Robert Langer: Edison of Medicine
音乐与艺术生物与进化技术与编程AI 与机器学习商业与创业
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🔑 关键词
donedrugblooddonsciencewaysengineeringtryingbetterresearchdeliverymoneyabledrugscellssomedaycompaniesvesselsdoingcancer
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🎙️ 完整对话（1243 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Bob Langer, professor at
以下是与鲍勃·兰格（Bob Langer）教授的对话
Lex Fridman (00:03.480)
MIT, and one of the most cited researchers in history,
麻省理工学院，历史上被引用次数最多的研究人员之一，
Lex Fridman (00:07.280)
specializing in biotechnology fields of drug delivery systems
专注于药物输送系统生物技术领域
Lex Fridman (00:11.120)
and tissue engineering. He has bridged theory and practice by
和组织工程。他通过以下方式将理论与实践联系起来：
Lex Fridman (00:15.600)
being a key member and driving force in launching many
是发起许多项目的关键成员和推动者
Robert Langer (00:19.200)
successful biotech companies out of MIT. This conversation was
麻省理工学院的成功生物技术公司。这次谈话是
Lex Fridman (00:23.480)
recorded before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. His
记录在冠状病毒大流行爆发之前。他的
Robert Langer (00:27.400)
research and companies are at the forefront of developing
研究和公司处于发展的最前沿
Lex Fridman (00:30.040)
treatment for COVID 19, including a promising vaccine
COVID 19 的治疗方法，包括一种有前途的疫苗
Robert Langer (00:34.000)
candidate. Quick summary of the ads to sponsors cash app and
候选人。赞助商现金应用程序的广告快速摘要以及
Lex Fridman (00:39.320)
masterclass. Please consider supporting the podcast by
大师班。请考虑通过以下方式支持播客
Robert Langer (00:42.520)
downloading cash app and using code Lex podcast and signing up
下载现金应用程序并使用代码 Lex 播客并注册
Lex Fridman (00:47.080)
a masterclass.com slash Lex, click on the links by the stuff.
一个 masterclass.com 斜线 Lex，点击该东西旁边的链接。
Robert Langer (00:52.120)
It really is the best way to support this podcast and in
这确实是支持这个播客的最佳方式
Lex Fridman (00:55.320)
general, the journey I'm on in my research and startup. This is
总的来说，我正在研究和创业的旅程。这是
Robert Langer (00:59.960)
the artificial intelligence podcast. If you enjoy it,
人工智能播客。如果你喜欢它，
Lex Fridman (01:02.760)
subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars and Apple
在 YouTube 上订阅，用五颗星和 Apple 进行评论
Robert Langer (01:05.560)
podcast supported on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at
Patreon 支持播客，或者在 Twitter 上与我联系：
Lex Fridman (01:09.400)
Lex Friedman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and
莱克斯·弗里德曼。像往常一样，我现在会做几分钟的广告
Robert Langer (01:13.800)
never any ads in the middle that can break the flow of the
中间绝不会出现任何会破坏流量的广告
Lex Fridman (01:16.000)
conversation. This show is presented by cash app, the
Robert Langer (01:20.880)
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Robert Langer (01:28.520)
Bitcoin and invest in the stock market with as little as $1.
Lex Fridman (01:32.480)
Since cash app allows you to send and receive money
Robert Langer (01:34.800)
digitally. Let me mention a surprising fact related to
Lex Fridman (01:37.960)
physical money. Of all the currency in the world, roughly
Robert Langer (01:41.480)
8% of it is actual physical money. The other 92% of money
Lex Fridman (01:46.480)
only exists digitally. So again, if you get cash app from
Robert Langer (01:50.480)
the App Store, Google Play and use the code Lex podcast, you
Lex Fridman (01:54.440)
get $10. And cash app will also donate $10 to first an
Robert Langer (01:58.760)
organization that is helping to advance robotics and STEM
Lex Fridman (02:01.400)
education for young people around the world. This show is
Robert Langer (02:05.600)
sponsored by masterclass, sign up at masterclass.com slash Lex
Lex Fridman (02:10.120)
to get a discount and to support this podcast. When I first
Robert Langer (02:14.000)
heard about masterclass, I thought it was too good to be
Lex Fridman (02:16.440)
true. For $180 a year you get an all access pass to watch
Robert Langer (02:21.560)
courses from to list some of my favorites. Chris Hadfield on
Lex Fridman (02:25.640)
space exploration near the grass Tyson on scientific thinking
Lex Fridman (02:28.720)
and communication will write creator some city and Sims on
Lex Fridman (02:32.720)
game design. Carlos Santana on guitar. Europa is probably one
Robert Langer (02:37.320)
of the most beautiful guitar instrumentals ever. Garak is
Lex Fridman (02:40.560)
part of on chess, Daniel Negrano on poker and many more. Chris
Robert Langer (02:45.080)
Hadfield explaining how rockets work and experience of being
Lex Fridman (02:48.200)
launched into space alone is worth the money. You can watch
Robert Langer (02:52.240)
it on basically any device. Once again, sign up a masterclass
Lex Fridman (02:56.160)
dot com slash Lex to get a discount and to support this
Robert Langer (03:01.160)
podcast. And now here's my conversation with Bob Langer.
Lex Fridman (03:07.600)
You have a bit of a love for magic. Do you see a connection
Lex Fridman (03:10.960)
between magic and science?
Lex Fridman (03:12.640)
I do. I think magic can surprise you. And, uh, you know, and I
Robert Langer (03:17.920)
think science can surprise you. And there's something magical
Lex Fridman (03:20.720)
about, about science. I mean, making discoveries and things
Robert Langer (03:23.960)
like that. Yeah. So on the, and then on the magic side, is
Lex Fridman (03:26.800)
there some kind of engineering scientific process to the tricks
Robert Langer (03:30.160)
themselves? Do you see, cause there's a duality to it. One is
Lex Fridman (03:34.720)
you're the, um, you're, you're sort of the person inside that
Robert Langer (03:39.280)
knows how the whole thing works, how the universe of the magic
Lex Fridman (03:42.480)
trick works. And then from the outside observer, which is kind
Robert Langer (03:45.960)
of the role of the scientists, you, the people that observe
Lex Fridman (03:49.560)
the magic trick don't know at least initially anything that's
Lex Fridman (03:52.920)
going on. Do you see that kind of duality?
