764: Pioneering Innovative Solutions in Biotechnology, Engineering, and Materials Science to Advance Medicine - Dr. Robert Langer

People Behind the Science Podcast Stories from Scientists about Science, Life, Research, and Science Careers

Dr. Robert S. Langer is the David H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Being one of the eight Institute Professors is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member at MIT. Much of Bob’s research is at the interface between materials and medicine. His lab has created nanoparticles and drug delivery systems, engineered tissues and organs for things like artificial skin for burn victims, and made organ-on-a-chip technology to help develop and test new drugs that may someday help patients. When he’s not working, Bob enjoys spending time with his family, taking his kids to sporting events, lifting weights, and going on walks with his wife. He received his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University and his Sc.D. in chemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Afterwards, Bob worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Children’s Hospital Boston and at Harvard Medical School. He joined the faculty at MIT in 1978. Since then, Bob has accepted more than 220 major awards and honors, including the U.S. National Medal of Science, the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation (he is one of 3 living individuals to have received both these honors), the Charles Stark Draper Prize (often called the Engineering Nobel Prize), Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Albany Medical Center Prize, Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Kyoto Prize, Wolf Prize for Chemistry, Millennium Technology Prize, Priestley Medal (highest award of the American Chemical Society), Gairdner Prize, Hoover Medal, Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine, Balzan Prize, and the Dr. Paul Janssen Award. In 1998, he received the Lemelson-MIT prize, the world’s largest prize for invention for being “one of history’s most prolific inventors in medicine,” and he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006. He is an elected Fellow of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Inventors, and the Royal Academy of Engineering. He has been awarded over 1,000 patents and has received 42 honorary doctorate degrees, including degrees from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Northwestern. In our conversation, he shares more about his life and science.