Nordic Life Science 1
libanov has been a friend and collaborator of Lan
ger’s for more than 40 years. “Dr. Langer’s unparalleled accomplishments are due to his unique combination of brilliance, vision, drive and compassion toward others.” While doing postdoctoral research at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School with his advisor Judah Folkman, Robert Langer said he realized how much engineers could contribute to the field of medicine. “I’ve always been interested in seeing the work we do make a difference in people’s lives,” he said. “Isolating the first inhibitors of blood vessels, [for example], would turn out to lead to totally new drugs to treat cancer and eye diseases for children and adults worldwide.” After his post-doctoral studies, Langer began his work with biomaterials at MIT, including drug delivery systems and tissue engineering. “Drug delivery is at the interface of biotechnology and materials chemistry, with a strong focus on the study and development of polymers to deliver drugs continuously and at controlled rates for prolonged periods,” states MIT. The benefits of sophisticated drugdelivery systems is that medication can be applied to the affected site, such as a tumor; they have applications for treating cancer and many other diseases. One recent example involves super long acting pills or capsules that can potentially be used to treat malaria or improve birth control. “While still in the preclinical or early human testing stage, we’ve developed pills or capsules that can be swallowed and last for a week or a month, or longer,” explains Langer. “Also, we developed pills that can deliver large molecules like insulin, as well as nanoparticles that can deliver different gene therapy agents.” Some of the commercial products that originated from the lab are being used to treat brain and prostate cancer, macular degeneration, and several mental health disorders including schizophrenia and opioid addiction. “Bob is driven to use science and engineering to better people’s lives,” says Michael A. Marletta, CH and Annie Li Chair in the Molecular Biology of Diseases, in the Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology departments at the University of California, Berkeley. He and Langer met at MIT in 1979. “When you couple that with a great intellect and an uncanny ability to see the practical application of fundamental advances, you get Bob Langer,” continues Marletta. “There is really no one like him.” “Clinical trials are ongoing in spinal cord repair, restoration of hearing, and creation of new blood vessels,” Langer says. “In addition, we’ve made real advances towards developing an artificial pancreas. There is a lot of other basic work going on as well.” anger has recently published eight papers in different Nature journals related to progress toward an artificial pancreas. Langer chooses projects based on whether the idea has a high impact either in basic science or technology development. “The research gets done in our MIT lab. The development gets done in spin-off companies.” He has different criteria for determining whether a project is a success. “In the MIT lab, [it’s a success] if students learn or if we create knowledge or invent or discover something useful. In companies, [it’s a success] if products are developed or advanced and if investors get a financial return.” The Langer Lab is “devoted to inventing novel medical devices for diagnosis and therapeutics,” according to its website. “We have also established several high-throughput screening platforms for new drug development and vaccine design to treat cancers and other diseases. Last but not least, we are interested in cell engineering via chemical and genetic tools for cancer immunotherapy and stem cell therapy.” Tissue engineering work also is very active. The accomplishments of his students are also a source of great pride for Langer. “I love playing a role in educating students,” Langer says. “I like helping them learn something new and inspiring them to see what they can do in science and math.” Around 1,000 of his former students and post-doctoral students are becoming established leaders in academia, industry, and government, and nearly 400 are professors all over the world.