Lex Fridman (03:55.720)
Well, I think the duality that I see is fascination. You know,
Robert Langer (03:58.560)
I think of it, you know, when I watch magic myself, I'm always
Lex Fridman (04:03.160)
fascinated by it. Sometimes it's a puzzle to think how it's done,
Lex Fridman (04:06.280)
but just the sheer fact that something that you never thought
Lex Fridman (04:09.280)
could happen does happen. And I think about that in science too,
Robert Langer (04:13.440)
you know, sometimes you, it's something that, that you might
Lex Fridman (04:17.360)
dream about and hoping to discover, maybe you do in some
Robert Langer (04:21.320)
way or form.
Lex Fridman (04:22.600)
What is the most amazing magic trick you've ever seen?
Robert Langer (04:26.880)
Well, there's one I like, which is called the invisible pack.
Lex Fridman (04:30.000)
And the way it works is you have this pack and you hold it up.
Robert Langer (04:35.000)
Well, first you say to somebody, this is invisible and this deck
Lex Fridman (04:40.200)
and you say, well, shuffle it. They shuffle it, but you know,
Robert Langer (04:43.560)
they're sort of make believe. And then you say, okay, I'd like
Lex Fridman (04:46.640)
you to pick a card, any card and show it to me. And you show it
Robert Langer (04:50.440)
to me and I look at it. And let's say it's the three of
Lex Fridman (04:55.120)
hearts. I said, we'll put it back in the deck. But what I'd
Robert Langer (04:57.720)
like you to do is turn it up upside down from every other
Lex Fridman (05:00.320)
card in the deck. So they do that imaginary. And I say,
Lex Fridman (05:04.880)
do you want to shuffle it again? And they shuffle it. And I said,
Lex Fridman (05:07.520)
well, so there's still one card upside down from every other
Robert Langer (05:10.920)
card in the deck. I said, what is that? And they said, well,
Lex Fridman (05:12.840)
three hearts. So what just so happens in my back pocket, I
Robert Langer (05:15.960)
have this deck, it's, you know, it's a real deck. I show it to
Lex Fridman (05:18.880)
you and I just open it up. And there's just one card upside
Robert Langer (05:22.080)
down. And it's the three of hearts.
Lex Fridman (05:27.000)
And, and you can do this trick.
Robert Langer (05:30.480)
I can, if I don't, I would have probably brought it.
Lex Fridman (05:33.120)
All right. Well, beautiful. Let's get into the, into the
Robert Langer (05:37.320)
science. As of today, you have over 295,000 citations. An H
Lex Fridman (05:43.360)
index of 269. You're one of the most cited people in history and
Robert Langer (05:47.760)
the most cited engineer in history. And yet nothing great,
Lex Fridman (05:53.000)
I think is ever achieved without failure. So the interesting
Robert Langer (05:57.120)
part, what rejected papers, ideas, efforts in your life or
Lex Fridman (06:01.320)
most painful, or had the biggest impact on your life?
Robert Langer (06:04.440)
Well, it's interesting. I mean, I've had plenty of rejection too,
Lex Fridman (06:07.200)
you know, but I suppose one way I think about this is that when
Robert Langer (06:11.640)
I first started, and this certainly had an impact both
Lex Fridman (06:14.360)
ways, you know, I first started, we made two big discoveries and
Robert Langer (06:19.200)
they were kind of interrelated. I mean, one was, I was trying to
Lex Fridman (06:22.720)
isolate with my postdoctoral advisor, Judah Folkman,
Robert Langer (06:25.840)
substances that could stop blood vessels from growing and nobody
Lex Fridman (06:29.560)
had done that before. And so that was part A, let's say part B
Robert Langer (06:35.320)
is we had to develop a way to study that. And what was
Lex Fridman (06:38.320)
critical to study that was to have a way to slowly release
Robert Langer (06:42.520)
those substances for, you know, more than a day, you know, maybe
Lex Fridman (06:47.080)
months. And that had never been done before either. So we
Robert Langer (06:50.480)
published the first one we sent to Nature, the journal, and they
Lex Fridman (06:55.440)
rejected it. And then we sent it, we revised it, we sent it to
Robert Langer (06:59.920)
Science and they accepted it. And the other, the opposite
Lex Fridman (07:04.440)
happened, we sent it to Science and they rejected it. And then
Robert Langer (07:06.960)
we sent it to Nature and they accepted it. But I have to tell
Lex Fridman (07:10.440)
you, when we got the rejections, it was really upsetting. I
Robert Langer (07:12.800)
thought, you know, I'd done some really good work. And Dr.
Lex Fridman (07:15.760)
Folkman thought we'd done some really good work. And, and, but
Robert Langer (07:19.920)
it was very depressing to, you know, get rejected like that.
Lex Fridman (07:24.040)
If you can linger on just the feeling or the thought process
Robert Langer (07:27.400)
when you get the rejection, especially early on in your
Lex Fridman (07:30.160)
career, what, I mean, you don't know, now people know you as a
Robert Langer (07:39.400)
brilliant scientist, but at the time, I'm sure you're full of
Lex Fridman (07:42.800)
self doubt. And did you believe that maybe this idea is actually
Robert Langer (07:48.360)
quite terrible, that it could have been done much better? Or
Lex Fridman (07:51.760)
is there underlying confidence? What was the feelings?
Robert Langer (07:54.760)
Well, you feel depressed and I felt the same way when I got
Lex Fridman (07:58.640)
grants rejected, which I did a lot in the beginning. I guess
Robert Langer (08:02.440)
part of me, you know, you have multiple emotions. One is being
Lex Fridman (08:07.120)
sad and being upset and also being maybe a little bit angry
Robert Langer (08:11.200)
because you didn't feel the reviewers didn't get it. But
Lex Fridman (08:14.600)
then as I thought about it more, I thought, well, maybe I just
Robert Langer (08:17.280)
didn't explain it well enough. And you know, that, you know,
Lex Fridman (08:20.680)
that you go through stages. And so you say, well, okay, I'll
Robert Langer (08:24.040)
explain it better next time. And certainly you get reviews and
Lex Fridman (08:26.920)
when you get the reviews, you see what they either didn't like
Robert Langer (08:29.920)
or didn't understand. And then you try to incorporate that into
Lex Fridman (08:32.560)
your next versions.
Robert Langer (08:34.520)
You've given advice to students to do something big, do
Lex Fridman (08:37.840)
something that really can change the world rather than something
Robert Langer (08:40.400)
incremental. How did you yourself seek out such ideas? Is
Lex Fridman (08:45.160)
there a process? Is there a sort of a rigorous process? Or is it
Lex Fridman (08:49.720)
more spontaneous?
