12.09.2015
During the 46th Annual Meeting of the German Society for Medical Physics e. V. (DGMP) from 9 - 12 September 2015 in Marburg, Prof. Dr. med. habil. Dr. rer. nat. Peter Kneschaurek of the Klinikum rechts der Isar (TUM) received the Glocker Medal for his many years of dedication to medical physics. The Glocker medal is awarded since 2002 in memory of Richard Glocker (1890-1978), the last PhD of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen.
The FRM II also has to thank him a lot and congratulates him on this deserved tribute: "Prof. Kneschaurek has, together with others, planned the irradiation facility at the FRM already under Prof. Lothar Koester and was the responsible medical physics expert for the irradiation of 715 patients from 1985 to 2000. He brought in his great experience in the construction and operation of the patients’ therapy at the FRM II, "explains Prof. Petry.
Kneschaurek is originally a physicist and finished his doctorate with a topic from the semiconductor physics at the Physics Department of the TUM. He first worked at the research reactor in Garching (FRM) before he changed in the late 70s to the Klinikum rechts der Isar; where he became acquainted intensively with radiation biology and radiotherapy. Finally, he qualified as a university lecturer with a topic of Medical Physics, the brachytherapy, which uses sealed sources within the body, directly adjacent to the tumor, for treatment. From 1988 until his retirement in 2012, he was as Academic Director head of Medical Physics in the Department of Radiotherapy and Radiological Oncology of the TUM clinics.
As a medical physicist Kneschaurek has always been an important link between the two disciplines; he equipped – especially under Prof. Alfred Breit and Prof. Michael Molls – the Department of Radiotherapy and radiological oncology with the most modern radiation equipment and helped this way, that the "Institute for Radiological Radiotherapy and Oncology" became the "Department of Radiation Oncology and Radiation". In addition to teaching in medicine at the TUM he campaigned particularly for the education and training of medical physicists. Kneschaurek is author or coauthor of more than one hundred scientific publications and co-editor of the journal "Radiotherapy and Oncology". By retirement, he focused on his consultant activities, since his great and long experience make him further a sought-after expert.