Eric Swanson
Eric Swanson, James Fujimoto and David Huang invented optical coherence tomography (OCT), a groundbreaking method for imaging the internal structures of body tissue in exceptional detail. Revolutionizing ophthalmology, OCT is especially useful for quickly, painlessly examining the retina. This technology also is used in cardiology and across a growing number of wide-ranging applications.
Swanson was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1960. In 1970, his family moved to Alaska when his father accepted a position as an economics and business professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “The move to Alaska was an adventure and helped create my enjoyment and passion for nature and the outdoors,” Swanson said in an interview with the National Inventors Hall of Fame®. “And certainly, Alaska is the perfect place for that. You were immersed in the beauty of nature.”
When Swanson was 14, his father passed away and his mother moved the family back to Massachusetts. From an early age, Swanson had been interested in electronics, and his mother consistently encouraged his curiosity and exploration. “I would take apart various electronics devices like my mom's clock radio and try to understand how they worked and rebuild them into something new,” he said. This interest eventually led him to study electrical engineering and computer science. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1982 (Summa Cum Laude), followed by his master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984.
While serving as associate group leader at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, Swanson began collaborating with his future co-inventors: Fujimoto, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, and Huang, then an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Harvard Medical School and MIT who was pursuing his thesis in Fujimoto’s lab. Fujimoto had been working with femtosecond lasers, which could generate extremely short pulses of light for studying high-speed atomic and electronic processes, and he wanted to explore the possibilities of using light to see structures inside the body.
Teaming up with a group of eye doctors to investigate biomedical engineering applications, Swanson, Fujimoto and Huang built the first OCT machine in 1990. Beginning their experimentation with in vitro images of both retinal and coronary artery tissue, the collaborators successfully revealed structures beneath the surface in impressive detail. They published the results of their work in the journal Science in 1991 and earned a patent on OCT in 1994.
“The discovery and the advancement of OCT was powered by a complex ecosystem,” Swanson said. “It started with substantial government funding, the competitive and collaborative nature of research, the creation of multidisciplinary teams of engineers and scientists and clinicians, and the power of entrepreneurship and industry.”
Describing how OCT works, Swanson said, “OCT is very analogous to radar or sonar or ultrasound in that you send out a pulse from a transmitter, listen for the various reflections, and measure how strong they are and when they arrive in time. But because OCT uses light instead of radio frequencies or sound, it has a much shorter wavelength, and because of that and other factors, you can get very precise, very-high-sensitivity measurements. It has had a tremendous positive societal impact because of the inherent features of this technology that have led to improved patient outcomes and research into various disease mechanisms and therapies.”
OCT’s greatest impact is seen in the detection and treatment of retinal diseases including diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration, which affects one in eight Americans over the age of 60. OCT also facilitated the development of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy, which uses medications to block the growth of abnormal blood vessels in the eye.
For his contributions to OCT, Swanson has received numerous honors including co-recipient of the 2012 Champalimaud Vision Award, the 2017 Russ Prize, the 2022 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and the 2023 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award. He has served in a variety of technical and managerial roles in academic, entrepreneurial, industrial, federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs), government and nonprofit organizations.
“If you look over the past 34 years since OCT inception, it's amazing how the technology has improved, and all the markets it has entered and how it has benefited society,” Swanson said. “But I think if you look forward and you imagine the next 34 years, it will be even more transformative. There are so many innovative people doing things in optics and photonics and electronics and artificial intelligence that are going to enable improved imaging to better understand, detect and treat diseases for millions of people. I think the future of OCT is extremely bright.”