Lex Fridman (08:51.320)
It's more spontaneous. I mean, part of its exposure to things,
Robert Langer (08:55.600)
part of its seeing other people, like I mentioned, Dr. Folkman,
Lex Fridman (08:58.960)
he was my postdoctoral advisor, he was very good at that, you
Robert Langer (09:02.000)
could sort of see that he had big ideas. And I certainly met a
Lex Fridman (09:05.200)
lot of people who didn't. And I think you could spot an idea
Robert Langer (09:08.720)
that might have potential when you see it, you know, because it
Lex Fridman (09:11.400)
could have very broad implications, whereas a lot of
Robert Langer (09:14.120)
people might just keep doing derivative stuff. And so I
Lex Fridman (09:19.480)
don't know. But it's not something that I've ever done.
Robert Langer (09:24.680)
Systematically, I don't think.
Lex Fridman (09:26.680)
So in the space of ideas, how many are just when you see them?
Robert Langer (09:31.200)
It's just magic. It's something that you see that could be
Lex Fridman (09:34.320)
impactful if you dig deeper.
Robert Langer (09:38.680)
Yeah, it's sort of hard to say because there's multiple levels
Lex Fridman (09:42.080)
of ideas. One type of thing is like a new, you know, creation
Robert Langer (09:49.040)
that you could engineer tissues for the first time or make
Lex Fridman (09:51.480)
dishes from scratch on the first time. But another thing is
Robert Langer (09:54.640)
really just deeply understanding something. And that's important
Lex Fridman (09:58.480)
too. So and that may lead to other things. So sometimes you
Robert Langer (10:04.280)
could think of a new technology, or I thought of a new
Lex Fridman (10:07.440)
technology. But other times, things came from just the
Robert Langer (10:11.600)
process of trying to discover things. So it's never and you
Lex Fridman (10:15.840)
don't necessarily know, like people talk about aha moments,
Lex Fridman (10:19.760)
but I don't know if I've, I mean, I certainly feel like I've
Lex Fridman (10:23.320)
had some ideas that I really like. But it's taken me a long
Robert Langer (10:27.840)
time to go from the thought process of starting it to all of
Lex Fridman (10:32.720)
a sudden, knowing that it might work.
Lex Fridman (10:35.520)
So if you take drug delivery, for example, is the notion is
Lex Fridman (10:39.200)
the initial notion, kind of a very general one, that we should
Robert Langer (10:43.760)
be able to do something like this. And then you start to ask
Lex Fridman (10:48.400)
the questions of Well, how would you do it and then and then
Lex Fridman (10:51.120)
digging and digging and digging?
Lex Fridman (10:52.680)
I think that's right. I think it depends. I mean, there are
Robert Langer (10:54.840)
many different examples. The example I gave about delivering
Lex Fridman (10:58.520)
large molecules, which we used to study these blood vessel
Robert Langer (11:01.880)
inhibitors. I mean, there, we had to invent something that
Lex Fridman (11:05.280)
would do that. But other times, it's, it's, it's different.
Robert Langer (11:10.200)
Sometimes it's really understanding what goes on in
Lex Fridman (11:13.000)
terms of understanding the mechanisms. And so it's, it's,
Robert Langer (11:16.560)
it's not a single thing. And there are many different parts
Lex Fridman (11:19.120)
to it, you know, over the years, we've invented different or
Robert Langer (11:23.240)
discovered different principles for aerosols for delivering,
Lex Fridman (11:27.720)
you know, genetic therapy agents, you know, all kinds of
Robert Langer (11:30.200)
things.
Lex Fridman (11:31.600)
So let's explore some of the key ideas you've touched on in your
Robert Langer (11:34.120)
life. Let's start with the basics. Okay. So first, let me
Lex Fridman (11:39.200)
ask, how complicated is the biology and chemistry of the
Robert Langer (11:42.640)
human body from the perspective of trying to affect some parts
Lex Fridman (11:46.600)
of it in a positive way? So that you know, for me, especially
Robert Langer (11:50.560)
coming from the field of computer science and computer
Lex Fridman (11:54.280)
engineering and robotics, it seems that the human body is
Robert Langer (11:57.720)
exceptionally complicated, and how the heck you can figure out
Lex Fridman (12:00.440)
anything is amazing.
Robert Langer (12:02.120)
I agree with you. I think it's super complicated. I mean,
Lex Fridman (12:05.080)
we're still just scratching the surface in many ways. But I feel
Robert Langer (12:08.320)
like we have made progress in different ways. And some of its
Lex Fridman (12:12.280)
by really understanding things like we were just talking about
Robert Langer (12:16.440)
other times, you know, you might, or somebody might we or
Lex Fridman (12:19.600)
others might invent technologies that might be helpful on
Robert Langer (12:23.520)
exploring that. And I think over many years, we've understood
Lex Fridman (12:26.920)
things better and better, but we still have such a long ways to
Robert Langer (12:29.200)
go.
Lex Fridman (12:29.640)
Are there? I mean, if you just look at the other things that
Robert Langer (12:35.480)
are there knobs that are reliably controllable about the
Lex Fridman (12:39.280)
human body, if you consider is there is it? So if you start to
Robert Langer (12:46.040)
think about controlling various aspects of when we talk about
Lex Fridman (12:49.880)
drug delivery a little bit, but controlling various aspects
Robert Langer (12:54.240)
chemically of the human body, is there a solid understanding
Lex Fridman (12:57.800)
across the populations of humans that are solid, reliable knobs
Lex Fridman (13:02.040)
that can be controlled?
Lex Fridman (13:03.320)
I think that's hard to do. But on the other hand, whenever we
Robert Langer (13:06.680)
make a new drug or medical device, to a certain extent,
Lex Fridman (13:09.520)
we're doing that, you know, in a small way, what you just said,
Lex Fridman (13:12.840)
but I don't know that there are great knobs. I mean, and we're
Lex Fridman (13:16.880)
learning about those knobs all the time. But if there's a
Robert Langer (13:20.160)
biological pathway or something that you can affect, or
Lex Fridman (13:23.880)
understand, I mean, then that might be such a knob.
Lex Fridman (13:27.640)
So what is a pharmaceutical drug? How do you do? How do you
Lex Fridman (13:31.640)
discover a specific one? How do you test it? How do you
Lex Fridman (13:34.720)
understand it? How do you ship it?
Lex Fridman (13:36.840)
Yeah, well, I'll give an example, which goes back to
Lex Fridman (13:40.680)
what I said before. So when I was doing my postdoctoral work
Lex Fridman (13:43.840)
with Judah Folkman, we wanted to come up with drugs that would
Robert Langer (13:46.560)
stop blood vessels from growing or alternatively make them grow.
