Robert S. Langer

For the Australian cricketer, see Rob Langer.

Robert Samuel Langer, Jr.
Born	(1948-08-29) August 29, 1948 Albany, New York, U.S.
Residence	United States
Fields	Biomedical Engineering
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Alma mater	Cornell University Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisor	Clark K. Colton
Other academic advisors	Judah Folkman
Notable students	Kristi Anseth, Elazer R. Edelman, David Edwards (engineer), Linda Griffith, Jeffrey Karp, Ali Khademhosseini, Cato Laurencin, Robert J. Linhardt, David J. Mooney, Molly Stevens, Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, David Berry, Isaac Berzin, Mark R. Prausnitz, Samir Mitragotri, Kathryn Uhrich
Known for	Controlled drug delivery and tissue engineering
Notable awards	Gairdner Foundation International Award (1996) Charles Stark Draper Prize (2002) John Fritz Medal (2003) Harvey Prize (2003) Albany Medical Center Prize (2005) National Medal of Science (2006) Millennium Technology Prize (2008) Prince of Asturias Award (2008) National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011) Perkin Medal (2012) Wilhelm Exner Medal (2012) Priestley Medal (2012) Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2013) IRI Medal (2013) Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2014) Kyoto Prize (2014) Biotechnology Heritage Award (2014) FREng (2010) Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (2015)

External video
Scientists You Must Know: Robert Langer, You want to put yourself in the position where you'll make the discoveries for tomorrow, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Hundreds of millions of people a year across the world benefit from the technologies that rest on the work of Robert Langer., Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering 2015

Robert Samuel Langer, Jr. FREng (born August 29, 1948 in Albany, New York) is an American biotechnologist, engineer, scientist, entrepreneur, inventor and the David H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was formerly the Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and maintains activity in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. He is also a faculty member of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. He is a widely recognized and cited researcher in biotechnology, especially in the fields of drug delivery systems and tissue engineering. His publications have been cited approximately 200,000 times and his h-index is 224. According to Google Scholar, Langer is one of the 10 most cited individuals in history. Langer is recognized as the most cited engineer in history. Langer's research laboratory at MIT is the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world, maintaining over $10 million in annual grants and over 100 researchers. In 2015, Langer was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the most influential prize in the world for engineering.

Background and personal life

Langer was born August 29, 1948 in Albany, New York, USA. He is an alumnus of The Milne School and received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University in chemical engineering. He earned his Sc.D. in chemical engineering from MIT in 1974. His dissertation was entitled "Enzymatic regeneration of ATP" and completed under the direction of Clark K. Colton. From 1974–1977 he worked as a postdoctoral fellow for cancer researcher Judah Folkman at the Children's Hospital Boston and at Harvard Medical School. Langer credits Folkman as a fantastic role model. Langer and his wife, Laura, a fellow MIT graduate, have three children.

Contributions to medicine and biotechnology

Langer is widely regarded for his contributions to medicine and biotechnology. He is considered a pioneer of many new technologies, including controlled release systems and transdermal delivery systems, which allow the administration of drugs or extraction of analytes from the body through the skin without needles or other invasive methods.

Langer worked with Judah Folkman at Boston Children's Hospital to isolate the first angiogenesis inhibitor, a macromolecule to block the spread of blood vessels in tumours. Macromolecules tend to be broken down by digestion and blocked by body tissues if they are injected or inhaled, so finding a delivery system for them is difficult. Langer's idea was to encapsulate the angiogenesis inhibitor in a noninflammatory synthetic polymer wafer that could be implanted in the tumor and control the release of the inhibitor. He eventually invented polymer systems that would work. This discovery is considered to lay the foundation for much of today's drug delivery technology.

He also worked with Henry Brem of the Johns Hopkins University Medical School on a drug-delivery system for the treatment of brain cancer, to deliver chemotherapy directly to a tumor site. The wafers or chips that he and his teams have designed have become increasingly more sophisticated, and can now deliver multiple drugs, and respond to stimuli.

Langer is regarded as the founder of tissue engineering in regenerative medicine. He and the researchers in his lab have made advances in tissue engineering, such as the creation of engineered blood vessels and vascularized engineered muscle tissue. Bioengineered synthetic polymers provide a scaffolding on which new skin, muscle, bone, and entire organs can be grown. With such a substrate in place, victims of serious accidents or birth defects could more easily grow missing tissue. Such polymers can be biocompatible and biodegradable.

Langer holds more than 1100 granted or pending patents. He has also authored over 1,300 scientific papers and has participated in the founding of multiple technology companies.

