were published in PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Michael Kolios, associate professor of physics at Ryerson University, is also involved in this project.

Here’s Dr. Czarnota explaining his work:

For more information about this project and its availability for license, contact Fanny Sie.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, marketing and communications manager.