Partnerships

The CNAO became a reality thanks to a series of collaborations and partnerships with organisations and companies that help to gather specialists in different fields around the project and, at the same time, to keep and increase the number of experts that forms the core team that manages the Center. The following list shows the bodies that have contributed to set up the centre of Pavia and which are now involved in the operational and research activities of the Center.

The national collaboration network is made up of the following bodies:

• TERA Foundation: final project, high technology specifications, research
• INFN: With co-direction responsibilities, > 15 technical tasks, research and training
• Politecnico di Milano: Patients' positioning, radiation protection
• University of Milan: medical coordination and training
• University of Pavia: technical tasks, radiobiology and training
• University of Catania: Medical Physics
• University of Eastern Piedmont: medical activities
• European Institute of Oncology: medical activities, authorisations
• San Matteo Hospital, Pavia: medical activities, logistics
• Municipality of Pavia: land and authorisations
• Province of Pavia: transport logistics/ roads and authorisations

International collaboration network

• CERN (Geneva): technical tasks, PIMMS Project
• GSI (Darmstadt): Linac and special biophysics components and Dose Delivery with treatment of organs in motion
• LPSC (Grenoble): optics, Betatron, low-level RF, control system
• NIRS (Chiba): medical activities, radiobiology, training
• HIT (Heidelberg): research activities

European and Research Projects

The Particle Training Network for European Radiotherapy or PARTNER project was launched in 2008. The aim of the project was to train medical and technical personnel as well as medical physicists at currently operational and emerging hadrontherapy centres throughout Europe. The project also promoted the exchange of researchers among the nations of the partnership: during the 3 years the project lasted, two radiation oncologists from India and Singapore and a physicist from Colombia worked at the CNAO.
The activities of the PARTNER radiation oncologists employed at CNAO focused on training on the clinical aspects of hadrontherapy, the definition of new clinical studies and the identification of new potential indications on hadrontherapy on the basis of epidemiological data.; The PARTNER physicist, instead, was engaged in the design of a new carbon ion gantry in collaboration with the group of the 3 physicists belonging to the ULICE project.

The ULICE (Union of Light Ion Centres in Europe) project, funded by the European Community under the 7th Program (FP7-Infrastructure-2008-1), for a total duration of 48 months, was launched in 2009. The project was coordinated by Prof.Roberto Orecchia, Scientific Director of the CNAO Foundation, and 19 other European Institutes took part in it (see table below).