Björn Morén

Bjorn Moren

Postdoctoral Fellow

Department of Oncology, McGill University

M.Sc. Mathematics, PhD Mathematical Optimization

Novel Brachytherapy Technology Group

Artificial Intelligence Group

Bio

Björn Morén has a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. in mathematics from Linköping University, Sweden. He did his Master thesis at the company Jeppesen, Gothenburg, Sweden. After working a few years for the startup company Schemagi as an algorithm developer, he pursued a PhD within the intersection of mathematical optimization and medical physics at Linköping University, under the supervision of Professor Torbjörn Larsson and Adjunct Professor Åsa Carlsson Tedgren. The project was about treatment planning of high dose-rate brachytherapy and Björn defended his thesis in 2021. Since then he has worked with teaching and he is currently a Postdoc.

Current Projects

Robust optimization for IMBT rectal cancer Intensity modulated brachytherapy (IMBT) is a delivery technique for brachytherapy (BT) in which shields are used to further modulate the dose distribution, as compared to conventional high dose-rate (HDR) BT. For rectal cancer, our group has designed and built a shielded applicator. In this project, we investigate rotational uncertainties of the applicator and what effect those could have on evaluation criteria such as the dose-volume histogram. Furthermore, a robust optimization approach is proposed to mitigate these effects from uncertainty. Catheter placement for prostate HDR brachytherapy – Investigating trade-offs between spatial properties and number of catheters We study the treatment planning project of HDR BT for prostate cancer including both decisions on catheter placements and dwell times. Our focus is to improve spatial properties such as contiguous volumes that receive a high or a low dose, referred to as hot spots and cold spots, respectively. Further, we investigate the trade-offs between the number of inserted catheters and the sizes of hot spots and cold spots.