A radiation oncologist who specializes in treating prostate cancer patients with proton therapy has been tapped to lead Scripps' under-construction proton facility.

Scripps Clinical Medical Group said last week that Dr. Carl J. Rossi, Jr., chief of genito-urinary and lymphoma radiation oncology at Loma Linda University Medical Center, will serve as medical director of the Scripps Proton Therapy Center. The $220 million center, based in suburban San Diego, is set to open in spring 2013.

Rossi has treated more than 9,000 prostate patients with protons, more than any other doctor in the world, Scripps said, and has worked at Loma Linda for the past two decades. Loma Linda, which opened in 1991, was the first commercial proton center in the country. Only nine such centers are operational in the United States, and only about two dozen around the world.

Construction on the five-room center began in October 2010, and the installation of the Varian Medical Systems-built cyclotron started last month.

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