AIChE presented its 2024 Langer Prize for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Excellence to Ashish Kulkarni, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst. The fellowship — which is endowed by the AIChE Foundation — is named for biomedical pioneer Robert Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and awards an unrestricted grant of up to $100,000 to enable creative researchers and engineering entrepreneurs in their early careers to pursue potentially game-changing innovations.
Kulkarni — whose research uses principles of immunooncology to detect early-stage ovarian cancer — received the Langer Prize and delivered an associated lecture on Oct. 28 during the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting, which took place from Oct. 27–31 in San Diego, CA.
More on Kuklarni’s research
Describing the objectives of his research, Kulkarni writes that metastasis and drug resistance are the two major causes of cancer mortality and remain a final frontier in the search for a cure. “Understanding the processes that lead to resistance and metastasis is therefore an urgent need,” Kulkarni says. “Development of novel platforms could help accelerate our understanding of these processes.”
Ovarian cancer typically does not cause noticeable symptoms in its early stages. As a result, it is often diagnosed at advanced stages, making it more difficult to treat effectively. However, when detected early, the chances of successful treatment and long-term survival significantly increase.
Kulkarni’s research has identified a biomarker that is overexpressed in the blood of patients with early-stage ovarian cancer. The discovery could offer a new approach for detection and screening, with improvements over existing techniques.
Kulkarni’s research group works at the interface of engineering and immunobiology to develop innovative technologies to treat diseases and improve human health. By bridging diverse disciplines including nanotechnology, organic synthesis, computational chemistry, molecular imaging, mathematical modeling, and immunology, his team is creating “ImmunoTheranostic” (therapeutic + diagnostic) tools and platforms to address questions in human diseases, with a goal of developing paradigm-shifting immunotherapy strategies.
Kulkarni’s background
Kulkarni is a chemical engineering alumnus of the Univ. of Mumbai. He earned his PhD in organic chemistry at the Univ. of Cincinnati and performed postdoctoral work in biomedical engineering at the Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
As a Langer Prize recipient, Kulkarni joins a network of Langer Fellows including Albert Keung, Tae Seok Moon, Aditya Kunjapur, María Eugenia Inda, and César de la Fuente, and he will have access to, and support from, some of the industry’s foremost innovators and entrepreneurs.
Learn more about the Langer Prize
Information about the Langer Prize and the application process is available at www.aiche.org/langerprizes. The deadline for 2025 fellowship applications is Feb. 15, 2025.
To learn about the endowment campaign for the Langer Prize, contact Natalie Krauser at natak@aiche.org.