Robert S. Langer is a chemical engineer whose work connects biomaterials, drug delivery and tissue engineering. His MIT departmental profile identifies these as research areas, linking the chemical properties of a material to the biological task it is intended to perform.[ref]
Langer coauthored the primary artery-engineering report and work on surface treatment of polymer meshes for vascular cell culture.[ref][ref]
Surface hydrolysis of poly(glycolic acid) meshes increases the seeding density of vascular smooth muscle cells by Jinming Gao and others. Printed p. 417, byline and abstract
The mesh study illustrates an interface problem: changing a polymer surface can change initial cell attachment without requiring the whole material to have a different macroscopic shape.The broader engineering idea is to treat a biological function as a design problem with several interacting constraints. A material intended to support a developing tissue must permit transport and cell adhesion as well as supply mechanical support. A drug delivery material additionally has a release history: the initial amount loaded does not specify how much becomes available at each time. These distinctions explain why material chemistry, geometry and the biological environment are studied together.
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