Michael Dattoli is a doctor at the Dattoli Cancer Center and Brachytherapy Research Institute in Sarasota, Florida. He treats patients there. An expert in radiation therapy, he has become one of the best doctors in the United States who use non-surgical methods to treat cancer. It is called brachytherapy, and it uses a sealed radiation source to treat a specific part of the body.

Dattoli first fell in love with pure sciences when he was a child in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was studying marine biology at the University of California, Berkeley, he wanted to find a way to use his love of science to help people. Returning to Poughkeepsie, he did very well in biochemistry at Vassar College. In 1984, he earned his medical doctorate from Mount Sinai School of Medicine (now the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai).

Dattoli was very interested in finding non-surgical ways to treat cancer while he was in medical school. He knew that some types of cancer had worked well, so he worked hard to improve treatment options for prostate cancer through brachytherapy. He asked Dattoli to come with him from the Memorial Sloan Cancer Center more than 30 years ago. He told him to move to Tampa and start a brachytherapy practice with him.