NIBIB Grantee Robert S. Langer Honored with National Medal of Technology and Innovation

Robert S. Langer, Ph.D.

Robert S. Langer, an NIBIB grantee for more than a decade, was named one of eleven recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the nation’s highest honor bestowed upon extraordinary inventors. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation is administered for the White House by the Department of Commerce’s Patent and Trademark Office. The purpose of the award is to recognize those who have made lasting contributions to America’s competitiveness and quality of life and helped strengthen the nation’s technological workforce. Dr. Langer joins a distinguished list of 23 scientists, engineers, and inventors who will receive either the National Medal of Science or the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at a White House ceremony in early 2013. He also joins an even more select group of only three Americans to have been awarded both the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

Langer is the David H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  He received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University in chemical engineering and earned his Sc.D. in chemical engineering from MIT.   He has written over 1,175 articles and has approximately 800 issued and pending patents worldwide, which have been licensed or sublicensed to more than 220 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology, and medical device companies.  Dr. Langer was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1992 he was elected to both the National Academy of Engineering and to the National Academy of Sciences. He has received more than 200 major awards including the 2006 United States National Medal of Science, the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the 2008 Millennium Prize, the 2012 Priestley Medal, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, and the 2013 Wolf Prize in Chemistry.

Dr. Langer is widely recognized for his seminal and prolific work at the interface of biotechnology and materials science. His pioneering discoveries in tissue engineering were instrumental in defining it as a field and his laboratory has produced the current generation of eminent tissue engineering researchers. His research includes the creation of a variety of novel drug-delivery systems based on polymers; development of nanoparticles that precisely target disease sites such as tumors; production of complex tissues such as cardiac-tissue scaffolds with electronic sensors. Dr. Langer is currently receiving funding from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering for drug delivery system research and development, including ultrasound-assisted transdermal drug delivery to enable the painless and non-invasive administration of a broader class of medications; the controlled release of macromolecules for localized drug delivery; and implanted microchips for the storage and timed release of medications in the body.