The Regenerative Engineering Society (RE Society) — a technical entity of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) — has chosen Robert S. Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as recipient of its Cato T. Laurencin Regenerative Engineering Society Founder’s Award for 2024. First presented in 2023, the award was created in honor of the RE Society’s founder — Dr. Cato T. Laurencin, Chief Executive Officer of The Cato T. Laurencin Institute for Regenerative Engineering at the University of Connecticut — and recognizes individuals for leadership in the science and practice of convergence research as applied to regenerative engineering and medicine.
Langer is slated to receive the prize and deliver an associated lecture on October 28 at the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting in San Diego, California (October 27–31). In his talk, Langer will discuss his trajectory in chemical engineering, including some of his groundbreaking achievements in tissue engineering and drug delivery systems.
AIChE’s Regenerative Engineering Society is dedicated to advancing the new field of regenerative engineering, which involves the convergence of advanced materials sciences, stem cell science, physics, developmental biology, and clinical translation for the regeneration of complex tissues and organ systems.
Robert Langer, a pioneer in biotechnology and biomedical engineering, joined the MIT faculty in 1978. He has since documented his research in more than 1,600 articles, and he has approximately 1,500 issued and pending patents worldwide. His patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 400 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology and medical device companies. He is the most cited engineer in history.
Langer is one of five living people to have received both the U.S. National Medal of Science (2006) and the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011). He also received the Charles Stark Draper Prize (2002), considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers, and the Millennium Prize (2008), the world’s largest technology prize. Among recent honors, in 2024, he received the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience.
He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, as well as the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Inventors. He also served on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s SCIENCE Board from 1995–2002 and as its Chairman from 1999–2002.
Langer completed his undergraduate studies in chemical engineering at Cornell University and earned his doctorate in chemical engineering at MIT.
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About AIChE: AIChE is a professional society of more than 60,000 members in more than 110 countries. Its members work in corporations, universities and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop safe and useful products for the benefit of society. Through its varied programs, AIChE continues to be a focal point for information exchange on the frontier of chemical engineering research in such areas as nanotechnology, sustainability, hydrogen fuels, biological and environmental engineering, and chemical plant safety and security. More information about AIChE is available at www.aiche.org.