Benjamin B. Williams

Research Interests

Tissue oxygen measurement; small animal imaging; image reconstruction; biodosimetry

Education

• BA, Physics, Kenyon College 1995
• PhD, Medical Physics, University of Chicago 2003

Awards

• Forbeck Scholar Award, William Guy Forbeck Research Foundation, 2005
• EPR International Conference Young Investigator Award, International EPA (ESR) Society, 2005
• IEEE Medical Imaging Conference Student Travel Award, 2001, 2002
  

Professional Activities

• Associate Director, EPR Center for the Study of Viable Systems at Dartmouth (Biological Applications)
• Member, Cancer Imaging & Radiobiology Program
• Scientific Advisory Board, International Association of Biological and EPR Radiation Dosimetry (IABERD)
• Medical Physics Fellow, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC)
• Member, American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM)
• Member, Radiation Research Society
• Member, American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO)
• Member, Health Physics Society
• Referee:
  Journal of Magnetic Resonance
  Antioxidant and Redox Signaling
  Health Physics Journal
  Concepts in Magnetic Resonance
  Radiation Measurements
  Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
  Radiation and Environmental Biophysics
  Magnetic Resonance in Chemistry

Research Projects

• Scintillation dosimetry for quality assurance in radiotherapy

  Scintillation dosimetry for quality assurance in radiotherapy

  Radiation therapy is used to treat cancer tumors by killing the tissue with high ionizing radiation doses. Modern external beam radiotherapy systems deliver high dose levels to precisely marked tumor volume in less time. As a mis-administration can have potentially severe impact to the surrounding healthy tissue, more stringent and complex quality assurance measurements are required in clinics. By developing a comprehensive optical dose imaging camera system, we aim to fundamentally simplify the quality assurance process and, in turn, to further promote the culture of safety in radiotherapy. By converting the dose to visible light using scintillation phantom, we can image and reconstruct 3D dose maps in real time, enabling complete and accurate verification in a fast enough timeframe for it to be useful in every procedure.

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Selected Publications

• Swartz HM, Williams BB, Zaki BI, Hartford AC, Jarvis LA, Chen EY, Comi RJ, Ernstoff MS, Hou H, Khan N, Swarts SG, Flood AB, Kuppusamy P Clinical EPR: Unique Opportunities and Some Challenges. Academic Radiology. 21:197-206. (2014)
• Williams BB, Flood AB, Swartz HM In vivo EPR tooth dosimetry for triage after a radiation event involving large populations. Radiation and Environmental Biophysics. 53:335–346. (2014)
• Swartz HM, Williams BB, Flood AB Overview of the principles and practice of biodosimetry. Radiation and Environmental Biophysics. 53:221–232. (2014)
• Demidenko E, Williams BB, Flood AB, Swartz HM Standard Error of Inverse Prediction for Dose-Response Relationship: Approximate and Exact Statistical Inference. Statistics in Medicine. 32(12): 2048–2061. (2013)
• Williams BB, Dong R, Nicolalde RJ, Matthews TP, Gladstone DJ, Demidenko E, Zaki BI, Salikhov IK, Lesniewski PN, Swartz HM Physically-based Biodosimetry using In Vivo EPR of Teeth in Patients Undergoing Total Body Irradiation. International Journal of Radiation Biology. Aug;87(8):766-75. (2011)
• Swartz HM, Williams BB, Nicolalde RJ, Demidenko E, Flood AB Overview of Biodosimetry for Management of Unplanned Exposures to Ionizing Radiation. Radiation Measurements 46:742-748. (2011)
• Swartz HM, Flood AB, Gougelet RM, Nicolalde RJ, Rea ME, Williams BB A critical assessment of biodosimetry methods for large-scale incidents. Health Phys. Feb;98(2):95-108. (2010)
• Khan N, Williams BB, Hou H, Li H, Swartz HM. Repetitive tissue pO2 measurements by electron paramagnetic resonance oximetry: current status and future potential for experimental and clinical studies. Antioxid Redox Signal. 2007 Aug;9(8):1169-82. Review. (view details on MedLine)
• Swartz HM, Burke G, Coey M, Demidenko E, Dong R, Grinberg O, Hilton J, Iwasaki A, Lesniewski P, Kmiec M, Lo K-M, Nicolalde RJ, Ruuge A, Salata Y, Sucheta A, Walczak T, Williams BB, Mitchell CA, Romanyukha A, Schauer DA. In vivo EPR for dosimetry. Radiation Measurements. 2007; 42:1075-1084.
• Elas M, Williams BB, Parasca A, Mailer C, Pelizzari CA, Lewis MA, River JN, Karczmar GS, Barth ED, Halpern HJ. Quantitative tumor oxymetric images from 4D electron paramagnetic resonance imaging (EPRI): methodology and comparison with blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) MRI. Magn Reson Med. 2003 Apr;49(4):682-91. (view details on MedLine)