On Friday, Oct. 25, Robert Langer, PhD, visited Fairfield University’s campus to present a lecture titled “The Edison of Medicine: Robert Langer’s Quest to Solve Global Health Challenges Using Biotechnology.” Before a packed audience of faculty and students, Dr. Langer discussed his path to becoming a leader in the field of biotechnology and shared how his innovative research in biomaterials and tissue engineering has led to groundbreaking discoveries such as localized chemotherapy, microchip-based drug delivery, and the inhibition of blood vessel growth in cancerous tumors.
Dr. Langer has written more than 1,480 articles, holds more than 1,360 issued and pending patents worldwide, and is the most cited engineer in history. He has received more than 220 major awards, including the 2002 Charles Stark Draper Prize – considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers, and the 2008 Millennium Prize – the world’s largest technology prize.
The esteemed professor, researcher, inventor, and entrepreneur was selected as one of the 100 most important people in America by Time magazine and CNN in 2001, and as one of the 15 innovators worldwide who will reinvent our future by Forbes magazine in 2002.
In his Fairfield University lecture, Dr. Langer demonstrated to his audience that the keys to success in research are vision, hard work, and never giving up. He emphasized the importance of not just finding the right answers, but asking the right questions. Dr. Langer encouraged Fairfield’s engineering and science communities to push beyond their comfort zones as they continue their forward-looking applied research efforts.
