Contact Information
Urbana, IL 61801
Biography
Rohit Bhargava is Founder Professor of Engineering and serves as the Director of the Cancer Center at Illinois of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His primary appointment is in the Department of Bioengineering with joint appointments in several engineering departments and Chemistry as well as in the Carle-Illinois College of Medicine. Rohit graduated with a dual-degree B.Tech. (1996) from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi and received a doctoral degree from Case Western Reserve University (2000). After a stint at the National Institutes of Health, he has been at Illinois as Assistant (2005-2011), Associate (2011-2012) and Full (2012-) Professor. Rohit is widely recognized for his research on chemical imaging and advances in theory, instrumentation, and applications in cancer pathology. Current work in chemical imaging in his laboratory focuses on theoretical modeling that can push the limits of speed and quality of infrared spectroscopic imaging as well as its application in several novel areas. In particular, Rohit’s group aims to recognize and subtype cancer by its underlying molecular characteristics, by advanced chemical imaging and application of modern machine learning, ultimately allowing for better treatment of patients. His innovative teaching and mentoring has been consistently recognized by the success of his students. He conceived and currently directs of the Tissue Microenvironment training program supported by a T32 grant from the NIH. Rohit has also served to connect the research community in new and exciting ways to take on basic science and engineering questions that surround cancer. He was the first assistant professor hired into Illinois’ Bioengineering Department and played a key role in its development. He proposed and has served for ~10 years to develop the Cancer Center at Illinois - a basic science center at the convergence of high quality technology and engineering and oncology.
Research Description
The central theme of research in our group is the development of novel chemical imaging technology and structures that can be employed to detect, diagnose and understand tissue structure and cancer pathology. These biological sensors may be optical (spectroscopic imaging), material (probes) or computational and physical models. Another major theme is the development of novel instrumentation approaches to fast, high fidelity infrared spectroscopic imaging and development of novel algorithms for information extraction from large imaging data sets.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Director, Cancer Center at Illinois, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation
Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering
Professor, Bioengineering
Professor, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
Professor, Mechanical Science and Engineering
Professor, Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Professor, Micro and Nanotechnology Lab
Department Affiliate, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Recent Publications
Bhargava, R., & Kenkel, S. M. (2024). Method And Apparatus For Nanoscale Infrared Absorption Tomography. (U.S. Patent No. 11860087).
Chen, J., Laverty, D. J., Talele, S., Bale, A., Carlson, B. L., Porath, K. A., Bakken, K. K., Burgenske, D. M., Decker, P. A., Vaubel, R. A., Eckel-Passow, J. E., Bhargava, R., Lou, Z., Hamerlik, P., Harley, B., Elmquist, W. F., Nagel, Z. D., Gupta, S. K., & Sarkaria, J. N. (2024). Aberrant ATM signaling and homology-directed DNA repair as a vulnerability of p53-mutant GBM to AZD1390-mediated radiosensitization. Science Translational Medicine, 16(734), Article eadj5962. https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.adj5962
Confer, M. P., Falahkheirkhah, K., Surendran, S., Sunny, S. P., Yeh, K., Liu, Y.-T., Sharma, I., Orr, A. C., Lebovic, I., Magner, W. J., Sigurdson, S. L., Aguirre, A., Markiewicz, M. R., Suresh, A., Hicks, W. L., Birur, P., Kuriakose, M. A., & Bhargava, R. (2024). Rapid and Label-Free Histopathology of Oral Lesions Using Deep Learning Applied to Optical and Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging Data. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 14(3), Article 304. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm14030304
Kenkel, S., & Bhargava, R. (Accepted/In press). Modeling the Thermoelastic Sample Response for Subdiffraction Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging. Chemical & Biomedical Imaging. https://doi.org/10.1021/cbmi.4c00018
Ran, J., El-Kebir, H., Lee, Y., Chamorro, L. P., Berlin, R., Cornejo, G. M. A., Benedetti, E., Giulianotti, P. C., Bhargava, R., Bentsman, J., & Ostoja-Starzewski, M. (2024). Heat conduction in live tissue during radiofrequency electrosurgery. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 21(210), Article 20230420. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2023.0420