The 2nd ELIMEDICS Workshop was held at ELI Beamlines on 3 and 4 March 2016. ELIMEDICS is a regular workshop which aims at promoting user activities related to biological and medical applications using the secondary sources (ions, electrons, X-rays) foreseen at ELI Beamlines. Within this framework, the aim of the 2nd ELIMEDICS workshop was to discuss with national and international users the capabilities of different experimental areas at ELI Beamlines and to gather advanced user requirements in order to influence the future development of the secondary sources currently being implemented.
The workshop gathered around 70 international specialists of different disciplines like Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Material Science, Medical Physicists and Medical Doctors coming from the Czech Republic (about 50%) and other European countries (Germany, Italy, UK, Hungary, France, Portugal, Romania). They contributed to high-level presentations and discussions on the ELIMEDICS program topics. The presentations were distributed as follows:
- 6 talks on Radiobiology Effects of Short Particle Bunches
- 6 talks on Radiotherapy with Laser based Particle Beams
- 2 talks on Biomedical Infrastructures in the Czech Republic
- 4 talks on Imaging with advanced X-ray Sources
- 6 talks (out of which No. 5 by ELI Beamlines young researchers) on Applications and User Availability at ELI Beamlines
Moreover several students (about 10) have actively participated in the workshop through oral and poster presentations. The gender issue was also positively addressed with a participation of women around 20%. On the basis of the oral contributions given by worldwide recognized specialists during the workshop, a final round table discussion was also carried out promoting future user directions which might be followed. For instance the collaboration with national biomedical centers will be intensified; additional European countries will be involved as well as the plasma medicine community. Moreover specific topics, such as pre-thermal approaches to pulsed radiolysis, pulsed radiotherapy with and without chemotherapy and personalized medicine, will be addressed.