From there, he held appointments at University of Aarhus, the Gray Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin before taking the post at University of Maryland.

"I came into this field at a great time," said Dr. Bentzen. "Radiation therapy has undergone quite a renaissance. The progress we've made in understanding radiation biology and molecular cancer biology has revolutionized the way radiation oncology is practiced."


Indeed, Dr. Bentzen has played a large role in that understanding. For years, he has studied the long-term effects of normal tissue toxicity as a result of radiation treatment. According to one nominating letter, "Søren's work on normal tissue injury is probably the most important work of this type in the radiation oncology literature."

This work led him to consider dose-fractionation schedules and how radiation therapy might be best tailored to maximize tumor control while minimizing toxicity to normal tissue. In another nominating letter, the writer concludes, "His work on modeling and fractionation have been essential to how we can use radiation safely in the clinic."

Dr. Bentzen is now focusing on a new frontier of cancer care: personalized medicine using big data to better tailor treatments. He said, "At the end of the day, it's about optimizing the treatment for each individual. There are so many new possibilities that we didn't have 15 years ago. With population-level registry data and electronic health records and then with what we know about genomics—combining data and knowledge across all of those fields is challenging and also very exciting."

Louis B. Harrison, MD, FASTRO, is a renaissance man of radiation oncology. From developing a customized high-dose-rate (HDR) radiation therapy applicator to writing a textbook to leading multidisciplinary teams, Dr. Harrison's accomplishments in the field are varied and far-reaching.

Dr. Harrison began his medical career in surgery, receiving the Clarence Dennis Society Prize for Surgical Scholarship for the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate College of Medicine's class of 1982. But he soon switched paths to radiation oncology, saying, "I thought radiation oncology had the best opportunity for curing cancer while optimizing functional outcome and quality of life."

His surgical background has proven effective for forging partnerships with clinicians across all oncologic specialties. As more people see the value in multidisciplinary cancer care, Dr. Harrison gladly welcomes them to the club—he has been a leader in comprehensive cancer care for decades.

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