Lex Fridman (13:50.280)
And actually, people didn't even believe that, that those things
Robert Langer (13:54.160)
could happen. But
Lex Fridman (13:56.040)
could we pause on that for a second? Sure. What is a blood
Lex Fridman (13:58.560)
vessel? What does it mean for a blood vessel to grow and shrink?
Lex Fridman (14:01.920)
And why is that important?
Robert Langer (14:03.040)
Sure. So a blood vessel is could be an artery or vein or a
Lex Fridman (14:08.360)
capillary. And it, you know, provides oxygen, it provides
Robert Langer (14:14.600)
nutrients gets rid of waste. So, you know, to different parts of
Lex Fridman (14:19.960)
your body if you so so the blood vessels end up being very, very
Robert Langer (14:23.600)
important. And, you know, if you have cancer, blood vessels grow
Lex Fridman (14:29.920)
into the tumor. And that's part of what enables the tumor to get
Robert Langer (14:32.680)
bigger. And that's also part of what enables the tumor to
Lex Fridman (14:36.440)
metastasize and which means spread throughout the body and
Robert Langer (14:39.880)
ultimately kill somebody. So that was part of what we were
Lex Fridman (14:42.760)
trying to do. We tried what we wanted to see if we could find
Robert Langer (14:45.680)
substances that could stop that from happening. So first, I
Lex Fridman (14:49.280)
mean, there are many steps. First, we had to develop a bio
Robert Langer (14:51.680)
assay to study blood vessel growth. Again, there wasn't
Lex Fridman (14:54.280)
one. That's where we needed the polymer systems because the
Robert Langer (14:57.960)
blood vessels grew slowly took months. That so after we had the
Lex Fridman (15:03.360)
polymer system and we had the bio assay, then I isolated many
Robert Langer (15:07.440)
different molecules initially from cartilage. And almost all
Lex Fridman (15:12.920)
of them didn't work. But we were fortunate we found one it wasn't
Robert Langer (15:17.080)
purified, but we found one that did work. And that paper that
Lex Fridman (15:21.400)
was this paper I mentioned science in 1976. Those were
Robert Langer (15:24.960)
really the isolation of some of the very first angiogenesis and
Lex Fridman (15:27.920)
blood vessel inhibitors.
Lex Fridman (15:29.560)
So there's a lot of words there. Yeah, let's go. First of all,
Lex Fridman (15:34.040)
polymer molecules, big, big molecules. So the what are
Robert Langer (15:38.680)
polymers? What's bio assay? What is the process of trying to
Lex Fridman (15:45.000)
isolate this whole thing simplified to where you can
Lex Fridman (15:46.920)
control and experiment with it?
Lex Fridman (15:48.480)
Polymers are like plastics or like plastics or rubber. What
Lex Fridman (15:54.960)
were some of the other questions?
Lex Fridman (15:55.960)
Sorry, so a polymer, some plastics and rubber, and that
Robert Langer (15:59.000)
means something that has structure and that could be
Lex Fridman (16:01.280)
useful for what?
Robert Langer (16:03.080)
Well, in this case, it would be something that could be useful
Lex Fridman (16:05.680)
for delivering a molecule for a long time. So it could slowly
Robert Langer (16:10.680)
diffuse out of that at a controlled rate to where you
Lex Fridman (16:13.840)
wanted it to go.
Lex Fridman (16:15.080)
So then you would find the idea is that there would be a
Lex Fridman (16:17.720)
particular blood vessels that you can target, say they're
Robert Langer (16:22.760)
connected somehow to a tumor that you could target and over
Lex Fridman (16:27.200)
a long period of time to be able to place the polymer there
Lex Fridman (16:31.680)
and it'd be delivering a certain kind of chemical.
Lex Fridman (16:34.680)
That's correct. I think what you said is good. So so that it
Robert Langer (16:37.920)
would deliver the molecule or the chemical that would stop
Lex Fridman (16:41.520)
the blood vessels from going over a long enough time so that
Robert Langer (16:44.120)
it really could happen. So that was sort of the what we call
Lex Fridman (16:47.920)
the bio assay is the way that we would study that.
Robert Langer (16:50.240)
So, sorry, so what is a bio assay? Which part is the bio
Lex Fridman (16:53.840)
assay?
Robert Langer (16:54.360)
All of it. In other words, the bio assay is the way you study
Lex Fridman (17:00.080)
blood vessel growth.
Robert Langer (17:01.680)
The blood vessel growth and you can control that somehow with
Lex Fridman (17:05.720)
is there an understanding what kind of chemicals could control
Lex Fridman (17:08.080)
the growth of a blood vessel?
Lex Fridman (17:09.040)
Sure. Well, now there is, but then when I started, there
Robert Langer (17:11.560)
wasn't and that that gets to your original question. So you
Lex Fridman (17:14.600)
go through various steps. We did the first steps. We showed
Robert Langer (17:17.400)
that a such molecules existed and then we developed
Lex Fridman (17:20.240)
techniques for studying them. And we even isolated fractions,
Robert Langer (17:24.920)
you know, groups of substances that would do it. But what
Lex Fridman (17:28.880)
would happen over the next, we did that in 1976, we published
Robert Langer (17:33.360)
that what would happen over the next 28 years is other people
Lex Fridman (17:37.160)
would follow in our footsteps. I mean, we tried to do some
Robert Langer (17:39.640)
stuff too, but ultimately to make a new drug takes billions
Lex Fridman (17:43.760)
of dollars. So what happened was there were different growth
Robert Langer (17:47.920)
factors that people would isolate, sometimes using the
Lex Fridman (17:50.760)
techniques that we developed. And then they would figure out
Robert Langer (17:55.760)
using some of those techniques, ways to stop those growth
Lex Fridman (17:58.720)
factors and ways to stop the blood vessels from growing. That
Robert Langer (18:02.400)
like I say, it took 28 years, it took billions of dollars and
Lex Fridman (18:05.040)
work by many companies like Genetec. But in 2004, 28 years
Robert Langer (18:11.160)
after we started, the first one of those Avastin got approved
Lex Fridman (18:15.720)
by the FDA. And that's become, you know, one of the top
Robert Langer (18:20.920)
biotech selling drugs in history. And it's been approved
Lex Fridman (18:23.920)
for all kinds of cancers and actually for many eye diseases
Robert Langer (18:27.200)
too, where you have abnormal blood vessel growth, macular.
Lex Fridman (18:30.640)
So in general, one of the key ways you can alleviate, what's
Robert Langer (18:38.480)
the hope in terms of tumors associated with cancerous
Lex Fridman (18:41.960)
tumors? What can you help by being able to control the
Lex Fridman (18:46.640)
growth of vessels?
