Radiation oncology research efforts flourish in the collaborative atmosphere and practices of the UC Davis Cancer Center and through our associations with other schools, departments and major research centers. We actively collaborate in clinical or laboratory research with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Sacramento VA Medical Center, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and other departments in the UC Davis Health System. In addition to the Sacramento VA at Mather, our radiation oncology department contracts with Kaiser Permanente, Fremont-Rideout Cancer Center in Marysville, Mercy Cancer Center in Merced, and other regional health providers to offer highly specialized treatments unavailable anywhere else outside the Bay Area in Northern California.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was founded in 1952 with a mission to ensure national security and apply science and technology to the important issues of the present day.  LLNL is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy. Starting in 1994, LLNL led the effort to develop Peregrine, an advanced computer-based method for calculating, in three dimensions, where radiation goes in the body, and how much of it is striking tissue, bone or empty cavities. Peregrine uses individual patient CT scans to tailor precise radiation dose calculations for each patient, based on each patient's distinct anatomy and disease. Peregrine was developed with the multidisciplinary scientific expertise at LLNL — including physicists, computer scientists and electrical engineers — in collaboration with researchers at other academic institutions. Peregrine combines LLNL's more than 50 years of radiation physics expertise with advanced computer architectures. It relies on the Monte Carlo mathematical technique to track radiation.

UC Davis Radiation Oncology has had a 10-year relationship with the Sacramento VA Medical Center of Mather, California (VA Mather) and is increasing its collaboration in clinical, educational and research arenas. UC Davis Radiation Oncology provides radiation therapy consultation and extensive treatment services for the VA Mather as well as for the seven other Northern California VA ambulatory centers. 

VA Mather is part of the VA Northern California Health Care System, which is a unique, affiliated health care system, providing a full range of medical care to veterans who live in Northern California, an area consisting of 600,000 veterans dispersed over approximately 40,000 square miles. California’s demographics are changing, with more elderly people moving to northern California, and the VA is seeing many of these people. The VA Mather has a new, state-of-the-art hospital with research facilities and offers a wide range of medical and surgical inpatient and outpatient programs and services. The relationship between UC Davis Radiation Oncology and the VA Mather is being further strengthened by:

• Our UC Davis radiobiologist having a joint appointment with the VA and using VA lab space for his research
• A prostate brachytherapy program starting in the near future (the VA has a substantial number of prostate cancer patients)
• UC Davis radiation oncology residents participating in the care of VA patients
• UC Davis faculty radiation oncologists providing consultation at the VA and participating in additional multidisciplinary conferences.

A unique element of the UC Davis Radiation Oncology program is its work with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine – the largest of the nation's twenty-eight veterinary schools, with faculty and staff who treat about 30,000 animal patients a year. UC Davis Veterinary Medicine is a partner in the radiation oncology developing program, adding veterinary medicine to the strengths of biological science and human medicine. The department chair of radiation oncology, Dr. Vijayakumar, holds a joint appointment with the UCD School of Veterinary Medicine. Veterinary medicine contributes directly to human health by investigating and controlling diseases shared by animals and humans, such as cancer. Faculty members also actively pursue basic and applied research in departments and through interdisciplinary centers of excellence. The Center for Comparative Medicine brings veterinary and human medical scientists together to investigate the causes and cures of persistent infectious diseases shared by animals and humans, and to encourage an interest in laboratory careers.

Lastly,  UC Davis Cancer Center programs add immense expertise and resources to the Radiation Oncology program.  UC Davis is a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer center, with six research programs:  molecular oncology, cancer biology, cancer therapeutics, cancer prevention and control, prostate cancer, and biomedical technology. The complexities of cancer encourage multidisciplinary collaboration. 

At UC Davis, major collaborative groups include the Prostate Cancer Affinity Group, which focuses on the biology of prostate cancer; the Signal Transduction Program, which focuses on basic cellular processes which go awry and thereby give rise to cancer; the Radioimmunotherapy Program, which both uses radioactive drugs to seek and kill cancer cells and drugs to select cancer cells for exposure to radiation; and the Developmental Therapeutics Program, which combines clinical trials with basic science to create and test new chemotherapeutic agents. The Developmental Therapeutics Program also includes the areas of toxicology, molecular and clinical pharmacology. UC Davis Cancer Center program multidisciplinary efforts extend beyond the walls of the university as well.