One of the major contributors to biotechnology and medicine.
Highlights:
- Dr. Robert Langer is the most cited engineer in history, holding over 1,500 patents and co-founding 40+ companies, including Moderna.
- After industry pushback, he launched startups to bring discoveries to life, proving that perseverance can beat gatekeeping.
- His work on lipid nanoparticles enabled the delivery of mRNA, making COVID-19 vaccines possible and opening doors to cancer and genetic therapies.
- From childhood chemistry sets to biomedical breakthroughs, his career is fueled by wonder, experimentation, and a love for magic.
- He inspires students to dream big and take risks, many of whom now lead breakthroughs in medicine, biotech, and engineering.
“Okay, pick any card,” says Robert Samuel Langer, just Bob to most, while presenting an invisible deck. He usually does it with such confidence that it really seems like there’s a deck in his hands. “Hold it up and show it to me and everybody else.” Then he asks for the card to be returned face down and says, “I happen to have this deck in my pocket,” as he pulls out a real one and fans it out. Among hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades, “there’s only one card upside down.” Bob looks at it, flips it over, and it’s the same card that was picked.
My curiosity gets sparked by these almost magical things that could happen.
The trick is called the “Invisible Deck,” and it’s one of his favorites. In fact, he repeats it often, even during his scientific talks. Magic fascinates him because it invites us to see the world with the same blend of curiosity and creativity that drives him. “My curiosity gets sparked by these almost magical things that could happen,” he confesses, making it clear that science is about exploring the unknown.
He grew up in Albany, New York, near the Hudson River, surrounded by brick buildings. He recalls enjoying time in his family’s basement. “I actually made a little lab in my parents’ house,” he remembers. “It was kind of magical.” By age 11, he spent hours with his Gilbert chemistry sets, mixing color-changing chemicals or making rubber, surrounded by glass jars, metal lids, test tubes, flasks, and funnels. “They had a big influence on me,” he says. He was also mesmerized by his microscope. “(I) could watch shrimp eggs hatch.” From those shells came translucent-bodied creatures with large, dark eyes. Since then, curiosity has been a driving force in his life dedicated to science.
Langer studied at Cornell University’s College of Engineering and earned a Doctor of Science in Chemical Engineering at MIT. There, he leads the world’s largest biomedical engineering lab and is the most cited engineer in history. He holds over 1,500 patents, some still pending.
He entered the research world under the mentorship of Dr. Judah Folkman, a biologist and oncologist known for his radical ideas. “He seemed to believe that anything was possible,” Langer recalls. “What Dr. Folkman did with me, and with everybody, was use what I call positive reinforcement.” Folkman believed that controlling blood vessel development could stop cancer, an idea widely criticized at the time. “He was widely criticized for that, but he hung in there,” says Langer. “I’ve certainly been criticized for lots of things, too. Even after the initial data was published, they kept saying it probably wouldn’t work, and I think that was the hardest thing,” he explains. Many years later, this discovery led to new cancer treatments that block the formation of blood vessels feeding tumors, essentially “starving” them and preventing their spread.
That’s when I realized we’d actually done it.
“The blood vessel work I kept working on over the years would lead to nanoparticles,” he recalls. These act like capsules that transport drugs, genetic material, or other compounds through the body. After years of frustration, one experiment finally delivered what he had been seeking. In his lab, one of the systems began performing exactly as expected. The drug was released continuously and in a controlled way. “It changed color after one hour, then after one day, and again after two days,” he says. “I kept coming back for months and it kept changing color. That’s when I realized we’d actually done it.” He got calls from a couple of major companies. “They worked on it for a year or two, and then they gave up.” Their withdrawal was a blow. “I was really disappointed because I felt this could do a lot of good,” he confesses.
Alexander Klibanov, a chemist with an entrepreneurial spirit, encouraged him to stop seeking approval from the big players. “Bob, one day we should start our own company,” he suggested. Langer decided to take the leap. “That (was) a very good way to take some of the discoveries and inventions we made and get them out to the world,” keeping his projects alive. “It’s a team effort,” he points out. “We could have great technologies and not have a great company.” That’s why he has leaned on experts from other fields, like business.
If you’re not your own champion, nobody else will be.
Thanks to this vision, throughout his career he has founded over 40 companies, including Moderna, where he was a scientific co-founder. Its breakthroughs have transformed medicine on a global scale. “If you’re not your own champion, nobody else will be,” he asserts, firmly believing that perseverance is key.
Langer played a major role during the pandemic. For many of us, perhaps all of us, this story is now part of our collective memory. The scientific community raced to develop a vaccine. Among the innovations was messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which instructs the body to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein so the immune system can recognize it and create antibodies.
“You talked to Kati,” he says, referring to my interview last August with Katalin Karikó, who, along with Drew Weissman, helped develop mRNA vaccines. Since mRNA is a fragile molecule that’s hard to deliver into human cells, it needs additional technologies, like the lipid nanoparticles developed by Langer.
The team at Moderna was incredible, and kept working on it. In the end, the data showed 94% effectiveness.
Despite the unprecedented achievement of developing multiple vaccines in record time, public doubt resurfaced, not from the scientific community this time, but from the general population. Skeptics, the now well-known antivaxxers, baselessly questioned the vaccine’s safety, creating public distrust despite proven data. What followed was a misinformation crisis, and Langer stood firm in his belief that science can drive positive change. “The team at Moderna was incredible, and kept working on it. In the end, the data showed 94% effectiveness.”
mRNA and lipid nanoparticle technologies, together, have paved the way for new therapies, opening doors to vaccines and treatments for a wide range of diseases. Research is underway to develop treatments for cancer, heart disease, and genetic disorders. “Moderna and Merck have announced very good clinical trial results for melanoma,” Dr. Langer notes. Unlike a prophylactic vaccine like the one for COVID-19, this is classified as therapeutic. Instead of coding for the spike protein, this mRNA vaccine encodes neoepitopes, which the immune system learns to recognize, enabling personalized cancer treatments tailored to each patient.
So, if you take heart muscle cells and place them on this scaffold, they start to grow and develop the same architecture as actual heart muscle.
Interestingly, his venture into tissue engineering began with a more playful setting. “My friend Jay Vacanti wanted me to do a magic show for his five- and six-year-old boys. I even had a magician’s costume—the hat, cape, everything.” It was Vacanti who encouraged him to take a new direction in his research—one that would lead to the development of biodegradable polymer scaffolds. These structures act as a base for tissue growth. “So, if you take heart muscle cells and place them on this scaffold,” he explains, “they start to grow and develop the same architecture as actual heart muscle.” For Langer, discoveries like this come from the curiosity that drives him, and above all, from always dreaming big.
I’d rather try to do something and fail than try to do something kind of routine and succeed.
“If you dream big dreams, you’re probably taking risks,” says Bob. It’s a philosophy that has guided his own career and one he instills in generations of scientists. Many of his students have gone on to lead major breakthroughs in medicine, biotech, and engineering. “I try to tell them to have big dreams that can change the world,” he says. And to not give up easily. He encourages his students to work hard, not out of pure discipline, but because they find joy in what they do. “I also am excited about the fact that science can do a lot of good for the world,” he reflects, regarding his belief in the power of knowledge. It’s about taking risks, dreaming, and never giving up. “I’d rather try to do something and fail than try to do something kind of routine and succeed,” he concludes.
