From Drug Delivery to Tissue Engineering: Bioengineering and its Impact on Human Health

In honor of Robert Langer, Sc.D., and Alian Carpentier, M.D., Ph.D. for their extraordinary contributions to medicine and innovations in bioengineering.

Opening Remarks

Jeffrey S. Flier, MD

Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Harvard University

Presentations

Alain F. Carpentier, MD, PhD

Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery, Hôptial Européen Georges-Pompidou

Bioengineering and Its Impact on Cardiac Surgery

Robert S. Langer Jr., ScD

David H. Koch Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Biomaterials and Biotechnology: From the Development of Controlled Drug Delivery Systems to the Foundation of Tissue Engineering

David J. Mooney, PhD

School of Applied Engineering and Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University

Infection-Mimicking Polymers as a Cancer Vaccine

Sangeeta Bhatia, MD, PhD

Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cancer Nanotechnology to Hepatic Tissue Engineering

William Shih, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University

DNA Nanostructures as Building Blocks for Future Therapeutics

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I feel deeply honored to receive this prestigious award in recognition of the research I conducted with my extraordinary coworkers over many years. I hope the award will promote fundamental basic research for future applications we have not the slightest idea about yet
- Peter Hegemann

Peter Hegemann | 2019 Recipient

Peter Hegemann is a Hertie professor for neuroscience and head of Experimental Biophysics at Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin. Hegemanns research focused almost entirely on the characterization of natural sensory photoreceptors. Hegemann has characterized behavioral and photoelectric responses of the unicellular alga Chlamydomonas, a work that cumulated in the claim that the photoreceptors for these responses a rhodopsins that unify the sensor and ion channel in one protein. He has finally proven this concept by identifying the light gated channel channelrhodopsin, and its functionality in animal cells.

His group characterized this protein in molecular detail by a wide range of biophysical techniques; in close collaboration with Karl Deisseroth this lead to the deciphering of the ion channel mechanism, including gating and ion selection. This work was the basis for the discovery of Optogenetics, a technology where light activated proteins – first of all channelrhodopsin - allow to control selected cells of large networks as the animal brain with unprecedented precision in space and time just by application of light. The Hegemann group also works on light-activated enzymes which further expand the optogenetic applications to important biochemical pathways.

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