Intensity High at 1995 MRS Spring Meeting
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Robert Langer, the Kenneth J. Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at MIT, gives the plenary presentation, "Biomaterials: New Polymers and Novel Applications."
the possibilities of developing polymers to slowly release drugs into the body. With the onset of genetic engineering and biotechnology in the late 1970s and 1980s, the problem of releasing drugs of large molecular weight became more urgent, accelerating Langer's research. One of the highlights of his successes is the development of a biodegradable polymer disk that can be placed in the brain rather than the bloodstream of a patient suffering from brain cancer. In this way, the drug is released at the site of the tumor, avoiding previous side effects that damaged the liver, kidney, and spleen. Langer addressed research that revolutionized materials used for medical applications. In treating organ failure, rather than limit physicians to the use of materials from the commercial sector, such as sausage casing for dialysis tubing, Dacron clothing for vascular grafts, or mattress stuffing for breast implants, research in tissue engineering has led to materials synthesized specifically to treat medical problems. See Langer's edited transcript, "Biomaterials: New Polymers and Novel Applications," elsewhere in this issue. The plenary presentation set the pace for a three-day symposium on polymers in medicine and pharmacy (Symposium Z), including a talk by W. Mark Saltzman (Johns Hopkins University) on polymers for tissue engineering, which was presented jointly with Symposium X as a u!view for nonspecialists. Saltzman disi ussed organ regeneration through the process of culturing cells onto polymer scaffolds. Once cells proliferate to regenerate the lost organ, the polymer scaffold can be designed to biodegrade. He discussed how cell behavior on synthetic polymer surfaces depends on the surface
A. Paul Alivisatos, recipient of the Outstanding Young Investigator Award, describes his work on nanostructures.
chemistry. For example, cell-cell interaction can be influenced by water-soluble, hybrid polymers; and cell adhesion peptides immobilized to poly(ethylene glycol) promote neural cell adhesion. Awards Maybe one day it will be possible to make functioning electronic materials in a beaker of liquid, but for now the excitement of nanocrystals resides in the research lab, revealing interesting phenomena and extending the dimensions of knowledge, while shrinking physical dimensions. A. Paul Alivisatos, from the University of California at Berkeley, received the 1995 Outstanding Young Investigator Award, which was presented to him by John Bravman, immediate past president of MRS, during the Plenary Awards Ceremony. In a special lecture during the technical sessions, Alivisatos described some of the marvels of nanostructures. Now that it is possible to form nanocrystals, the next challenge will be to study the properties of the tiny surfaces, to control those surfaces, to study defects they contain, and—eventually—to attach electrical leads to
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