Singapore-MIT Alliance
Summer Conference 2001
The two-day Programme was held in the Wong Auditorium in the Tang Center (E-51)
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Speaker
Robert Langer Germeshausen Professor Of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering, MIT
Abstract Advances in Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering
Over the past two decades, increasing attention has been paid to development of systems to deliver drugs for long time periods at controlled rates. Such systems have been developed for the treatment of eye diseases and birth control. Some of these systems can deliver drugs continuously for over 1 year. However, little attention has been given to developing systems for the controlled release of large molecules (M.W. > 1000) such as polypeptide hormones. In early studies, we discovered that microspheres made of hydrophobic polymers could release many different macromolecules in bioactive form for over 100 days in vitro and in vivo. By using these techniques, a variety of systems for releasing polypeptides such as insulin, have been designed. In order to provide increased release rates on demand, a polymer-drug delivery system containing small magnetic beads were designed. Release rates were controlled by an oscillating external bar magnet. When exposed to the magnetic field, polymer matrices release up to 30 times more drug. Recently, controlled release mircochips have been designed.
Bioerodible polymers, in particular polyanhydrides have been synthesized as vehicles to release both large and small molecules. These polymers are unique in that they show surface erosion and lead to near constant release rates of incorporated drugs. By altering the hydrophobicity of the polymer backbone, release time from 1 week to 6 years can be achieved. They have been approved by the FDA in a novel drug delivery system for treating brain cancer.
Approaches involving the application of bioerodible polymers to serve as implantable scaffolds for mammalian cells to create new organ transplants is being studied. This approach has been used to create a variety of tissues such as liver, skin, nerves, cartilage and other tissues in animals and humans.
Biography Robert Langer is the Kenneth J. Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Langer has received honorary doctorates from the ETH (Switzerland), the Technion (Israel) and the Universite Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). He is the Chairman of the United States Food and Drug Administration's SCIENCE Board, the FDA's highest advisory board. Dr. Langer has written 670 articles and 420 abstracts. He has also written 362 patents, one of which was cited as the outstanding patent in Massachusetts in 1988 and one of 20 outstanding patents in the United States. Dr. Langer's patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 70 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology and medical device companies; a number of these companies were launched on the basis of these patent licenses. Dr. Langer has received over 80 major awards and is the only engineer to receive the Gairdner Foundation International Award; 54 recipients of this award have subsequently received a Nobel Prize, and he received the $500,000.00 Lemelson-MIT prize, the world's largest prize for invention for being "one of history's most prolific inventors in medicine." In 1989, Dr. Langer was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1992 he was elected to both the National Academy of Engineering and to the National Academy of Sciences. He is the only active member of all three United States National Academies. Both Forbes Magazine and BioWorld have named Langer as one of the 25 most important individuals in biotechnology in the world. He has served, at various times, on 8 boards of directors and 20 Scientific Advisory Boards of such companies as Alkermes, Mitsubishi Pharmaceuticals, Warner-Lambert, and Guilford Pharmaceuticals. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Cornell University in 1970 and his Sc.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, both in chemical engineering.
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