Beam of Hope
SJSU alumnus James Dempsey captured lightning in a bottle. His cutting-edge medical technology is saving lives and revolutionizing radiation treatment for cancer as we know it.
James Dempsey, ’92 Chemistry, has a passion for solving “impossible problems.” That’s because, as he says, “They’re not impossible. They’re just the ones we don’t know how to do yet.”
The foundation of Dempsey’s career is built upon the experiences he had at San José State, especially under former nuclear chemistry faculty member Peter A.J. Englert, who, Dempsey says, “shaped his perspective on science.”
In addition, Dempsey explains, Englert not only employed him in his lab at SJSU, which helped pay for his tuition, but also helped him land a job working on NASA’s Mars Observer at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany.
“For me, [SJSU] was amazing,” Dempsey recalls. “The programs were amazing. The chemistry faculty were great. I think San José State is a tremendous asset to Silicon Valley. I was very pleased when my son decided to go there.”
Dempsey’s vision for his life, however, was clear long before SJSU: “When I was a kid, people would say, ‘What do you want to be?’ I’d tell them ‘I want to be an inventor.’” But they didn’t believe him; some even told him that was “not a thing.” Dempsey proved them all wrong.
In 2004, he founded ViewRay, a medical technology company that is, to this day, ahead of its time — and became an inventor of a revolutionary radiation therapy for cancer: the MRIdian®.
1989: Dempsey in San José playing guitar. Had he not pursued college then, he was prepared to chase a different path: rock and roll. Photo: Courtesy of James Dempsey.
Present day: Dempsey followed his first passion: inventing, and he ultimately became the founder and chief scientific officer of ViewRay Technologies. Photo: Courtesy of James Dempsey.
Most of us have had a direct or indirect experience with someone who has, or has had, cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year more than 1.6 million people are diagnosed with cancer in the U.S.; it’s the second leading cause of death in the country, after heart disease. But with ViewRay’s MRIdian, a cancer diagnosis doesn’t have to mean “the end” — even for patients who had previously been told that there was no hope, no medical options left.
The MRIdian combines an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) with advanced radiation technologies to provide an MRI-guided radiation therapy that enables radiation therapists to see, follow and treat tumors in real time — with the precision, accuracy and control of a surgeon.
There are other systems out there using PET (positron emission tomography) or CT (computerized tomography) scans, ultrasounds and X-rays, but only MRI machines can accurately see the soft tissues, explains Dempsey. And only the MRIdian uses technology of this kind.*
“It’s still something that even shocks our physicians when they see it for the first time,” he says.
The MRIdian also automatically controls the beam of radiation to target only the tumor, protecting patients from unnecessary harm to healthy tissues and critical organs. Therapists change the dose of radiation they deliver on the spot as required.
“It’s called stereotactic, MRI-guided [adaptive] radiation therapy, SMART therapy,” Dempsey continues. “We know where the tumors are. In fact, all of them keep moving around. The current solution is to radiate the whole region.
With the ViewRay technology, [therapists] can see where the tumors are, and the beam will not fire unless it’s locked on target.
“That’s really the critical thing — the ability to see not just what you’re treating but also control the beam and reshape the dose. Those three capabilities really change the game.”
A typical course of radiation is five treatments per week, Monday through Friday, often for six weeks or longer. Dempsey’s MRIdian reduces that to five treatments or less, which results in little to no side effects versus standard radiation therapy.
These drawings provide a simplified example of how the treatment works and a close-up image of a cancerous tumor.
This illustration depicts a tumor and its target area pre-treatment using the MRIdian. Thanks to this breakthrough technology, doctors, radiation therapists and medical physicists are able to see and target tumors in real time with pinpoint accuracy — while also sparing the healthy tissues around its perimeter.
Dr. Jonathan Clark with patient Robert Olea. Photo: Courtesy of Enloe Medical Center.
“The MRIdian, in many ways, is a game-changer for cancer patients and radiation oncologists,” says Dr. Jonathan Clark, a radiation oncologist at Enloe Medical Center’s Regional Cancer Center, the first medical facility to offer the MRIdian in Northern California. “Our field is moving away from five to nine-week treatments to ultra-precise, ultra-high-dose treatments that only take three to five days.”
Clark explains that the MRIdian’s precision now enables radiation oncologists and therapists to treat cancers that were once thought to be impossible to treat.
“Examples of this include high-dose pancreatic treatment and previously radiated patients who now have a recurrence,” he says.
“The other benefit to this machine is for our rural patients, who often have to travel one to two hours for treatment. This has traditionally been a huge limiter to patient care, but now patients can be less stressed when they know it will only take one week versus six.”
