Bio
Billy W. Loo Jr., MD PhD is a Professor of Radiation Oncology, a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute, of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS), Bio-X, and the Biomedical Physics Graduate Program. He is a physician-scientist Radiation Oncologist and Bioengineer who is Director of Thoracic Radiation Oncology, Co-director of Particle Therapy, Director of New Technologies, and Principal Investigator of the FLASH Sciences Lab @Stanford.
His clinical specialty is precision targeted radiotherapy for lung/thoracic cancers, including stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) and proton therapy. Dr. Loo is a recognized expert in thoracic cancers serving on multiple national committees (including as writing member or vice-chair) that publish clinical guidelines on the treatment of lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies, particularly the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN).
His clinical research is in clinical trials and implementation of new treatment techniques and technologies, particularly for lung cancer, and development of new medical imaging methods for measuring organ function and predicting response to cancer treatment. He has developed novel applications of SABR including treatment of pulmonary emphysema and cardiac arrhythmias. He also catalyzed the development and clinical introduction of the world's first ultra-compact advanced proton therapy platform.
The research focus of the FLASH Sciences Lab @Stanford, directed by Prof. Loo, is the development and study of extremely rapid FLASH therapy to optimize the biological therapeutic index of cancer radiotherapy, and the technological infrastructure for this basic research and its clinical translation. Prof. Loo is co-inventor of a fundamentally new approach to delivering ultra-rapid, ultra-precise cancer therapy, pluridirectional high-energy agile scanning electronic radiotherapy (PHASER), and co-leads a program to develop it into a transformative and clinically practical technology.
Prof. Loo received his MD from University of California, Davis and his PhD in Bioengineering from University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley. He completed his Radiation Oncology residency training at Stanford Medicine. He is certified by the American Board of Radiology in Radiation Oncology, and is a Fellow of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and a Fellow of the American College of Radiology (ACR).
