Dmitri Lapotko received his cum laude M.S. in physics in 1985, and Ph.D. in thermal physics in 1988 from Belarusian State University.

In 2003 he received his Doctor of Science degree in molecular physics and bioengineering from the A.V. Lykov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute (Minsk, Belarus) where he founded the Laboratory for Laser Cytotechnologies. He joined Rice University (Houston, TX) in 2009 where he established the International Laboratory for Fundamental and Biomedical Nanophotonics. Dr. Lapotko holds joint faculty appointments at the Departments of BioSciences and Physics and Astronomy at Rice University.

His interdisciplinary research bridges physics, engineering and medical science with the focus on clinical translation. He has invented the photothermal microscope, plasmonic nanobubbles and several photonic nanotechnologies aimed at the diagnosis, treatment and theranostics of cancer, malaria and atherosclerotic disease at the cellular level by using non-stationary photothermal events at nanoscale.

Dr. Lapotko has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, 4 book chapters and holds 8 patents in bioengineering.