Famend chemical engineer Robert Langer, a pioneer within the improvement of the mRNA vaccines used to assist fight COVID-19, will converse Wednesday, June 1, at 7:30 p.m. within the Nott Memorial.
His speak, “From Nanotechnology to mRNA Vaccines: How Overcoming Skepticism and Obstacles Led to New Most cancers Remedies and Methods to Sort out a International Well being Problem,” is free and open to the general public.
Robert Langer
These unable to attend in individual are invited to look at the speak through Zoom.
The David H. Koch Institute Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Know-how and director of the Langer Lab, Langer works on the intersection of biotechnology and supplies science.
He’s thought of the founding father of the sector of tissue engineering in regenerative medication and is the pioneer of lots of of applied sciences, together with managed launch and transdermal drug supply techniques, which permit the non-invasive administration of medicine by means of the pores and skin.
In 2010, he co-founded Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech agency Moderna, and performed a key function within the improvement of its COVID-19 vaccine, which constructed off his earlier analysis on drug supply.
“I feel it’s vital to emphasize how a lot engineers can and have modified the world for the higher,” Langer mentioned in a latest interview. “It’s a thrill for me to see engineering and biology enhancing individuals’s lives; that’s been my dream from the start.”
One of many world’s most cited scientists, Langer is the writer of greater than 1,500 articles and the inventor on greater than a thousand patents. His patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 400 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology and medical gadget corporations.
A 2017 profile of Langer by the Harvard Enterprise Overview was headlined “The Edison of Drugs.”
The recipient of greater than 220 main awards, Langer is one among three residing people to have acquired each the Nationwide Medal of Science (2006) and the Nationwide Medal of Know-how and Innovation (2011), each bestowed by the president of america.
He’s additionally the recipient of the Charles Stark Draper Prize (thought of the Nobel Prize for engineers), the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the Millennium Prize (the world’s largest know-how prize) the Priestley Medal (the best award of the American Chemical Society), the Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences and the Albany Medical Heart Prize.
From 1995 to 2002, he served as a member of the Meals and Drug Administration’s SCIENCE Board, the FDA’s highest advisory board. He was its chairperson from 1999-2002.
Langer acquired his bachelor’s diploma from Cornell College and his doctoral diploma from MIT, each in chemical engineering. He’s the recipient of 36 honorary levels and been elected to the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, the Nationwide Academy of Engineering, Nationwide Academy of Drugs and the Nationwide Academy of Inventors.
He grew up in Albany, N.Y. His father, Robert ’36, was an English main at Union, serving as editor of the literary journal, The Idol. He was additionally captain of the golf staff.
“We’re delighted and honored to have Dr. Langer go to Union to work together with college students, college and the general public,” mentioned Mary Carroll ‘86, the Dwane W. Crichton Professor of Chemistry. “Dr. Langer is actually a famous person in STEM. He has made huge and vital contributions as a chemical engineer, scientist, inventor and entrepreneur. We’re so lucky to welcome him to our campus.”
Carroll and Joanne Kehlbeck, professor and chair of chemistry, had been in a position to deliver Langer to Union by means of a 2021 Jean Dreyfus Lectureship for Undergraduate Establishments awarded to the Chemistry Division.
The award offers an $18,500 grant to deliver a number one researcher within the chemical sciences to campus and to assist the summer season analysis of two undergraduates.
Because the Jean Dreyfus Lecturer, Langer will give two public shows: one geared towards a technical viewers and the opposite accessible to and promoted to the broader neighborhood.
The night lecture within the Nott Memorial is co-sponsored by the Union School chapter of Sigma Xi and the Japanese New York part of the American Chemical Society.
Earlier within the day, at 12:55 p.m. in Olin Auditorium, Langer will give a chat to school and college students, “Chemistry in Assist of Human Well being: Drug Supply and Tissue Engineering.” It’s co-sponsored by the departments of Organic Sciences; Electrical, Laptop and Biomedical Engineering; Geosciences; Mechanical Engineering; and Physics and Astronomy.
