Robert S. Langer (born August 29, 1948 in Albany, New York) is an American engineer and the David H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was formerly the Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and maintains activity in the department of chemical engineering and the department of biological engineering at MIT. He is also a faculty member of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. He is a widely recognized and cited researcher in biotechnology, especially in the fields of drug delivery systems and tissue engineering. Dr. Langer's research laboratory at MIT is the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world, maintaining about $10 million in annual grants and over 100 researchers.

Langer's is widely regarded for his contributions to medicine and the emerging fields of biotechnology. He is considered a pioneer of many new technologies, including transdermal delivery systems, which allow the administration of drugs or extraction of analytes from the body through the skin without needles or other invasive methods (Science, 269: 850-853, 1995; Nature Medicine, 6: 347-350, 2000). He and the researchers in his lab have also made advances in tissue engineering, such as the creation of vascularized engineered muscle tissue and engineered blood vessels (Science, 284: 489-493, 1999; Nature Biotechnology, 23: 879-884, 2005).
Langer is a prolific inventor and holds more than 760 granted or pending patents He has also authored more than 1,100 scientific papers and has participated in the founding of multiple technology companies. He has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science, the 10th Annual Heinz Award in the category of Technology, the Economy and Employment, the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the Lemelson-MIT Prize, the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research and the Millennium Technology Prize in 2008. Langer is also the youngest person in history (at 43) to be elected to all three American science academies: the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine.
Dr. Langer received his bachelor's degree from Cornell University in chemical engineering. He earned his Sc.D. in chemical engineering from MIT in 1974. His dissertation was entitled "Enzymatic regeneration of ATP" and completed under the direction of Clark K. Colton. From 1974–1977 he worked as a postdoctoral fellow for cancer researcher Judah Folkman at the Children's Hospital Boston and at Harvard Medical School.
Robert Langer and his wife, Laura, a fellow MIT graduate, have three children.
Langer has honorary degrees from a number of universities from around the world: Harvard University, the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, Yale University, the ETH (Switzerland), the Technion (Israel), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), the Universite Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Willamette University, the University of Liverpool (England), the University of Nottingham (England), Albany Medical College, Pennsylvania State University, Northwestern University, Uppsala University (Sweden) and the University of California – San Francisco Medal. He received the prestigious Dan David Prize in 2005.

麻省理工学院(MIT)化学工程系教授罗伯特·兰格(Robert Langer)。 文/李虎军 发自麻省理工学院
罗伯特·兰格(Robert Langer)绝对称得上是一位科学奇才。
他在麻省理工学院(MIT)化学工程系做教授,是组织工程和药物释放研究的先驱,被《福布斯》等媒体评为全球生物技术领域最有影响的人物之一。
他是美国最年轻的“三院院士”:1989年入选美国医学研究院;1992年43岁时又入选了美国工程院和美国科学院。
他是一位“高产作家”:先后发表了近800篇论文,申请了500多项专利,其中100多项已经转让给产业界。
他是一位“获奖专业户”:据其实验室网页介绍,他获得过120多个重要奖项,其中包括素有工程界“诺贝尔奖”之称的德雷珀奖(Draper Prize)。上个学期,他竟然要在一天当中领取两个奖项:在以色列海发领取7.5万美元的哈维奖(Harvey Prize),在美国匹兹堡领取25万美元的亨氏奖(Heinz Award)。分身乏术的他出席了哈维奖的颁奖典礼,亨氏奖就只好让夫人去代领了。
接踵而来的荣誉,锦上添花的奖励,不知在兰格心中还能激起多少波澜?成名之前的种种辛酸,却似乎让他难以释怀。
这个学期,我所在的Knight科学新闻奖学金项目邀请到兰格给我们做一次两小时的讲座。本来,讲座的主题是“组织工程”,可这位小个子科学家有一半以上的时间都在“跑题”,滔滔不绝地对我们10位科学记者诉说起了他当年的不易。
1974年,兰格从MIT拿到了化学工程的博士学位。他的很多同学去了那时十分红火的石化公司,他自己也得到了Exxon等多家公司的20份录用通知。但他的志向在于治病救人的生物医学研究。今天,不论是学工程的,还是学数学的,投身生物医学研究的大有人在,30年前,这种行为却近乎离经叛道。
兰格向多家医学研究机构申请了博士后职位。那些申请基本上如同石沉大海,对他感兴趣的只有哈佛儿童医院的尤达·福克曼(Judah Folkman)。福克曼是一位出色的外科医生和癌症研究人员,并且以不拘泥于传统而著称。
在福克曼实验室,生物医学领域的“门外汉”兰格独辟蹊径,开发出了一种可以使蛋白质大分子缓慢释放的聚合物体系,完成了一个被当时很多研究人员认为是“不可能完成的任务”。据说,此项工作为日后兴起的药物释放产业——如今仅在美国的规模就有200亿美元之多——奠定了一个重要基础。
后来,兰格想在大学谋取一个教职。兰格说,他得到了多所名校的面试机会,但在听了他关于药物释放的研究设想后,那些名校纷纷关上了大门,因为“他们认为我搞的不是化学工程”。最终,他在MIT得到了助理教授的职位,开始建立自己的实验室。
MIT给了他教职,但研究基金还得靠他自己申请。他先后向美国国立卫生研究院(NIH)等机构提出了9项研究申请,结果呢,都没有得到支持。“9项申请呀!他们找出了各种各样的理由来拒绝我。”兰格加重了语气对我们说。研究基金的评审者们认为,兰格的研究设想是不可能完成的,在技术上不具有可行性。甚至有评审者称,兰格根本不懂生物,不懂医学。
如今的兰格,头上盯着耀眼的光环,大概不会再为缺乏研究经费而发愁。但对当时那位年轻的助理教授来说,研究基金申请不断被拒绝,打击之大可想而知。还有人提醒他,如果他不在研究方向上“改弦易辙”,得到晋升的希望比较渺茫。
兰格相信,自己的研究工作很重要,并且开始寻求和产业界的合作。今天,产学研的结合已经成为潮流,当时,学术界很多人却认为,只有远离追逐商业利润的产业界,才能保证学术的纯洁,像兰格那样与产业界“亲密接触”的却并不多见。

在兰格看来,产业界不仅给他提供了转化研究成果、造福社会的机会,而且给他提供了“第一桶金”。他依靠转让专利,终于从一家制药公司拿到了第一笔研究基金。
回想起成名之前的这些往事,兰格向我们提出了一个问题:如今很多研究基金评审机构的政策仍然比较保守,倾向于支持一些比较可行但创新性不强的研究项目,因为他们觉得创新性强的项目风险比较高,可是,“他们为什么不换个角度想一想,如果设想能够实现,给社会带来的好处会有多大呢?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Langer
http://www.ebiotrade.com/newsf/2007-7/2007719180430.htm
http://tech.sina.com.cn/other/2004-04-12/1703347729.shtml