18 Sep Dr. Thomas ‘Rock’ Mackie receives gold medal from radiation oncology society
Dr. Thomas “Rock” Mackie, of the UW Carbone Cancer Center, will receive the Gold Medal Award for his contributions to cancer treatment from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), the world’s premier radiation oncology society, which held its annual meeting Sept. 15 to 18.
Mackie, professor emeritus of engineering, medical physic and human oncology, contributed many important inventions to radiation therapy. He is probably best known for his development of tomotherapy, which directs a continuous helical delivery pattern of radiation that can be programmed to any shape, thus limiting the dose to healthy tissue. He founded companies, TomoTherapy (now owned by Accuray) and Geometrics, and currently serves as UW Health’s chief innovation officer, and head of Isthmus Project, the health system’s new innovation accelerator.
He will receive the 2019 ASTRO Gold Medal from UW faculty member Dr. Paul Harari, who serves as chairman of the ASTRO board of directors.