A lab focused on healing
In Robert Langer’s vision of the future, the paralyzed walk, the sick are healed, the maimed are whole again, and it all happens through bioengineering. Langer, an MIT scientist who runs the world’s largest bioengineering lab, said last week that those dreams aren’t fantasies, but future engineering achievements promised by today’s lab results. The path from lab to consumer is often long and tortuous, Langer acknowledged. The anti-angiogenesis drugs he first worked on as a fellow in the late Judah Folkman’s Children’s Hospital lab in the 1970s took 28 years to reach the market. Still, the overall message from work in advanced bioengineering and biomaterials is one of hope, he emphasized. Langer spoke at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study’s Knafel Center last Thursday. His talk, “Biomaterials for the 21st Century and How They Will Change Our Lives,” examined discoveries at different stages of development, with some closer to market than others. He...