Radiological Research Accelerator Facility

12/03/2020

Congratulations Guy!

Guy Garty has been promoted to the Director of RARAF. Guy has been serving as our Associate Director since 2016 and been part of the RARAF team since 2003.

Official announcement note:

Drs. David Brenner, Tom Hei and Lisa Kachnic are delighted to announce the appointment of Guy Garty PhD, Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology (in the Center for Radiological Research), as Director of the Columbia Radiological Research Accelerator Facility (RARAF).

RARAF, located within the Columbia Nevis Labs facility in Westchester County, has been on the cutting edge of pre-clinical research for radiation oncology since 1967. Currently its focus is on preclinical studies for carbon ion radiotherapy, as well as “FLASH” radiotherapy, an exciting new approach in which the radiation treatment is given in a fraction of a second.

Dr Garty joined the Department of Radiation Oncology’s Center for Radiological Research in 2003, and has been responsible for many key physics-based innovations which have kept RARAF on the cutting edge of new developments to improve cancer treatment with radiation from accelerators. He has served as RARAF’s Associate Director since 2016.

Please join us in congratulating Guy and wishing him well!
David Brenner, Tom Hei and Lisa Kachnic

11/12/2020

Our own David Welch will be presenting his Far-UVC work at the Science-on-Hudson online lecture this evening at 7 pm EST. You can register and view this through our Physics friends here on the Columbia Nevis Campus.

https://www.nevis.columbia.edu/events/science-on-hudson.html

This will be a Zoom event and you will need to register to get an active link to the Webinar.

Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we are continuing to do scientific research at Nevis Labs, and really look forward to re-starting our Science-on-Hudson public lectures and re-engaging with our neighbors. We are therefore very pleased to announce a new set of Science-on-Hudson lectures, that w...

06/05/2020

....and we're back!! Well, partially.

RARAF has been given the go ahead to start a phased reopening. We have just finished our first irradiation since March 12th! We look forward to an active summer as we try and catch up with all the postponed work.

04/07/2020

RARAF may be shut down for the time being, but big science still happens.

Dr. Aprile's group used our neutron beams early on to test the baselines for their systems. Hope they can get it working when they are allowed to start up again.

An experiment under 4,600 feet of Italian rock wasn’t immune from the pandemic’s interruption.

03/02/2020

Congratulations to our own Manuela Buonanno who is being spotlighted as the Early Career Investigator (ECI) of the Month by the Radiation Research Society.

https://www.radres.org/page/ECI

11/27/2019

Accelerator maintenance doesn't care that tomorrow is a holiday. It has to be done when it has to be done! Planning on closing still today so we can take Thanksgiving off as it pumps down for the gas transfer.

01/09/2019

Our parent organization, the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University, has some new postdoc and technician positions currently open. New directions for the CRR and support for those projects.

11/20/2018

Dr. Brenner and our UVC team made the Wall Street Journal.

Get your flu shots folks. Our systems aren't commercialized and out there yet.

How about a shot of ultraviolet light instead of a flu shot? With seasonal vaccines often proving ineffective, researchers work on germ-killing lamps and a ‘universal vaccine’ to keep the virus at bay.

11/16/2018

Dr. Hei presenting at our Radiation Oncology Research Retreat.

This brings together our clinicians, residents, and researchers to talk about our ongoing research in the department. We've had at least one cross pollination grant application come out of this annual event.

Keeps the lab work focused on the clinical needs and the clinic aware of the lab support of future ideas for therapy.

08/30/2018

RARAF UVC work getting more recognition. Lots to do still, but looking good.

Columbia researchers are developing an optical fiber system that uses a type of UV light to sterilize areas around skin-penetrating medical devices.