Lev T. Perelman is an American biological physicist and bioengineer at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

. He holds the Mary Tolan and Edward Grzelakowski Endowed Chair, is a professor of medicine at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

, and is the Director of the Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging and Photonics at

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and one of the founding members of Beth Israel Lahey Health. It was formed out of the 1996 merger of Beth Israel Hospital (f ...

. He is known for his work on biomedical light scattering spectroscopy and application of optics and spectroscopy to life sciences and developmental and cell biology.

Background and education

Perelman is the son of theoretical physicist Theodore L. Perelman, who solved the

Conjugate convective heat transfer The contemporary conjugate convective heat transfer model was developed after computers came into wide use in order to substitute the empirical relation of proportionality of heat flux to temperature difference with heat transfer coefficient whic ...

problem and made contributions in the development of a two-temperature model that describes electron and phonon temperature distributions in metals heated by ultrashort-pulsed lasers. Perelman completed his undergraduate degree in theoretical physics from Belarus University and doctoral degree in physics from Institute of Physics in

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

in 1989. He joined

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

in 1992 as a postdoctoral fellow in biological physics.

Career

Perelman was appointed a principal scientist at

in 1995. In 2000, he joined the faculty at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, where he is currently a professor. Perelman was a member of the

United States Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

Joint Working Group charged with setting up funding priorities in oncologic imaging in the U.S.

Research

Perelman with Vadim Backman, an HST graduate student, introduced biomedical light scattering spectroscopy (LSS) in 1998. This approach was later applied for detection of

precancer Carcinoma ''in situ'' (CIS) is a group of abnormal cells. While they are a form of neoplasm, there is disagreement over whether CIS should be classified as cancer. This controversy also depends on the exact CIS in question (e.g., cervical, skin, b ...

in esophagus, colon, urinary bladder and oral cavity, cervix, pancreatic cysts, and bile duct. This technique was later extended to subcellular scales with development of confocal light absorption and scattering spectroscopic microscopy for label-free subcellular functional imaging, sensing chromatin packing in live cells, and demonstrating that exosomes promote

tumorigenesis Carcinogenesis, also called oncogenesis or tumorigenesis, is the formation of a cancer, whereby normal cells are transformed into cancer cells. The process is characterized by changes at the cellular, genetic, and epigenetic levels and abn ...

. Perelman's other contributions include demonstration of the world's first single-molecule detection with Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS), and explanation of the critical role of stress confinement in short pulse

laser ablation Laser ablation or photoablation (also called laser blasting) is the process of removing material from a solid (or occasionally liquid) surface by irradiating it with a laser beam. At low laser flux, the material is heated by the absorbed laser ...

and

laser surgery Laser surgery is a type of surgery that cuts tissue using a laser in contrast to using a scalpel. Soft-tissue laser surgery is used in a variety of applications in humans ( general surgery, neurosurgery, ENT, dentistry, orthodontics, and ...

. He also developed with

John Marshall John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American statesman, jurist, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth chief justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remai ...

the first non-hydrostatic model of the ocean known as the MIT General Circulation Model.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perelman, Lev T. Biophysicists Harvard University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people