The biophysicist will be able to use the millions in funding to realize an ambitious research project to improve tumor therapy. As lead scientist and together with his team he will conduct research into even more effective treatments for cancer and investigate a promising radiotherapy method that uses ultra-short pulses of heavy ion beams with ultra-high dose rates.

‘I warmly congratulate Professor Marco Durante on once again being awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. This is also recognition of the strong research partnership between GSI and TU Darmstadt,’ said Professor Matthias Oechsner, Vice President Research at TU Darmstadt. ‘Marco Durante impressively demonstrates how forward-looking basic research can lead to innovations that create significant added value for everyone by opening up new options for treating serious diseases.‘

Professor Marco Durante is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of radiation biology and medical physics, especially for therapy with heavy ions and radioprotection in space. He made important scientific progress in the field of biodosimetry of charged particles, optimization of particle therapy, and shielding of heavy ions in space.

This award means a renewed recognition for the biophysicist and a seamless follow-up to a previous award: Professor Marco Durante had already received an “ERC Advanced Grant” for his research project “BARB” in 2020. The latest experiments in this field, which focused primarily on improving the precision of tumor therapy, were recently completed and are now being published in impactful scientific journals. The experience gained at BARB is also highly relevant for his new ERC-funded project entitled “Heavy Ion FLASH (HI-FLASH)”.

In the HI-FLASH research project, Professor Marco Durante wants to use very heavy ions at ultra-high intensity against brain cancer. Patients are currently treated either with high-energy protons or carbon ions for many solid cancers, including brain malignancies. Nevertheless, the prognosis for glioblastoma (GBM) – an aggressive, fast-growing brain tumor in adults – is still dismal.

This is where the new project comes in. Ions heavier than those previously used could be highly beneficial in treating of extremely resistant, hypoxic and fatal tumors such as glioblastoma. Unfortunately, the use of very heavy ions is constrained by their excessive normal tissue toxicity. Professor Durante's approach is to enable very heavy ion therapy with acceptable toxicities by using the so-called FLASH effect. The focus on very short and high-intensity radiation pulses, where the treatment dose is delivered in sub-second timescales. The use of such particles with ultra-high dose rate (UHDR) may result in significantly sparing the normal tissues whilst maintaining tumor control.

„Although the molecular mechanism is still unclear, the FLASH effect considerably broadens the therapeutic window and has already proven to be very promising in radiotherapy. While my group at GSI/FAIR has pioneered the first demonstration of the FLASH effect with high-energy carbon ions, UHDR use of even heavier ions, 20Ne, could be very effective for very resistant tumor”, explains Marco Durante. This is exactly what HI-FLASH will be investigating over the next five years in order to exploit the full potential for the best possible patient care. The new research project will compare toxicity and tumor control with neon ions at conventional and ultra-high dose rates and, for comparison, with high-energy protons, which are poorly effective in treating GBM but are known to spare normal brain at UHDR.

The GSI accelerators on the campus in Darmstadt are perfectly suitable for this pioneering research. GSI/FAIR is the only facility world-wide where the FLASH effect can be explored with ions heavier than carbon. The GSI synchrotron can accelerate ions of all naturally occurring chemical elements to high energies and intensities, and the future FAIR accelerator center will significantly expand these possibilities. “If successful, HI-FLASH will pave the way for the use of heavy ions in cancer treatment, improving outcomes for patients with highly resistant and lethal tumors”, explains Marco Durante.

Professor Marco Durante said, “I would like to thank the European Research Council for giving me another great chance with their ERC Advanced Grant funding and enabling me to significantly advance our research in the field of tumor therapy with charged particles. I look forward to realizing HI-FLASH together with my team and the experts of the GSI Biophysics and Accelerator departments. The next five years offer an extraordinary opportunity to transfer basic research into concrete medical progress.”

Professor Thomas Nilsson, the Scientific Managing Director of GSI and FAIR, emphasized, “I am extremely pleased for Marco Durante and the recognition of his scientific work with this high-profile grant. Such successes also underline the excellent research quality at GSI/FAIR and demonstrate the unique opportunities and research perspectives offered by our exceptional infrastructures. The ERC grants are a clear sign of how forward-looking our research activities are.”

Professor Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council, said, “I warmly congratulate you on this success. I am confident that this grant will help you to develop your research at the highest level and to generate exciting results.“

B. Paflik/GSI