Chairman - Jerry D. Slater, M.D.
Dr. Slater is Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiation Medicine, Loma Linda University (LLU), is Medical Director and Director of Clinical Affairs for the department at Loma Linda University Medical Center (LLUMC), and holds appointments at several other hospitals in California. Dr. Slater’s prime professional pursuit is optimizing radiation therapy, including proton-beam irradiation. Hospital-based proton radiation treatment was pioneered at LLU in 1990; Dr. Slater has been involved in designing treatment protocols and clinical research investigations from the beginning.
He is a member of several academic and clinical committees at LLU, including the Cancer Committee, the Radiation Research Committee, the Clinical Research Scientific Review Committee, and the Medical Staff Executive Committee. He is a member of several professional societies, among them the American College of Radiology, the American Radium Society, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, and the Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group.
Dr. Slater is a graduate of LLU School of Medicine. He took residency training in radiation oncology at M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, Houston, followed by a fellowship in radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory, Boston.
He has authored or co-authored many articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as several book chapters and presentations at professional meetings; most of these works involve proton radiation therapy and its applications at LLUMC. Dr. Slater conducts research to further enhance the precision of protons via improved delivery systems such as robotic positioning and active beam scanning, both of which extend proton treatment to a greater number of patients with a wider variety of cancers and other diseases. He is also involved in research to apply proton radiation in novel ways, such as reducing treatment time by means of hypofractionation and employing protons for radiosurgical and palliative applications.