Lex Fridman (18:47.840)
So if you cut off the blood supply, you cut off the, it's
Robert Langer (18:52.680)
kind of like a war almost, right? If the nutrition is going
Lex Fridman (18:56.600)
to the tumor and you can cut it off, I mean, you starve the
Robert Langer (19:01.480)
tumor and it becomes very small, it may disappear or it's going
Lex Fridman (19:05.240)
to be much more amenable to other therapies because it is
Robert Langer (19:08.120)
tiny, you know, like, you know, chemotherapy or immunotherapy
Lex Fridman (19:12.200)
is going to be, have a much easier time against a small
Robert Langer (19:15.000)
tumor than a big one.
Lex Fridman (19:16.000)
Is that an obvious idea? I mean, it seems like a very clever
Robert Langer (19:20.880)
strategy in this war against cancer.
Lex Fridman (19:23.880)
Well, you know, in retrospect, it's an obvious idea, but when
Robert Langer (19:27.480)
Dr. Folkman, my boss first proposed it, it wasn't, a lot of
Lex Fridman (19:31.880)
people didn't thought he was pretty crazy.
Lex Fridman (19:33.600)
And so in what sense, if you can sort of linger on it, when
Lex Fridman (19:39.360)
you're thinking about these ideas at the time, were you
Lex Fridman (19:42.280)
feeling you're out in the dark?
Lex Fridman (19:43.560)
So how much mystery is there about the whole thing?
Lex Fridman (19:46.760)
How much just blind experimentation, if you can put
Lex Fridman (19:50.520)
yourself in that mindset from years ago?
Robert Langer (19:52.400)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (19:52.840)
Well, there was, I mean, for me, actually, it wasn't just
Robert Langer (19:56.480)
the idea.
Lex Fridman (19:56.960)
It was that I didn't know a lot of biology or biochemistry.
Lex Fridman (19:59.520)
So I certainly felt I was in the dark, but I kept trying and
Lex Fridman (1:00:02.320)
go through the lab and they've done incredibly well.
Robert Langer (1:00:06.760)
I think 18 are in the National Academy of Engineering,
Lex Fridman (1:00:09.720)
16 in the National Academy of Medicine.
Robert Langer (1:00:12.280)
I mean, they've been CEOs of companies,
Lex Fridman (1:00:15.280)
presidents of universities and they've done,
Robert Langer (1:00:19.460)
I think eight are faculty at MIT,
Lex Fridman (1:00:21.200)
maybe about 12 at Harvard.
Robert Langer (1:00:22.940)
I mean, so it really makes you feel good
Lex Fridman (1:00:25.680)
to think that the people, they're not my children
Lex Fridman (1:00:28.780)
but they're close to my children in a way
Lex Fridman (1:00:31.200)
and it makes you feel really good
Robert Langer (1:00:32.720)
to see them have such great lives
Lex Fridman (1:00:34.660)
and them do so much good and be happy.
Robert Langer (1:00:37.760)
Well, I think that's a perfect way to end it, Bob.
Lex Fridman (1:00:40.080)
Thank you so much for talking to me.
Robert Langer (1:00:41.160)
My pleasure.
Lex Fridman (1:00:41.980)
It was an honor.
Robert Langer (1:00:42.820)
Good questions.
Lex Fridman (1:00:43.660)
Thank you.
Robert Langer (1:00:44.480)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Bob Langer
Lex Fridman (1:00:48.000)
and thank you to our sponsors, Cash App and Masterclass.
Robert Langer (1:00:52.120)
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Lex Fridman (1:00:53.980)
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Lex Fridman (1:00:58.640)
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Lex Fridman (1:01:02.720)
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Robert Langer (1:01:05.360)
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Lex Fridman (1:01:07.240)
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at Lex Friedman, spelled without the E, just F R I D M A N.
Lex Fridman (1:01:25.360)
And now let me leave you with some words from Bill Bryson
Lex Fridman (1:01:28.080)
in his book, A Short History of Nearly Everything.
Robert Langer (1:01:31.120)
If this book has a lesson,
Lex Fridman (1:01:33.880)
it is that we're awfully lucky to be here.
Lex Fridman (1:01:36.480)
And by we, I mean every living thing.
Lex Fridman (1:01:39.640)
To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours
Robert Langer (1:01:42.500)
appears to be quite an achievement.
Lex Fridman (1:01:44.800)
As humans, we're doubly lucky, of course.
Robert Langer (1:01:47.460)
We enjoy not only the privilege of existence,
Lex Fridman (1:01:50.080)
but also the singular ability to appreciate it
Lex Fridman (1:01:53.460)
and even in a multitude of ways to make it better.
Lex Fridman (1:01:57.600)
It is talent we have only barely begun to grasp.
Robert Langer (1:02:01.800)
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (20:03.440)
I kept trying to learn and I kept plugging.
Lex Fridman (20:06.040)
But I mean, a lot of it was being in the dark.
Lex Fridman (20:08.520)
So the human body is complicated, right?
Robert Langer (20:11.320)
We'll establish this.
Lex Fridman (20:12.280)
Quantum mechanics in physics is a theory that works incredibly
Robert Langer (20:16.680)
well, but we don't really necessarily understand the underlying
Lex Fridman (20:19.720)
nature of it.
Lex Fridman (20:20.360)
So are drugs the same in that you're ultimately trying to
Lex Fridman (20:25.280)
show that the thing works to do something that you try to do,
Lex Fridman (20:29.880)
but you don't necessarily understand the fundamental
Lex Fridman (20:33.520)
mechanisms by which it's doing it?
Robert Langer (20:35.360)
It really varies.
Lex Fridman (20:36.760)
I think sometimes people do know them because they've figured
Robert Langer (20:40.200)
out pathways and ways to interfere with them.
Lex Fridman (20:42.640)
Other times it is shooting in the dark.
Robert Langer (20:45.160)
It really has varied.
Lex Fridman (20:46.640)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (20:47.160)
And sometimes people make serendipitous discoveries and
Lex Fridman (20:49.960)
they don't even realize what they did.
Lex Fridman (20:51.840)
So what is the discovery process for a drug?
Lex Fridman (20:55.960)
You said a bunch of people trying to work with this.
Robert Langer (20:59.120)
Is it a kind of a mix of serendipitous discovery and art,
Lex Fridman (21:08.360)
or is there a systematic science to trying different chemical
Robert Langer (21:12.840)
reactions and how they affect whatever you're trying to do,
Lex Fridman (21:16.960)
like shrink blood vessels?
Robert Langer (21:18.840)
Yeah, I don't think there's a single way to go about
Lex Fridman (21:22.480)
something in terms of characterizing the entire drug
Robert Langer (21:25.320)
discovery process.
