Roberts Prize for the best paper published in 2009

The publishers of Physics in Medicine and Biology (PMB), IOP Publishing, in association with the journal owners, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM), jointly award an annual prize for the best paper published in PMB during the previous year. The procedure for deciding the winner has been made as thorough as possible, to try to ensure that an outstanding paper wins the prize. We started off with a shortlist of the 10 research papers published in 2009 which were rated the best based on the referees' quality assessments. Following the submission of a short 'case for winning' document by each of the shortlisted authors, an IPEM college of jurors of the status of FIPEM assessed and rated these 10 papers in order to choose a winner, which was then endorsed by the Editorial Board. We have a clear, and very worthy, winner this year. We have much pleasure in advising readers that the 2009 Roberts Prize is awarded to E Z Zhang et al from University College London for their paper on photoacoustic tomography. In vivo high resolution 3D photoacoustic imaging of superficial vascular anatomy E Z Zhang, J G Laufer, R B Pedley and P C Beard 2009 Phys. Med. Biol. 54 1035–46 Our congratulations go to these authors. Of course all of the shortlisted papers were of great merit, and the full top-10 is listed below (in alphabetical order). Steve Webb Editor-in-Chief Simon Harris Publisher References Cheng Y-C N , Neelavalli J and Haacke E M 2009 Limitations of calculating field distributions and magnetic susceptibilities in MRI using a Fourier based method Phys. Med. Biol. 54 1169–89 Cho S, Ahn S, Li Q and Leahy R M 2009 Exact and approximate Fourier rebinning of PET data from time-of-flight to non time-of-flight 2009 Phys. Med. Biol. 54 467–84 Davidson S R H, Weersink R A, Haider M A, Gertner M R, Bogaards A, Giewercer D, Scherz A, Sherar M D, Elhilali M, Chin J L, Trachtenberg J and Wilson B C 2009 Treatment planning and dose analysis for interstitial photodynamic therapy of prostate cancer Phys. Med. Biol. 54 2293–313 Hand J W, Shaw A, Sadhoo N, Rajagopal S, Dickinson R J and Gavrilov L R 2009 A random phased array device for delivery of high intensity focused ultrasound Phys. Med. Biol. 54 5675–93 Johnson P, Lee C, Johnson K, Siragusa D and Bolch W E 2009 The influence of patient size on dose conversion coefficients: a hybrid phantom study for adult cardiac catheterization Phys. Med. Biol. 54 3613–29 Paganetti H 2009 Dose to water versus dose to medium in proton beam therapy Phys. Med. Biol. 54 4399–421 Pramanik M, Song K H, Swierczewska M, Green D, Sitharaman B and Wang L V 2009 In vivo carbon nanotube-enhanced non-invasive photoacoustic mapping of the sentinel lymph node Phys. Med. Biol. 54 3291–301 Schondube H, Stierstorfer K and Noo F 2009 Accurate helical cone-beam CT reconstruction with redundant data 2009 Phys. Med. Biol. 54 4625–44 Tang G, Earl M A and Yu C X 2009 Variable dose rate single-arc IMAT delivered with a constant dose rate and variable angular spacing Phys. Med. Biol. 54 6439–56 Zhang E Z, Laufer J G, Pedley R B and Beard P C 2009 In vivo high resolution 3D photoacoustic imaging of superficial vascular anatomy Phys. Med. Biol. 54 1035–46 For more information on this article see medicalphysicsweb.org