LEÓN TROPER, M.D. (1935-1995) was a renowned pathologist and professor who made significant contributions to Costa Rican medicine. Born in Costa Rica on January 20, 1935, he graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1960. His career spanned three decades, during which he served as head of the Pathology Department at Hospital Calderón Guardia and as a Professor of General and Special Pathology at the University of Costa Rica’s School of Medicine.
Dr. Troper was deeply interested in infectious pathology, publishing numerous studies in national and foreign journals on diseases such as rhinosporidiosis, pulmonary nocardiosis, and phycomycosis. He was also instrumental in establishing a corneal bank in Costa Rica. A dedicated educator, Dr. Troper mentored and guided hundreds of medical students. His legacy includes the establishment of a Pathology Department extension at Hospital Calderón Guardia in 1973, where he taught and worked until his passing on February 21, 1995. He is credited with creating the pathology professorship at Hospital Calderón Guardia in 1973, where he worked until the end of his days.
Held by Alexander S. Baras
ALEXANDER S. BARAS, M.D., PH.D. is the inaugural holder of the León Troper, M.D. Professorship in Computational Pathology and the Director of the Division of Computational Pathology and Informatics in the Department of Pathology. He holds joint appointments in the Departments of Urology and Oncology, and Applied Health Science Informatics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Baras is a world-renowned expert and thought leader in data science as applied to pathology. His research focuses on the application of advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques to both genomics and imaging modalities in pathology. He and his team have developed a number of algorithms such as DeepTCR which uses artificial intelligence to model and predict how the immune system receptors detect both infectious pathogens and cancer cells; and ATGC which leverages sophisticated deep learning algorithms under so-called “weak supervision” to uncover mutational signatures present in various cancer types. Dr. Baras has authored more than 90 peer-reviewed publications.
Dr. Baras received his undergraduate degree in biology at Georgetown University as a Howard Hughes Scholar. He received his doctoral degree in experimental pathology and his medical degree from the University of Virginia as part of the National Institutes of Health Medical Scientist Training Program. He completed his residency training in anatomic pathology, followed by a fellowship in genitourinary pathology at the Johns Hopkins Department of Pathology. Directly following, he joined the Pathology faculty in 2014.
