On Thursday 10 July, Eleanor A. Blakely, Ph.D., Senior Staff Biophysicist, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, gave seminar on: Reflections and perspectives on 60 years of particle therapy; the first of a new series of seminars proposed by the Medical Applications Team.

It was in September 1954, when Dr John H. Lawrence successfully treated the first patient with proton therapy the very month and year CERN that CERN was created. The treatment of certain cancers and metabolic and neurological diseases followed with protons and alpha particle beams produced in his brother Ernest's Nobel-Prize-winning accelerators. Recent successes in the treatment of specific cancers with heavier ions such as carbon are being reported in several continents. 

Dr. Blakely, briefly reviewed the six decades of the entwined histories of CERN and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in developing this field, and their dual efforts to continue to develop the scientific basis, technology, co-ordination support and training opportunities needed to meet the challenges for the future.