Lex Fridman (21:26.440)
If I look at the blood vessel one,
Robert Langer (21:28.600)
yeah, there the first step was to have the kinds of theories
Lex Fridman (21:34.400)
that Dr. Folkman had.
Robert Langer (21:35.400)
The second step was to have the techniques where you could
Lex Fridman (21:38.120)
study blood vessel growth for the first time and at least
Robert Langer (21:40.880)
quantitate or semi quantitate it.
Lex Fridman (21:44.200)
Third step was to find substances that would stop blood
Robert Langer (21:48.120)
vessels from growing.
Lex Fridman (21:49.680)
Fourth step was to maybe purify those substances.
Robert Langer (21:54.440)
There are many other steps too.
Lex Fridman (21:55.760)
I mean, before you have an effective drug,
Robert Langer (21:57.680)
you have to show that it's safe.
Lex Fridman (21:58.800)
You have to show that it's effective.
Lex Fridman (22:00.600)
And you start with animals.
Lex Fridman (22:01.880)
You ultimately go to patients.
Lex Fridman (22:03.600)
And there are multiple kinds of clinical trials you have to do.
Lex Fridman (22:06.400)
If you step back, is it amazing to you
Robert Langer (22:08.720)
that we descendants of great apes
Lex Fridman (22:11.680)
are able to create drugs, chemicals that
Lex Fridman (22:18.040)
are able to improve some aspects of our bodies?
Lex Fridman (22:22.160)
Or is it quite natural that we're
Lex Fridman (22:25.240)
able to discover these kinds of things?
Lex Fridman (22:27.760)
Well, at a high level, it is amazing.
Robert Langer (22:29.800)
I mean, evolution is amazing.
Lex Fridman (22:31.600)
The way I look at your question, the fact
Robert Langer (22:33.960)
that we have evolved the way we've done,
Lex Fridman (22:36.320)
I mean, it's pretty remarkable.
Lex Fridman (22:38.600)
So let's talk about drug delivery.
Lex Fridman (22:41.200)
What are the difficult problems in drug delivery?
Lex Fridman (22:43.640)
What is drug delivery from starting
Lex Fridman (22:48.240)
from your early seminal work in the field to today?
Robert Langer (22:51.160)
Well, drug delivery is getting a drug
Lex Fridman (22:55.840)
to go where you want it, at the level you want it,
Robert Langer (22:57.960)
in a safe way.
Lex Fridman (22:59.720)
Some of the big challenges, I mean, there are a lot.
Lex Fridman (23:02.040)
I mean, I'd say one is, could you target the right cell?
Lex Fridman (23:06.520)
Like, we talked about cancers or some way
Robert Langer (23:08.240)
to deliver a drug just to a cancer cell and no other cell.
Lex Fridman (23:11.880)
Another challenge is to get drugs
Robert Langer (23:14.640)
across different barriers.
Lex Fridman (23:15.840)
Like, could you ever give insulin orally?
Lex Fridman (23:17.640)
Could you, or give it passively transdermally?
Lex Fridman (23:21.320)
Can you get drugs across the blood brain barrier?
Robert Langer (23:24.000)
I mean, there are lots of big challenges.
Lex Fridman (23:26.240)
Can you make smart drug delivery systems
Lex Fridman (23:29.040)
that might respond to physiologic signals in the body?
Lex Fridman (23:32.400)
Oh, interesting.
Lex Fridman (23:33.240)
So smart, they have some kind of sense,
Lex Fridman (23:37.040)
a chemical sensor, or is there something more
Robert Langer (23:39.280)
than a chemical sensor that's able to respond
Lex Fridman (23:41.280)
to something in the body?
Robert Langer (23:43.120)
Could be either one.
Lex Fridman (23:44.040)
I mean, one example might be if you were diabetic,
Lex Fridman (23:48.600)
if you got more glucose, could you get more insulin?
Lex Fridman (23:53.320)
But that's just an example.
Robert Langer (23:57.040)
Is there some way to control the actual mechanism
Lex Fridman (23:59.480)
of delivery in response to what the body's doing?
Robert Langer (24:02.240)
Yes, there is.
Lex Fridman (24:03.200)
I mean, one of the things that we've done
Robert Langer (24:05.000)
is encapsulate what are called beta cells.
Lex Fridman (24:07.520)
Those are insulin producing cells in a way
Robert Langer (24:09.840)
that they're safe and protected.
Lex Fridman (24:11.800)
And then what'll happen is glucose will go in
Lex Fridman (24:15.280)
and the cells will make insulin.
Lex Fridman (24:20.360)
And so that's an example.
Lex Fridman (24:23.000)
So from an AI robotics perspective,
Lex Fridman (24:25.880)
how close are these drug delivery systems
Lex Fridman (24:29.280)
to something like a robot?
Lex Fridman (24:31.040)
Or is it totally wrong to think about them
Lex Fridman (24:33.640)
as intelligent agents?
Lex Fridman (24:35.480)
And how much room is there to add that kind of intelligence
Lex Fridman (24:39.600)
into these delivery systems, perhaps in the future?
Lex Fridman (24:42.080)
Yeah, I think it depends on the particular delivery system.
Robert Langer (24:45.280)
Of course, one of the things people are concerned about
Lex Fridman (24:47.040)
is cost, and if you add a lot of bells and whistles
Robert Langer (24:49.560)
to something, it'll cost more.
Lex Fridman (24:51.400)
But I mean, we, for example, have made
Lex Fridman (24:54.200)
what I'll call intelligent microchips
Lex Fridman (24:55.920)
that can, where you can send a signal
Lex Fridman (24:58.840)
and you'll release drug in response to that signal.
Lex Fridman (25:01.840)
And I think systems like that microchip someday
Robert Langer (25:04.600)
have the potential to do what you and I
Lex Fridman (25:06.040)
were just talking about,
Robert Langer (25:07.400)
that there could be a signal like glucose
Lex Fridman (25:09.480)
and it could have some instruction to say
Robert Langer (25:11.600)
when there's more glucose, deliver more insulin.
Lex Fridman (25:14.360)
So do you think it's possible that there,
Robert Langer (25:16.000)
that could be robotic type systems roaming our body
Lex Fridman (25:19.640)
sort of long term and be able to deliver
Lex Fridman (25:21.640)
certain kinds of drugs in the future?
Lex Fridman (25:23.600)
You see, do you see that kind of future?
Robert Langer (25:26.320)
Someday, I don't think we're very close to it yet,
Lex Fridman (25:29.000)
but someday, you know that that's nanotechnology
Lex Fridman (25:31.880)
and that would mean even miniaturizing
Lex Fridman (25:33.720)
some of the things that I just discussed.
