International Fellows

Professor Robert Langer is a pioneer in the field of biomaterials, particularly celebrated for his impact on the development of controlled drug delivery systems and tissue engineering technologies. More generally, he has spearheaded a change in biomaterials practice, from deriving medical applications for materials developed in other contexts, to designing materials and technologies expressly to meet medical and physiological requirements.

Currently the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT. Professor Langer has published over 1,100 papers, which have been cited about 60,000 times with an h-index of 118. This is one of the highest h factors in the engineering field.

He is renowned as a role model for the commercialisation of research, with over 760 issued and pending patents and 24 biotech companies to his name. His research group at MIT is the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world. While he considers himself first and foremost an engineer, he has made major contributions to the fields of bioscience and medicine ever since conducting seminal work in the research group of anti-angiogenesis pioneer Judah Folkman during the 1970s. At age 43 he was the youngest person to be elected to all three US national academies.

In June 2008, he was awarded the Millennium Technology Prize, the world’s most prestigious technology prize. He has been named by CNN and Time magazine as one of the 100 most important people in the United States.

• Who or what were your major inspirations during your career?

My father was a significant mentor. He was a very kind person who cared a lot about other people and he also got me interested in science and math. Another person that was a significant mentor was Judah Folkman from Boston’s Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. I did my postdoctoral work with Dr Folkman. One of the good things about Dr Folkman was the fact that no matter how difficult something seemed and how impossible other people seemed to think it was, he thought anything was possible. My wife, Laura, has also been tremendously encouraging. She is a scientist herself and has been very supportive. I have also had enormous support of several terrific collaborators who are also very close friends. These include Alex Klibanov, who I have worked with on protein delivery systems, Henry Brem, who I have worked with on the brain tumor project, and Jay Vacanti who I have worked with on tissue engineering. All 3 are brilliant visionary people and I feel very fortunate to have worked with them.

• What inspired you to study engineering?

My interest in science and engineering and chemistry first started when I was a little boy and I had a Gilbert Chemistry Set. I was fascinated with how one could pour one solution into another solution and see colors change and see reactions occurring like rubber being made. What drives me to invent is that I believe a lot of good can come from engineering. Engineering can and have helped people in major ways and have changed the world. It gives me enormous satisfaction to participate in this.

• What do you consider as your major achievements in the broad field of engineering?

Let me cite three of these. The first involves our discovery that it was possible to use polymers to slowly release ionic species and large molecules. Before this, scientists thought you could only slowly deliver a few molecules: those that were very lipid soluble and of low molecular weight. When we first discovered this it met with a lot of skepticism among scientists because they thought it was impossible to do something like this. This discovery had a major impact on the field of drug delivery since before this only a few molecules could be slowly delivered though polymers and now almost any molecule could be. This discovery has led to new ways of delivering various proteins, peptides, and other drugs for long periods of time such as a month or more from a single injection. Because of the very short lifetimes of these molecules, this is very important for using such molecules on a chronic basis.

The second involves the design of new polymers such as polyanhydrides. Before we were involved in this field, the conventional approach in the biomaterials area was for scientists to take off-the-shelf polymers and use them in medicine. For example, the polymers used in women’s girdles were used in the artificial heart because they have good flexural properties. This type of approach has often led to a number of problems. For example, when blood hits the surface of the artificial heart, a clot may form and the patient may suffer a stroke. We proposed a very different approach to design biomaterials. We said that rather than take off-the-shelf materials, one should ask the question what one really wants in a biomaterial from an engineering, chemistry, and biological standpoint, and then synthesize it from first principles. Based on this thinking, from a drug delivery standpoint, we proposed that a very desirable family of polymers would be polyanhydrides. Over the years, we worked out ways to synthesize these polymers. This involved overcoming a number of scientific challenges which has led to additional patents. These polymers have now been used in a new treatment for brain cancer, leading to the first new way of treating brain cancer approved by the FDA in over twenty years.

The third involves work with Dr Jay Vacanti. We discovered that polymers combined with mammalian cells can create new tissues. This is enabling tissues such as cartilage, bone, skin, urologic replacement tissue and others to be formed. Hopefully, this approach can be used to help patients suffering from tissue loss or organ failure.

• What impact has your work had on society?

It has led to over 50 products that are either in use or in clinical trials that have relieved the suffering and prolonged the life of millions of patients and to dozens of companies and tens of thousands of jobs.

• What are the major challenges still to be tackled in your field?

We are involved in biomaterials, drug delivery, tissue engineering and nanotechnology. I think all of these areas have incredibly bright futures. There is just so much research going on and I think this research will lead to new materials as well as fundamental new chemical principles and new applications. For example, it would be great if scientists could create nanoparticles to target drugs to specific sites in the body. It would also be great if we could get large molecules to cross barriers such as skin, the intestines and the brain. Also, it would be terrific if scientists could come up with synthetic materials that can deliver genes and siRNA safely to cells. From a tissue engineering standpoint, I think materials will have an enormous potential impact in providing scaffolds for cells to grow into new tissues and organs. In addition, the understanding of how polymer surfaces contribute to cell behavior is an unsolved problem that will be important for future research.

• What are the main global engineering issues and how do you see the future of engineering

There are many issues – health, energy, climate. The future of engineering is incredible.