Christopher C Capelli, M.D., is currently the Vice President, Technology Based Ventures at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (UTMDACC) where he plays the leading role in enabling the commercialization of products and services at M.D. Anderson. Dr. Capelli has direct oversight of the Office of Technology Commercialization. Prior to coming to UTMDACC, Dr. Capelli was the Director of the Office of Technology Management (OTM) at the University of Pittsburgh.

A 1982 graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Capelli earned his MD from the University of Wisconsin Medical School in 1989 and maintains a medical license in the State of Wisconsin. As a result of his scientific work since graduating from MIT, Dr. Capelli holds over two dozen patents and patent applications worldwide. As a businessman, Dr. Capelli has been directly involved in the start-up of numerous venture-capital backed biomedical company ventures.

M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, one of 42 Texas Medical Center's member institutions, was designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as one of the first three Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the United States. Consistently ranked one of the top two cancer centers in the United States by U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Hospitals” – including number one in three of the past four years – M. D. Anderson has provided care for more than 600,000 cancer patients since 1944 and 65,000 in the last year alone. In 2003, nearly 1,000 new patients from outside the U.S. came to M. D. Anderson for care. M. D. Anderson faculty currently hold more NCI research grants and grant dollars than any other academic center in the U.S.