Date of birth: 03/06/1931

Date of death: 01/01/1998

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BIOGRAPHY

Börje Larsson was a biologist who held academic positions at Uppsala and Zurich universities and who played a key role the field of radiation therapy, radiosurgery and the development of the Gamma Knife machine with Lars Leksell.

Early in his career he worked with the synchrocyclotron at Uppsala’s Werner Institute, where the world’s first proton treatment of a tumour patient was carried out in 1957 and, with Leksell, a first brain operation was carried out in 1958, which was heralded as a medical ‘wonder’ for using an invisible knife.

Larsson helped to develop dosimetric methods and carried out experiments in which the biological effects of protons were analysed. He went on to contribute to the development of radiosurgery and treatments of brain diseases, including Parkinson’s and arterial-venous blood vessel malformations, and was one of the main collaborators with Leksell on the Gamma Knife, which uses gamma rays rather than protons and has become a successful method of treating brain tumours.

Larsson also set up a PET (positron emission tomography) centre at Uppsala and researched boron neutron therapy, in which tumours are loaded with boron. He is remembered as a creative, multidisciplinary scientist.

See this obituary and also this article by Elekta, the company that makes the Gamma Knife.