OMA Outreach at the Royal Institution now available on YouTube!

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The OMA network and the University College London (UCL) highly value the positive impact of scientific outreach events, which help to popularise science and raises awareness and interest in young people. Outreach events creates links between the general public and scientists whose research is often publicly funded.

Dr Simon Jolly, OMA principal investigator at UCL, was invited to give a talk at the Royal Institution in October about "How particle accelerators are used to cure cancer". In his talk Simon began from the first principles to explain how cancer develops in a previously healthy human body. He then covers the basics of conventional radiotherapy using X-rays, highlighting the differences compared with proton radiotherapy. Simon also gave an update on the state of the proton therapy centre currently being built at UCL and scheduled to be operational in 2020. To conclude, he offered a unique insight into the impact of the treatment on the life of a young patient.

After receiving much positive feedback, OMA fellow Laurent Kelleter went on to give a slightly shortened version of Simon's talk at JFS school in north London. Together with the groups Post-Doc Raffaella Radogna, Laurent talked about the physics and biology of proton therapy in front of about 25 interested students, which was Laurent's third outreach activity in a highschool since the start of the OMA project.

Simon's talk at the Royal Institution is now available online: