Fred Hutch Cancer Center – Proton Therapy gets a new champion

Fred Hutch Cancer Center – Proton Therapy welcomed its new associate vice president of radiation oncology, Isaac Valdez, PhD, CMD, in June 2026.

Valdez, who relocated from Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center, immediately launched a handful of new key initiatives for the organization. His priorities include improving the patient experience, developing a strategy to upgrade equipment across the radiation oncology division and working with vendors to strategize about the future of protons.

Valdez brings extensive experience in radiation oncology operations, proton therapy and multi-site leadership to the position. In his prior role, he served as vice president of the proton therapy division, tasked with improving patient access, clinical operations and revenue cycle performance for 13 proton therapy centers.

“One thing we did was re-design the insurance authorization process for our patients,” Valdez said. “By developing a medical insurance training program, we reduced the time from consult to treatment by 30%”

Valdez also held leadership roles at MD Anderson, where he collaborated with clinical faculty to grow programs, enhance patient navigation models and improve digital workflows by developing dashboards to track every interaction with patients.

The importance of patient access to proton therapy

Early in his career, Valdez trained and worked as a dosimetrist using similar precision computer software to Fred Hutch’s to calculate and optimize radiation dose, customizing it to each patient’s unique anatomy and condition.

“I got to see the full gamut of radiation therapy options while working there,” he said. “But it was the pediatric program that drew me to proton therapy. I saw what it meant for families of children helped by protons and wanted to get more involved. People flew from all over the world to receive treatment because it is still limited to only a few places. My goal became to understand and increase equitable channels of patient access to proton therapy.”  

The future of proton therapy

Valdez sees proton therapy as a treatment that has many opportunities for growth and refinement, such as in the types of cancer and number of patients able to benefit from it. He said he’s already seen a broadening of access and candidates over the years and anticipates more expansion across the nation.

He hopes the same can happen here at Fred Hutch.

“Proton therapy may serve certain populations best, such as pediatric, head-and-neck and young adult patients,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t beneficial to other patients as well. Proton therapy is one tool among several for a radiation oncologist. We’ve made a lot of progress learning about the capabilities and clinical value of proton therapy. We now have trial evidence that proton therapy has both a survival benefit and quality of life improvement for many cancers. So, we need to grow the availability of proton therapy in order to provide equitable access to the treatment.”

Valdez explained that there are so many more options for proton delivery than were available in the past — including smaller footprint, single-room centers. Fred Hutch, for instance, could consider single-room centers in various locations that are more convenient for patients, he said.

But expanding proton therapy in the greater Seattle region would take a lot of resources, which Valdez acknowledges could be a challenge.  

“We have to be strategic about the future of protons for our system, and that will involve creativity and integrative thinking,” he said.

As an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, Fred Hutch continues to research and provide the best possible treatments for cancer, and Valdez believes that proton therapy is an important part of that. He plans to nurture the program at Fred Hutch in his position as vice president of the radiation oncology program.