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Robert S. Langer fact sheet

  • At MIT, Langer runs the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world with approximately 100 researchers and more than $6 million in yearly grants. It is so well respected that each year about 3,000 graduate and postgraduate students apply for only five open lab positions.
  • Langer holds more than 500 issued or pending patents and more than 100 of those patents have been licensed or sublicensed to companies.
  • Langer has written more than 800 scientific papers.
  • His research has spawned more than a dozen biotechnology firms and more than 35 products that are either currently on the market or in human testing.
  • Langer has served as the chair of the FDA's Science Board, the agency's highest advisory board.
  • Langer was the youngest person (age 43) in history to be elected to all three of America's major national science academies: the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Institute of Medicine.
  • Recently, Parade magazine selected Langer as one of six heroes whose research may save your life, while Time magazine named him one of "America's Best" in its list of the 100 most important people in America.
  • During his career, Langer has received more than 130 scientific awards, including the $500,000 Charles Stark Draper Prize--considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers--and the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the nation's largest and most prestigious prize for invention.

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