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THE NAI PROFILE 223

working on will do even more good, so I want them using materials and cells to create new tissues and
—both in terms of the research itself and the train- organs, and that’s already led to artificial skin for
ing—to be successful. And I have just a fantastic group burn victims. We’re in clinical trials helping people
of people in the lab, and I just love that, so I think it who are paralyzed with spinal cord repair. Some of
kind of [sustains itself] automatically. It’s the people the newer things we’re doing are new treatments for
and the mission of being an educator and trying to do diabetes. We published a couple of papers in Nature
research that I really enjoy and that can do more good. Journals earlier this year on new methods and new
T&I: Thinking about the people and the research, materials for encapsulating islet cells that could create
tell us about some of the current projects your lab an artificial pancreas that you could put in the body
is working on. and hopefully someday even be a cure for diabetes.
There are a lot of different things along those lines,
Langer: One of the things we are doing a lot with is like more basic work on understanding how materi-
the Gates Foundation. This is great because they want als could affect drug behavior and different disease
to help developing countries, and I do too. One big treatments. Those are a few things that we’re doing.
area we’re involved in is drug delivery systems, so I’ll There are a lot of areas where we could potentially do
give you a few examples of some of the new things a lot of good. The Gates Foundation has been great
we’re doing there. One is the idea that you could make to work with. They have been big supporters of a
a pill that can last anywhere from—not just a day, number of different things that we’ve done. We’re also
which is the longest they last now— a week to a month doing stuff with NIH and with different foundations.
to a year. The reason for that is that patient compliance Some of the work with the nanoparticles is aimed at
in developing countries is very poor. They’ve done cancer, so we’re working on a lot of different things
calculations at the Gates Foundation that if someone that I hope will help people in the long run.
could keep a blood level of a certain drug—say over
six nanograms per ml for two weeks—it could treat T&I: This last question is a little off the wall, but let’s
malaria, but people don’t keep taking their drugs. talk about your work with Living Proof, the hair care
So we are working on a pill that could literally last company. Given your work in the medical field, it
any length of time, and it’s looking quite promising. might seem like a departure in some way from your
Similarly with vaccines, people don’t come back other ventures. However, it’s often the fact that two
for second or third injections. Some years ago, there things which seem to be contrary are actually fun-
were statistics from the World Health Organization damentally similar. How is your work with Living
indicating that around half a million babies die of Proof connected to your other work?
tetanus every year because their mothers don’t come Langer: This is really a two-part question. The first
back for a second tetanus shot. So we’re creating a part is: why do we do it? The reason I did it is because
vaccine that allows you to give a single injection of the investors, some of whom are my former students,
any vaccine that is actually many injections in one. had been nice enough to invest in the companies that
Basically, we have little microspheres that release have spun out of our lab. One day, they said they
their compounds not only at time zero but also at one wanted to do a hair company and asked if I would
month, six months, and one year. We are also working help them, and they have been so good to me in terms
on nanotechnology, ways of delivering new drugs like of putting money into the companies that we’ve done
siRNA (these are gene therapy agents), CRISPR, and in medicine that I felt it was the least that I could do
messenger RNA. One of the big challenges of many of to help them.
these genetic therapies is getting it to the right cells, Then, secondly, when I looked into it, it was exactly
so we have been doing a lot of work on nanoparticles what you just said. Basically, some of the major
that are specially designed to do that. products really came from looking at fundamentals
The other big area is tissue engineering. We’ve of materials. In the case of the anti-frizz product,
done a lot on trying to come up with new strategies what happened is the same thing I saw in medicine.