Robert Langer

Background and Experience

Dr. Langer is one of nine Institute Professors at MIT – the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member. He has written more than 1,570 articles and has over 1,400 issued and pending patents worldwide. Dr. Langer’s patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 400 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology, and medical device companies. He is the most cited engineer in history and was named as one of the 25 most important individuals in biotechnology in the world by Forbes Magazine (1999) and Bio World (1990).

Dr. Langer is one of three living individuals to have received both the United States National Medal of Science (2006) and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011). In 1998, he was recognized as “one of history’s most prolific inventors in medicine”, receiving the Lemelson-MIT prize – the world's largest prize for invention. He is the director of the word's largest biomedical engineering lab whose research focuses on the interface of biotechnology and materials science.

Dr. Langer received his Bachelor’s Degree from Cornell University in 1970 and his Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, both in Chemical Engineering.

You have to realize that failure is OK. If you want to change the world, you have to be prepared to fail. You put your head down and keep going. ”

Awards and Honors

Dr. Langer has received over 220 major awards including:

• 41 honorary doctorates
• Charles Stark Draper Prize | 2002
• Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research | 2005
• Induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2006)
• Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering | 2015
• Balzan Prize for Biomaterials for Nanomedicine and Tissue Engineering | 2022