Lex Fridman (25:35.760)
And we're certainly not at that point yet,
Lex Fridman (25:37.800)
but someday I expect we will be.
Lex Fridman (25:40.120)
So some of it is just the shrinking of the technology.
Lex Fridman (25:44.240)
That's a part of it, that's one of the things.
Robert Langer (25:47.280)
In general, what role do you see AI sort of,
Lex Fridman (25:52.200)
there's a lot of work now with using data
Robert Langer (25:55.160)
to make intelligent, create systems
Lex Fridman (25:57.200)
that make intelligent decisions.
Lex Fridman (25:59.080)
Do you see any of that data driven kind of computing systems
Lex Fridman (26:04.080)
having a role in any part of this,
Robert Langer (26:09.480)
into the delivery of drugs, the design of drugs
Lex Fridman (26:13.320)
and any part of the chain?
Robert Langer (26:15.240)
I do, I think that AI can be useful
Lex Fridman (26:18.080)
in a number of parts of the chain.
Robert Langer (26:20.040)
I mean, one, I think if you get a large amount
Lex Fridman (26:22.880)
of information, you know, say you have some chemical data
Robert Langer (26:26.320)
because you've done high throughput screens
Lex Fridman (26:29.040)
and let's, I'll just make this up,
Lex Fridman (26:30.600)
but let's say I have a, I'm trying to come up with a drug
Lex Fridman (26:33.560)
to treat disease X, whatever that disease is
Lex Fridman (26:37.800)
and I have a test for that and hopefully a fast test
Lex Fridman (26:43.520)
and let's say I test 10,000 chemical substances
Lex Fridman (26:47.520)
and a couple work, most of them don't work,
Lex Fridman (26:49.960)
some maybe work a little, but if I had a,
Robert Langer (26:52.640)
with the right kind of artificial intelligence,
Lex Fridman (26:54.920)
maybe you could look at the chemical structures
Lex Fridman (26:57.160)
and look at what works and see
Lex Fridman (26:58.480)
if there's certain commonalities,
Robert Langer (26:59.760)
look at what doesn't work and see what commonalities
Lex Fridman (27:02.480)
there are and then maybe use that somehow
Robert Langer (27:05.240)
to predict the next generation of things
Lex Fridman (27:07.040)
that you would test.
Robert Langer (27:08.520)
As a tangent, what are your thoughts
Lex Fridman (27:10.760)
on our society's relationship with pharmaceutical drugs?
Robert Langer (27:14.840)
Do we, and perhaps I apologize
Lex Fridman (27:17.400)
if this is a philosophical broader question,
Lex Fridman (27:19.880)
but do we over rely on them?
Lex Fridman (27:22.240)
Do we improperly prescribe them?
Robert Langer (27:24.720)
In what ways is the system working well
Lex Fridman (27:26.560)
and what way can it improve?
Robert Langer (27:28.040)
Well, I think pharmaceutical drugs are really important.
Lex Fridman (27:33.040)
I mean, the life expectancy and life quality of people
Robert Langer (27:37.080)
over many, many years has increased tremendously
Lex Fridman (27:40.200)
and I think that's a really good thing.
Robert Langer (27:42.120)
I think one thing that would also be good
Lex Fridman (27:44.080)
is if we could extend that more and more
Robert Langer (27:45.920)
to people in the developing world,
Lex Fridman (27:47.720)
which is something that our lab has been doing
Robert Langer (27:49.920)
with the Gates Foundation or trying to do.
Lex Fridman (27:53.800)
So I think ways in which it could improve,
Robert Langer (27:55.800)
I mean, if there was some way to reduce costs,
Lex Fridman (27:59.320)
that's certainly an issue people are concerned about.
Robert Langer (28:01.680)
If there was some way to help people in poor countries,
Lex Fridman (28:05.280)
that would also be a good thing.
Lex Fridman (28:06.880)
And then of course, we still need to make better drugs
Lex Fridman (28:10.680)
for so many diseases.
Robert Langer (28:12.360)
I mean, cancer, diabetes.
Lex Fridman (28:14.200)
I mean, there's heart disease and rare diseases.
Robert Langer (28:17.680)
There are many, many situations where it'd be great
Lex Fridman (28:20.360)
if we could do better and help more people.
Robert Langer (28:22.880)
Can we talk about another exciting space,
Lex Fridman (28:27.760)
which is tissue engineering?
Lex Fridman (28:29.520)
What is tissue engineering or regenerative medicine?
Lex Fridman (28:32.360)
Yeah, so that tissue engineering or regenerative medicine
Robert Langer (28:35.440)
have to do with building an organ or tissue from scratch.
Lex Fridman (28:38.880)
So someday maybe we can build a liver
Robert Langer (28:43.080)
or make new cartilage and also would enable you
Lex Fridman (28:47.360)
to someday create organs on a chip,
Robert Langer (28:49.960)
which we and others are trying to do,
Lex Fridman (28:52.520)
which might lead to better drug testing
Lex Fridman (28:54.520)
and maybe less testing on animals or people.
Lex Fridman (28:57.920)
Organs on a chip, that sounds fascinating.
Lex Fridman (29:01.240)
So what are the various ways to generate tissue?
Lex Fridman (29:06.120)
And how do, so is it, you know,
Robert Langer (29:08.320)
the one is of course from stem cells.
Lex Fridman (29:10.600)
Is there other methods?
Lex Fridman (29:11.960)
What are the different possible flavors here?
Lex Fridman (29:14.240)
Yeah, well, I think, I mean, there's multiple components.
Robert Langer (29:17.440)
One is having generally some type of scaffold.
Lex Fridman (29:19.800)
That's what Jay Vacanti and I started many, many years ago.
Lex Fridman (29:23.800)
And then on that scaffold,
Lex Fridman (29:26.160)
you might put different cell types,
Robert Langer (29:28.360)
which could be a cartilage cell, a bone cell,
Lex Fridman (29:30.600)
could be a stem cell that might differentiate
Robert Langer (29:32.640)
into different things, could be more than one cell.
Lex Fridman (29:35.520)
And the scaffold, sorry to interrupt,
Robert Langer (29:37.520)
is kind of like a canvas that's a structure
Lex Fridman (29:39.680)
that you can, on which the cells can grow?
Robert Langer (29:43.000)
I think that's a good explanation what you just did.
Lex Fridman (29:44.960)
I'll have to use that, the canvas, that's good.
Robert Langer (29:47.840)
Yeah, so I think that that's fair.
Lex Fridman (29:49.600)
You know, and the chip could be such a canvas.
