Harvard medical school professors to join research at western Georgia’s hadron therapy centre

Leading professors from Harvard Medical School will be involved in research at the hadron therapy centre, an in-construction facility in the city of Kutaisi in Georgia’s west, the Georgian education ministry said on Monday.

Thomas Bortfeld and Benjamin Klass, two leading professors of the school, met Georgian education minister Mikheil Chkhenkeli to highlight the importance of the centre, an ambitious project paired with the launch of the Kutaisi International University in a bid to create an educational and scientific hub in the west of the country.

Photo: Georgian education ministry

The ministry said Georgian professors together with their foreign colleagues would implement “important scientific projects” at the centre, a facility financed by the Cartu foundation in cooperation with Ion Beam Applications, a leading international company producing proton therapy equipment for treating cancer diseases.

Photo: Georgian government's press office

IBA has already built two cyclotrons for the centre, with one device set to be used for cancer treatment, while the other designated as part of the venue’s scientific research laboratory for medical, nuclear and radiation physics and biophysics studies.

In July 2022, Georgian prime minister Irakli Garibashvili marked the launch of the construction of the hadron therapy centre by calling the prospective venue an “unprecedented and unique” medical facility of “international scale” that would serve Georgian citizens and patients from across the South  Caucasus.