Professor Thomas Hangartner

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Fulbright Senior Scholar

Media profile

“Women with breast cancer often receive a treatment that has a negative effect on bones. Most of these women do not die as a result of the breast cancer but may suffer bone loss and structural decay, which increase fracture risk and decrease quality of life.”

Distinguished Professor Thomas Hangartner, College of Engineering and Computer Science, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio has received a Fulbright Senior Scholarship to come to The University of Melbourne in Australia. He will study bone strength in women who have been treated for breast cancer.

“Drugs known as aromatase inhibitors have been successful in reducing the growth of cancer tissue in the breast due to their effect in lowering estrogen levels. However reducing the level of estrogen through aromatase inhibitors is likely to accelerate bone loss, although the effect is not seen in all women and not to the same degree in all women,” Professor Hangartner said.

Professor Hangartner’s Fulbright project brings together the distinctive resources at The University of Melbourne in Australia and expertise developed at Wright State University, to develop and implement an accurate computer model of bone and use it to evaluate the effect of aromatase inhibitors on bone strength in an individual patient.

The tool will have the benefits of helping to identify women with breast cancer who are most likely to fracture bones in the future so that they can be given appropriate treatment. His work will also shed light on the development of osteoporosis in healthy women.

Thomas has a Dipl. Phys. ETH, a teaching certificate (Secondary Education), and a Dr. sc. nat., from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich. He has won various awards and prizes, including Outstanding Engineer and Scientist Award, Engineering and Science Foundation of Dayton; Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine; Honorary Chair, Imaging Science and Biomedical Engineering, The University of Manchester. In his spare time he enjoys photography as well as playing the flute, recorders and crumhorns.