Whitehead Board of Directors Member Bob Langer named
MIT Institute Professor
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (March 3, 2005) — Robert S.
Langer, the Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical
Engineering, has been named Institute Professor, the
highest honor awarded by the MIT faculty and administration.
"Bob Langer is an extraordinary colleague and
an extraordinary engineer-scientist," said Rafael
Bras, the Bacardi and Stockholm Water Foundations Professor
and chair of the faculty. "His work on drug delivery
systems and tissue engineering has literally saved many
lives. As an author and inventor he has no peer, anywhere.
Yet, Bob always finds the time to generously serve MIT
and the nation. He always has the time for students
and to excel as a teacher. Those extraordinary talents
make him the obvious choice for Institute Professor.
The faculty is thrilled to honor Bob Langer in this
manner."
"Bob Langer's appointment as Institute Professor
recognizes the enormous scale, scope and importance
of his contributions to MIT and the larger society,"
said President Susan Hockfield. "His pioneering
work at the interface between engineering and the life
sciences has opened up entirely new directions for biomedicine.
In his remarkably collaborative spirit, extraordinary
productivity, depth of curiosity and record of innovation,
he embodies the core values of MIT."
Robert A Brown, provost and the Warren K. Lewis Professor
of Chemical Engineering, also lauded the appointment.
"Bob Langer is one of MIT's most amazingly creative
and prolific faculty members. It is an honor to have
Bob on the MIT faculty and he richly deserves the recognition
bestowed by the Institute Professorship."
Langer described his initial reaction to the appointment
as "a combination of shock on the one hand and
joy on the other. I look at the other people who are
Institute Professors, and it's really humbling."
"I love MIT, and feel very honored and flattered,"
said Langer, who also serves on the Whitehead Institute
Board of Directors.
The title of Institute Professor is reserved for those
few individuals who have "demonstrated exceptional
distinction by a combination of leadership, accomplishment
and service in the scholarly, educational and general
intellectual life of the Institute or wider academic
community," according to MIT's Policies and Procedures
manual. With Langer's appointment, there are now 15
Institute Professors.
"I cannot imagine an individual more deserving
than Bob of recognition as an Institute Professor,"
said Robert C. Armstrong, the Chevron Professor and
head of the Department of Chemical Engineering. "He
is not only a great example to the world of MIT's excellence
in research, but is also a great faculty colleague and
teacher and mentor of our students at home. His enormous
professional stature and his broad value and engagement
across units of MIT are both important attributes of
an Institute Professor."
Taking risks
When asked what advice he'd give engineers and scientists
beginning their careers, Langer said, "Take some
risks. Don't necessarily follow a conventional career
path."
In 1974, Langer did just that, with his new MIT Ph.D.
in chemical engineering in hand. "At the time,
young chemical engineers went into the petroleum industry.
I opted for a postdoctoral position with cancer researcher
Judah Folkman at Children's Hospital," Langer said.
At Children's, one of the things he tackled was the
problem of how to get large molecules, which held promise
for fighting cancer and other diseases, through plastic
delivery systems in a controlled manner. The general
consensus at the time was that this was impossible.
Langer persevered and ultimately discovered engineering
principles that allowed a desired release of such medically
important molecules from plastics. "There's no
question that my decision to join Judah's lab exposed
me to things I'd never seen, and that few chemical engineers
at the time had seen," he said.
He went on to become the holder of some 500 issued
and pending patents. More than 100 different companies
license those patents and are creating products based
on his innovations. These include a dime-sized polymer
wafer that delivers chemotherapy directly to the site
of a brain tumor, and a device that cuts the pain associated
with needles and IVs.
Of his many accomplishments, what is Langer most proud
of? "That's a little like asking which of your
children you're most proud of," he said with a
laugh. That said, there were two areas that came to
mind.
"I'm very proud of how well my students have done,"
he said. Some 130 Langer students and postdoctoral associates
are professors at universities around the world, including
three at MIT. In addition, 150-200 past students are
in top industrial positions.
"I'm also very proud of the impact of our inventions,"
he continued. Over 40 of these are now approved by regulatory
authorities such as the FDA or are in clinical trials.
Langer joined the MIT faculty in 1977 as a visiting
professor in what was then the Department of Nutrition
and Food Science. A graduate of Cornell University,
he received the Sc.D. from MIT in chemical engineering
in 1974.
He has received more than 100 major awards. In 2002,
he received the $500,000 Charles Stark Draper Prize,
considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers,
from the National Academy of Engineering. He is the
only engineer to receive the Gairdner Foundation International
Award; 64 recipients of this award have subsequently
received a Nobel Prize. In 1998, he received the $500,000
Lemelson-MIT Prize, the world's largest prize honoring
invention, for being "one of history's most prolific
inventors in medicine."
In 1989 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 is one of
very few people ever elected to all three United States
National Academies and the youngest in history (at age
43) to ever receive this distinction.
Institute Professorships
The process for selecting Institute Professors involves
an ad hoc faculty committee convened by the chair of
the faculty and the president. That committee evaluates
each nominee, in part by soliciting opinions from professionals
in the nominee's field. The committee's recommendations
are reviewed by the Academic Council and approved by
the Executive Committee of the Corporation.
In addition to the prestige associated with the title,
an Institute Professor has a distinct measure of freedom
to define the scope and nature of his or her responsibilities.
Reporting directly to the provost, an Institute Professor
does not have regular departmental or school responsibilities.
As a result, the appointment provides a special opportunity
to work across departmental boundaries.
The 14 other current Institute Professors are Emilio
Bizzi, brain and cognitive sciences; John M. Deutch,
chemistry; Peter A. Diamond, economics; Mildred S. Dresselhaus,
electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) and
physics; Jerome I. Friedman, physics; John H. Harbison,
music and theater arts; John D.C. Little, management;
Thomas Magnanti, management and EECS; Mario Molina,
earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences and chemistry;
Joel Moses, EECS; Phillip A. Sharp, biology; Isadore
M. Singer, mathematics; Daniel I.C. Wang, chemical engineering;
and Sheila E. Widnall, aeronautics and astronautics.
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