Awards and honors

Langer is the youngest person in history (at 43) to be elected to all three American science academies: the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. He was also elected as a charter member of National Academy of Inventors. He was appointed an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010.

Langer has received more than 220 major awards. He is one of four living individuals to have received both the U.S. National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

• 2016: Langer received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science
• 2015: Langer received the Scheele Award
• 2015: Langer was named Cornell University's 2015 Entrepreneur of the Year.
• 2015: Langer received the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the most influential prize in the world for engineering.
• 2014: Langer received the Kyoto Prize
• 2014: Langer was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his work.
• 2014: The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) selected Robert Langer as the winner of the 2014 Biotechnology Heritage Award for significant contribution to the growth of biotechnology.
• 2013: Langer was awarded the Wolf Prize in Chemistry for conceiving and implementing advances in polymer chemistry that provide both controlled drug-release systems and new biomaterials.
• 2013: Langer received the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Obama. He had previously received the United States National Medal of Science, in 2006, from President George W. Bush.
• 2012: Langer was awarded the Priestley Medal, the highest honor conferred by the American Chemical Society (ACS), for distinguished service in the field of chemistry.
• 2012: Langer was awarded the Wilhelm Exner Medal.
• 2012: Langer received the Perkin Medal, recognized as the highest honor given for outstanding work in applied chemistry in the United States.
• 2011: Langer received the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize
• 2011: Langer was awarded The Economist's Innovation award in the category of bioscience for his proven successes in drug-delivery and tissue engineering.
• 2010: Langer was appointed an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
• 2008: Langer was awarded Finland's Millennium Technology Prize for developing innovative biomaterials for controlled drug release.
• 2008: Langer received the Prince of Asturias Award for Scientific Research
• 2008: Langer received the Max Planck Research Award 2008
• 2002: Langer received the Charles Stark Draper Prize (considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers).
• 2002 Langer received the Dickson Prize in science

He has received numerous other awards, including the Gairdner Foundation International Award (1996), the Lemelson-MIT Prize for invention and innovation (1998), the Othmer Gold Medal (2002), the 10th Annual Heinz Award in the category of Technology, the Economy and Employment (2003), the Harvey Prize in Science & Technology and Human Health (2003), the Dan David Prize (2005) and the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2005). In 2013 he was awarded the IRI Medal alongside long-time friend George M. Whitesides for outstanding accomplishments in technological innovation that have contributed broadly to the development of industry and the benefit of society. He also received the Rusnano prize that year. He has also given 126 named lectures and commencement speeches.

Langer has honorary degrees from 28 universities from around the world: Northwestern University, Harvard University, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Yale University, the ETH, the Technion, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), the Universite Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Willamette University, the University of Liverpool, the University of Nottingham, Albany Medical College, Pennsylvania State University, Uppsala University, Bates College, Boston University, Tel Aviv University(Israel), Ben Gurion University (Israel), Drexel University, University of Western Ontario Canada, the University of Maryland, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Karolinska Institutet, Carnegie Mellon University, Hanyang University in South Korea, the University of New South Wales in Australia and the USCF Medal.

Founder of various biotech companies

Robert Langer has been involved in the founding of many companies, including:

• Acusphere
• AIR
• Arsenal
• BIND Therapeutics (formerly BIND Biosciences)
• Blend Therapeutics
• Echo Therapeutics (formerly Sontra Medical)
• Enzytech (Acq. by Alkermes)
• Gecko Biomedical
• InVivo Therapeutics
• Kala
• Living Proof
• Microchips
• Moderna
• Momenta
• PixarBio
• Pervasis (acquired by Shire Pharmaceuticals)
• Pulmatrix
• Selecta Biosciences
• Semprus Biosciences (acquired by Teleflex)
• Seventh Sense
• SQZ Biotech
• Taris
• Transform (acquired by Johnson and Johnson)
• T2

Langer is a member of the Advisory Board of Patient Innovation, a nonprofit, international, multilingual, free venue for patients and caregivers of any disease to share their innovations.

External links

• Langer Lab: Professor Robert Langer
• List of PhDs and Postdocs supervised by Professor Robert Langer
• Dan David Prize Laureate 2005
• Robert S. Langer fact sheet at MIT News Office
• BBC News
• The Bob Langer and Polaris Company Tree From Acusphere to Momenta to Visterra
• Controlled Release Technology 5-day short course at MIT with Professor Robert Langer.
• Robert Langer: Exchanges at the frontier - ABC Radio National podcast

Awards
Preceded by Shuji Nakamura	Millennium Technology Prize winner 2008 (for Innovative biomaterials)	Succeeded by Michael Grätzel