The MRIdian gave Robert Olea, the first pancreatic cancer patient to be treated with the technology at Enloe, a newfound sense of hope and a new lease on life. After the 92-year-old former pilot was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2021, he started planning his funeral for December, having been informed that he could have just months to live.
Olea was not interested in undergoing extensive treatment, but when Clark introduced the MRIdian as an option that would only take five sessions, he decided to give it a try.
“I went through a week of radiation,” recalls Olea. “I had no ill effects. I wasn’t nauseous. I wasn’t dizzy. A few weeks later, I had a [CT] scan to see what the results were, and it looks like it just stopped everything in its tracks. And that’s the way it’s been ever since. The MRIdian did its job.”
As for the radiation oncology field, Clark says: “We always want better and more accurate ways to treat patients in order to control the tumor and reduce side effects. The MRIdian allows us to do just that.”
“The MRIdian, in many ways, is a game-changer for cancer patients and radiation oncologists.”
— Dr. Jonathan Clark
The story of how Dempsey invented the MRIdian and founded ViewRay begins with an unexpected analogy to Don Quixote. “Clinical researchers are Don Quixote,” he says. “We see a windmill on a hill, and we say charge.”
Dempsey found more than just windmills in his life; after SJSU, he completed his PhD in nuclear chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. A friend took him on a tour of Washington’s medical school, where Dempsey was struck by the patients in a waiting room for radiation. It was like a light bulb went off, he describes.
He knew he could do something to help, so he spent the next three years doing postdoctoral research, working side by side with clinicians, understanding the practical side — and the flaws — of cancer treatment. He went on to teach and conduct research in radiation oncology at the University of Florida.
By happenstance, Dempsey missed a faculty meeting in which the university’s medical center was deciding whether or not to discard an old-fashioned cobalt-60 radiation machine. Cobalts had fallen out of favor as medical technology for radiation treatment advanced, and linear accelerators, commonly referred to as linacs, replaced them over time.
“My boss said, ‘Wait, Jim Dempsey wants it for research.’ When he came back from the meeting, he told me I was inheriting the cobalt,” Dempsey recalls. He and his students then made high-tech measurements on the old machine and found it was much sharper than expected. At that moment, he realized he could do advanced radiotherapy with this antiquated technology — he just wasn’t sure how.
Dempsey founded ViewRay as he continued to teach, conduct research and figure out how to make the cobalt work with new technology. But soon, he found himself facing a life- and career-changing decision: continue his tenure as an associate professor with research on the side or finally dedicate himself fully to science and his company.
Ultimately, like Quixote, he chose to embark on an epic quest — he left academia to do research full time. He eventually figured out how the cobalt, which used radioactive nuclear energy, complemented the technology of the MRI — as opposed to the high-energy X-rays used by linacs, which interfered with it. And in 2010, his first prototype of the MRIdian was born.
It wasn’t long before Dempsey’s propensity for solving impossible problems led him to tackle how to combine an MRI with linac-powered radiation.
In 2012, he and his team obtained FDA clearance for a new type of linac with an MRI at their facility in Mountain View, California. A year and a half later, the first patient was treated with this breakthrough therapy at his alma mater, Washington University’s medical campus.
“That’s really the critical thing — the ability to see not just what you’re treating but also control the beam and reshape the dose. Those three capabilities really change the game.”
— James Dempsey
ViewRay's latest innovation, the MRIdian A3i, received 510(k) FDA clearance in December, and far surpasses Dempsey’s original cobalt, which they no longer make.
According to their December 2021 press release, the A3i is now equipped with new features to treat abnormalities and tumors in the brain and enables clinicians to “collaborate simultaneously and connect remotely during patient treatment.” Dempsey refers to it as ViewRay’s version of Zoom treatments.
During radiation, patients must also hold their breath and stay completely still while the beam of radiation is deployed on their bodies. The newest version of the MRIdian is upgraded with a countdown display, so patients know exactly when to hold their breath; they can talk with the therapist or put their favorite music on and watch for visual cues.
Dempsey compares the experience to a video game: “You’re trying to keep one circle inside the other one. Hold your breath, the beam turns on, and you get your dose. Exhale, you catch your breath; the beam turns off. Essentially if the patient can help position themselves better, they can help keep it on target.”
To date, more than 18,000 patients around the world have been treated with ViewRay’s MRIdian technology; of them, over 2,300 have been unresectable pancreatic cancer patients. Forty-eight top medical centers around the globe use the MRIdian; three are in Northern California: Enloe in Chico and, as of this year, Bass Cancer Center in Walnut Creek and Stanford Health Care.
“Building these systems is tremendously gratifying, but it’s nothing compared to a doctor calling and saying, ‘This matters,’” says Dempsey. “And from day one, that was the goal.”
*ViewRay holds an exclusive worldwide license for its combination of MRI and radiation therapy technologies.
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