Robert S. Langer is the David H. Koch Institute Professor and one of MIT's Institute Professors, the highest honor awarded to faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds appointments in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering. Langer earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University in 1970 and an Sc.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 1974. His research at the Langer Lab, the world's largest academic biomedical engineering laboratory, operates at the interface of biotechnology and materials science to solve problems in human health, with profound impacts in medicine including cancer detection, monitoring, and treatment. Langer served as a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s SCIENCE Board from 1995 to 2002 and as its Chairman from 1999 to 2002.

Langer's research specializes in developing polymers and lipids for controlled, prolonged delivery of drugs such as genetically engineered proteins, DNA, and RNA. Key efforts include inhibiting neovascularization critical to cancer without affecting existing blood vessels and engineering tissues for mammalian cell transplants to form liver, cartilage, pancreas, and nerves. He has authored over 1,600 articles with an h-index of 336 and more than 472,000 citations, the highest for any engineer in history. Langer holds over 1,500 issued and pending patents licensed to more than 400 companies, leading to 41 FDA-approved products. Notable publications include "Nanocarriers as an emerging platform for cancer therapy" (2007), "Engineering precision nanoparticles for drug delivery" (2021), "Hydrogels in biology and medicine: from molecular principles to bionanotechnology" (2006), "Transdermal drug delivery" (2008), and "Impact of nanotechnology on drug delivery" (2009). He is a co-founder of companies including Moderna and has received over 220 major awards, such as the U.S. National Medal of Science (2006), U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011), Gairdner Foundation International Award (1996), Charles Stark Draper Prize (2002), Millennium Technology Prize (2008), Priestley Medal (2012), Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2013), Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2014), Kyoto Prize (2014), Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (2015), Balzan Prize (2022), Dr. Paul Janssen Award (2023), and Kavli Prize in Nanoscience (2024). Elected to the National Academy of Medicine (1989), National Academy of Engineering (1992), National Academy of Sciences (1992), and National Academy of Inventors (2012), he holds 46 honorary doctorates.

Professional Email: rlanger@mit.edu