UQ Alumni honours top medico

The University's 1997 Alumnus of the Year is 1956 medicine graduate Dr Rodney Withers - who this year won the United States government's oldest known science and technology award.

Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the UCLA School of Medicine, Dr Withers shared the US Department of Energy's Enrico Fermi award and a $100,000 honorarium with Colorado State University radiological health sciences professor Mortimer Elkind.

Dr Withers and Dr Elkind won the award for their collaborative investigation of healthy and malignant cell responses to irradiation, establishing a scientific basis for radiation therapy as an anti-cancer treatment.

Their work also demonstrated the benefits of administering small doses of radiation at regular intervals which, when compared to a single, intense dose of radiation, resulted in less damage to the normal tissue of cancer patients and more damage to cancer cells.

It also showed that cancer, like normal tissues, can respond to injury by a speeded up growth process.
US President Bill Clinton said the work of the two scientists provided an 'example of how science benefits the work and personal lives of Americans on a daily basis'.

Their work was an inspiration to young people considering a scientific career, he said.

Dr Withers, also a clinical research professor of the American Cancer Society, is known for his work on post-radiation repair and the effects of ionizing radiation on normal tissues. Many of the techniques he developed are now being used in laboratories throughout the world.

His awards include the 1991 H.S. Kaplan Distinguished Scientist Award from the International Association for Radiation Research, the 1991 American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology gold medal, the 1994 Janeway Medal of the American Radium Society, the 1988 Failla Award (Radiation Research Society) and the 1995 Gray Medal of the International Commission on Radiation Units Measurements.

After graduating from the University of Queensland, Dr Withers worked as a radiation oncologist at the Queensland Radium Institute. He was awarded the University of Queensland Gaggin Fellowship, and went to the University of London to pursue PhD studies, later gaining a doctorate of science from the same institution.

Dr Withers will receive his Alumnus of the Year Award at the University of Queensland Faculty of Health Sciences graduation ceremony on December 5.
All University graduates are welcome to attend the Alumnus of the Year dinner to be held after the ceremony at Women's College.

For bookings, and further information contact the Alumni office (telephone 07 3365 1554).