Robert Langer was born in august 1948 in Albany, USA. “When I was a little, my parents bought me a Gilbert chemistry set and I found it fascinating,” says Dr. Langer, who recalls how he kept playing with the chemicals and making colors change. “I also got a microscope set and watched shrimp grow and things like that.” In high school his best subjects were science and mathematics so many people advised him to study engineering. And he did.

“I got my degree in chemical engineering in 1974 and almost all my colleagues went into the oil industry, because there were so many jobs there at that time. But I wasn’t so excited about the industry - I was interested in education.” So, Langer applied for various jobs in education, but with very little success.

As he was also interested in medicine, he also applied for various jobs at hospitals and medical schools. Nobody hired him there either. Then somebody mentioned that there was a clinician in Boston named Judah Folkman who sometimes hired ‘unusual’ people. “So I wrote him and he hired me.” This is how Dr. Langer started working with polymers. The path led him to be a pioneer of controlled drug release and tissue regeneration.

Dr. Langer has been cited as "one of history's most prolific inventors in medicine". He holds 380 patents, has published 680 articles and 13 books, has licensed products to about 80 companies, and is known as the father of controlled drug delivery and tissue engineering.

Dr. Robert Langer has discovered and developed many advanced drug delivery systems that have had a significant impact on fighting cancer, heart disease, mental health illnesses and numerous other diseases.
Dr. Langer's research laboratory at MIT is the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world.

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Langer lab

Robert Langer in wikipedia

Robert Langer at America's Best, Science and Medicine

Article "Plastic man" in Forbes