Members of the MIT community may notice a familiar name in this Sunday's issue of Parade magazine.
Robert Langer is featured in the magazine's March 21 issue for his groundbreaking research in chemical and biomedical engineering. Langer, the Kenneth J. Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, is one of six scientists profiled in Parade to honor the innovative but often anonymous nature of research. The magazine, which runs in 340 Sunday newspapers around the country, has a readership of 80 million.
"When scientific literature says something is impossible, you have to create possibilities that don't exist yet," Langer says in the magazine. "Big ideas take incredibly hard work and a lot of time."
Langer's achievements include pioneering new techniques for targeting brain tumors, developing transplant organs and dispensing medication through the bloodstream. His drug-delivery system alone took 28 years to come to fruition. "Fortunately," he said, "something in my personality makes me believe I can solve a problem if I just think hard enough and don't give up."
The article honoring Langer was inspired by a recent Parade/Research!America poll that examined Americans' attitudes toward medical research. The survey found 91 percent of those polled think the United States should be a world leader in health research.
Langer was also a participant in Research!America's 2004 forum held this week in Washington, D.C. He and Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were on a panel that addressed the greatest opportunities facing our nation's medical and health research enterprise. Research!America is an alliance for discoveries in health.
--Elizabeth Thomson
