Meet the Director – STEPHEN BOPPART

Dr. Stephen Boppart, MD, PhD, Founding Director, Mills Breast Cancer Institute
Dr. Boppart holds an MD from Harvard Medical School and a PhD in medical and electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign while serving as a professor of electrical engineering, bioengineering, and internal medicine at the University of Illinois.

While a student at Harvard and MIT, Dr. Boppart began to develop a biomedical imaging technology called Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). Similar in concept to ultrasound, the technology uses light to identify structural, functional, and molecular features in tissues and cells that could be used as diagnostic markers for cancer. After completing his degrees, he advanced his research as a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was named one of Technology Review magazine’s Top 100 Young Innovators in the World in 2002 for his medical imaging technology.

He continues to pursue OCT breakthroughs at Mills Breast Cancer Institute, where his time is divided between administrative work and research. He recently completed trial runs in Carle’s operating rooms, imaging tissue obtained during surgery. He is now working to image additional samples to compare OCT with histology, the current gold standard for cancer pathology.

Dr. Boppart continues his appointment as an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, bioengineering, and internal medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, providing an important link between Mills physicians and University scientists.