On July 27, 2023, with the passing of Dr. Frank J Lagerwaard, the profession of radiation oncology lost an outstanding clinician and a brilliant researcher.
Frank spent his childhood years in Rotterdam, Holland. He had graduated from St. Laurens College in 1981 and had earned his medical degree from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam in 1986. For a year between 1989-1990, Frank had worked at Militair Hospitaal Dr. A. Mathijsen as a Radiology Resident and had been a resident of Internal Medicine at the Ignatius Hospital until 1993. He stayed at the Daniel Den Hoed Cancer Center, Rotterdam to complete his radiation oncology training between 1993-2002 and his work resulted in a thesis that earned Lagerwaard a Doctor of Philosophy degree. After 2002, Lagerwaard started to work at the VU University Medical Center (VUMC).
Frank specialized in the treatment of CNS, lung, and pancreatic cancer. After 2006, he was involved in the development of the MR Linac program at VUMC. Many scholars are indebted to Lagerwaard for his pioneering work on ablative MR-guided adaptive radiotherapy. He had welcomed many departments within VUMC to share their initial experiences with this cutting edge technology.
Dr. Lagerwaard impact on the field was profound and far-reaching. He was a brilliant researcher, as is evident from the numerous condolences we have received from colleagues all around the world. Each of these contain a personal story of how Frank had positively contributed to their individual careers, professional organizations, and personal lives. His colleagues will always remember this bright, irreverent, kind, and warm-hearted scientist. His contributions and his positive influence on the lives of many will be forever lasting. There can be no nobler legacy.
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Statements
Author contributions
EO: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. MB-D: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The authors declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Summary
Keywords
obituary, Lagerwaard, MR-linac, prostate cancer, pancreas cancer
Citation
Özyar E and Ben-David M (2023) Obituary: Frank J. Lagerwaard MD, PhD. Front. Oncol. 13:1274666. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2023.1274666
Received
08 August 2023
Accepted
27 September 2023
Published
24 October 2023
Volume
13 - 2023
Edited by
Minesh P. Mehta, Baptist Health South Florida, United States
Reviewed by
Anna Bruynzeel, VU Medical Center, Netherlands
Updates
Copyright
© 2023 Özyar and Ben-David.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Enis Özyar, enis.ozyar@acibadem.com.tr
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.