Robert Langer: Engineering the Future of Medicine, from mRNA Vaccine to Drug Delivery System

Robert Langer is an acclaimed chemical engineer, professor, and investor in biomedical technology. He is one of 10 Institute Professors at MIT, which is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member. Prof. Langer is the most cited engineer in history with an H-index of 283 and over 331,000 citations according to Google Scholar. In addition, he has over 1,400 patents issued and pending worldwide which have been licensed to over 400  companies. His inventions are estimated to have affected over 2 billion lives, and his most recent public work involves the coronavirus vaccine created by Moderna, which is the biotech company he co-founded. 

In this interview, Arjun, Michael, and Tiger discuss with Prof. Langer his early career struggles as a freshly minted graduate student, his groundbreaking postdoc research on blood vessel growth for Judah Folkman that few believed could become reality, the future of drug delivery and tissue engineering technology, why the mRNA vaccine is safe and has withstood the test of time, the success of Langer Lab in spurring dozens of biotech companies, and the future of medicine amongst many other topics. 

Early career 

Prof. Langer was first offered 20 traditional chemical engineering jobs after he graduated from Cornell’s PhD program. Instead of taking those offers, however, he fought an uphill battle to find a position in medical research, eventually working with Judah Folkman at the Boston Children’s Hospital. Prof. Langer recalls that he didn't know too much biology about chemistry in his early career, so a lot of times he felt he was in the dark. 

When he first started the project on blood vessel growth, most people didn’t think it was possible. How did this idea first come into light? What motivated Prof. Langer to stick through the research when others were in doubt? Did he know deep down that he’d eventually be able to make a breakthrough, or was he simply determined to pursue the topic regardless of the outcome? What does the process of drug discovery look like, both today and when he was much younger? 

Prof. Langer has often said that research is about asking the right questions, rather than knowing the right answers. What does it mean to ask the right questions, and how does he teach students to do this? And if a student comes to him today with a task that he thinks is impossible or unfeasible, what does he generally advise them to do? 

Drug delivery system and tissue engineering 

The Langer Lab has focused on two broad areas in biomedical engineering: tissue engineering and drug delivery systems. Both research areas lie at the core of many modern medical revolutions, from advanced drugs to synthetic organs. Prof. Langer describes a number of such examples that he and his lab are developing, such as engineering synthetic blood vessels via an emulated heartbeat.

Another drug delivery breakthrough that Prof. Langer describes more in-depth are star-shaped pills, which he showed a physical model of during the interview! The guiding principle behind the design is the following: standard pills are only able to deliver their encapsulated drug for a day. There are more crude ways to design pills that can administer drugs for longer periods, but the bulkier design could cause harm to the host, or block part of the digestive system. The star-shaped design solves for this: it is a pill that is small when ingested, expands inside the body, and leaves a large hole in its center for the digestive track to act normally. This kind of pill would make delivering some drugs, like insulin, much easier.

Prof. Langer then goes on to describe some of the broader aspects of these research fields. What are the most promising future applications for tissue engineering and drug delivery research? What are the current obstacles/limitations in research for tissue engineering and drug delivery systems? What capacity does AI have to further push the frontier in research for these fields?

The Science Behind the Covid Vaccine

Prof. Langer attributes two reasons to the amazing speed of the mRNA vaccine development process: the superior nature of the technology itself in comparison to previous vaccination technologies, and the U.S. government’s “Operation Warp Speed” that invested a lot of capital into the private sector while providing regulatory support. 

He explains the mRNA vaccine to us: DNA makes RNA, and RNA makes protein. While classically people focused on the protein part when producing vaccines, the process takes too long, and Moderna directly started with the mRNA part. The beauty of mRNA is that one can make it very quickly, give it to the body, and start testing for efficacy. 

A key pillar of the mRNA vaccine technology is drug delivery, however. To a patient, the mRNA would get destroyed immediately if not properly encapsulated and protected by nanoparticles when being injected into the body. But once it’s successfully injected into the muscle, mRNA will trigger the body to start making antibodies and immunize the patient. Thus, Langer’s pioneering work on drug delivery was integral to the success of the COVID vaccine!

This Covid vaccine was actually the 9th mRNA vaccine that went into the clinic. Moderna had been working on many other mRNA vaccines and treatments long before Covid; it’s just they had been going through a slower process of clinical tests and FDA approvals. The mRNA technology, therefore contrary to what many have incorrectly said, is a mature technology that we should feel safe about. 

Biotech Entrepreneurship and Investing

While the world of investing is often seen as taboo in academic circles, Prof. Langer is renowned for spinning his research into more than 40 private sector enterprises over the years. He talks to us about the differences between academia and the private sector, and why it’s important to engage in both. We also ask him - how does he know when to commercialize a research project in his lab, and how does that process work? He explains that his approach can be captured by the 3 P’s: platform, patent, and paper, and why all these ingredients are key to turning a lab breakthrough into a cure that saves lives. In addition, we talk about how his experience as a researcher and entrepreneur in biotechnology has influenced his decisions as a biotech investor, and what he sees as the important future trends in biotech.

Conclusion

We wrap up with Prof. Langer by asking about his thoughts on academia vs. industry, the underlying philosophy that motivates him and his research, and as always, his punchline for this episode. 

We hope you enjoy listening!

Robert Langer