Michael Dattoli is one of America's leading physicians who successfully treat cancer with non-surgical approaches. Dattoli practices brachytherapy, using a sealed radiation source in a localized area. He first began to love pure sciences during his childhood in Poughkeepsie, New York. While studying marine biology at the University of California, Berkeley, he wanted to find a way to apply his interest in science to benefit humanity. He returned to Poughkeepsie, excelled at biochemistry at Vassar College, and obtained his medical doctorate from Mount Sinai School of Medicine (now the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai) in 1984.