Robert Langer (29:52.600)
Could be fibers that are made of plastics
Lex Fridman (29:55.440)
that you'd put in the body someday.
Lex Fridman (29:57.080)
And when you say chip, do you mean electronic chip?
Lex Fridman (29:59.840)
Like a...
Robert Langer (30:00.680)
Not necessarily, it could be though.
Lex Fridman (30:02.160)
But it doesn't have to be, it could just be a structure
Robert Langer (30:04.820)
that's not in vivo, so to speak,
Lex Fridman (30:08.400)
that's, you know, that's outside the body.
Lex Fridman (30:10.920)
So is there...
Lex Fridman (30:11.760)
Canvas is not a bad word.
Lex Fridman (30:13.280)
So is there a possibility to weave into this canvas
Lex Fridman (30:20.200)
a computational component?
Lex Fridman (30:22.160)
So if we talk about electronic chips,
Lex Fridman (30:23.880)
some ability to sense, control,
Robert Langer (30:28.000)
some aspect of this growth process for the tissue.
Lex Fridman (30:31.320)
I would say the answer to that is yes.
Robert Langer (30:33.340)
I think right now people are working mostly
Lex Fridman (30:36.760)
on validating these kinds of chips for saying,
Robert Langer (30:40.660)
well, it does work as effectively,
Lex Fridman (30:43.560)
or hopefully as just putting something in the body.
Lex Fridman (30:47.220)
But I think someday what you suggested,
Lex Fridman (30:49.380)
you certainly would be possible.
Lex Fridman (30:51.240)
So what kind of tissues can we engineer today?
Lex Fridman (30:53.600)
What would, yeah.
Robert Langer (30:54.440)
Yeah, well, so skin's already been made
Lex Fridman (30:57.200)
and approved by the FDA.
Robert Langer (30:58.780)
There are advanced clinical trials,
Lex Fridman (31:00.860)
like what are called phase three trials,
Robert Langer (31:03.020)
that are at complete or near completion
Lex Fridman (31:05.440)
for making new blood vessels.
Robert Langer (31:08.360)
One of my former students, Laura Nicholson,
Lex Fridman (31:10.480)
led a lot of that.
Robert Langer (31:13.240)
Oh, that's amazing.
Lex Fridman (31:14.160)
So human skin can be grown.
Robert Langer (31:16.240)
That's already approved in the entire, the FDA process.
Lex Fridman (31:20.480)
So that means what,
Lex Fridman (31:23.600)
so one, that means you can grow that tissue
Lex Fridman (31:27.920)
and do various kinds of experiments
Robert Langer (31:30.040)
in terms of drugs and so on.
Lex Fridman (31:34.200)
But what does that, does that mean
Robert Langer (31:35.760)
that some kind of healing and treatment
Lex Fridman (31:38.040)
of different conditions for unhuman beings?
Robert Langer (31:41.240)
Yes, I mean, they've been approved now for,
Lex Fridman (31:43.560)
I mean, different groups have made them,
Robert Langer (31:45.180)
different companies and different professors,
Lex Fridman (31:47.620)
but they've been approved for burn victims
Lex Fridman (31:50.600)
and for patients with diabetic skin ulcers.
Lex Fridman (31:53.240)
That's amazing.
Lex Fridman (31:54.960)
Okay, so skin, what else?
Lex Fridman (31:59.540)
Well, at different stages,
Robert Langer (32:01.940)
people are, like skin, blood vessels,
Lex Fridman (32:05.240)
there's clinical trials going now for helping patients
Robert Langer (32:08.580)
hear better, for patients that might be paralyzed,
Lex Fridman (32:12.320)
for patients that have different eye problems.
Robert Langer (32:15.480)
I mean, and different groups have worked on
Lex Fridman (32:18.400)
just about everything, new liver, new kidneys.
Robert Langer (32:20.840)
I mean, there've been all kinds of work done in this area.
Lex Fridman (32:24.480)
Some of it's early, but there's certainly
Robert Langer (32:26.680)
a lot of activity.
Lex Fridman (32:27.680)
What about neural tissue?
Robert Langer (32:30.300)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (32:31.480)
The nervous system and even the brain.
Robert Langer (32:34.160)
Well, there've been people out of working on that too.
Lex Fridman (32:36.200)
We've done a little bit with that,
Lex Fridman (32:37.440)
but there are people who've done a lot on neural stem cells
Lex Fridman (32:40.360)
and I know Evan Snyder, who's been one of our collaborators
Robert Langer (32:43.280)
on some of our spinal cord works done work like that
Lex Fridman (32:46.200)
and there've been other people as well.
Robert Langer (32:48.040)
Is there challenges for the,
Lex Fridman (32:51.120)
when it is part of the human body,
Robert Langer (32:52.800)
is there challenges to getting the body to accept
Lex Fridman (32:55.780)
this new tissue that's being generated?
Lex Fridman (32:58.040)
How do you solve that kind of challenge?
Lex Fridman (33:00.120)
There can be problems with accepting it.
Robert Langer (33:02.780)
I think maybe in particular,
Lex Fridman (33:04.600)
you might mean rejection by the body.
Lex Fridman (33:07.160)
So there are multiple ways that people are trying
Lex Fridman (33:09.340)
to deal with that.
Robert Langer (33:10.180)
One way is, which was what we've done with Dan Anderson,
Lex Fridman (33:14.680)
who was one of my former postdocs
Lex Fridman (33:16.060)
and I mentioned this a little bit before for a pancreas,
Lex Fridman (33:19.520)
is encapsulating the cells.
Lex Fridman (33:20.840)
So immune cells or antibodies can't get in and attack them.
Lex Fridman (33:26.880)
So that's a way to protect them.
Robert Langer (33:28.920)
Other strategies could be making the cells non immunogenic,
Lex Fridman (33:34.240)
which might be done by different either techniques
Robert Langer (33:36.960)
which might mask them or using some gene editing approaches.
Lex Fridman (33:40.760)
So there are different ways that people
Robert Langer (33:42.160)
are trying to do that.
Lex Fridman (33:43.600)
And of course, if you use the patient's own cells
Robert Langer (33:45.560)
or cells from a close relative, that might be another way.
Lex Fridman (33:50.240)
It increases the likelihood that it'll get accepted
Robert Langer (33:52.720)
if you use the patient's own cells.
Lex Fridman (33:54.440)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (33:55.320)
And then finally, there's immunosuppressive drugs,
Lex Fridman (33:57.700)
which will suppress the immune response.
Robert Langer (34:00.320)
That's right now what's done, say, for a liver transplant.
Lex Fridman (34:03.940)
The fact that this whole thing works is fascinating,
Robert Langer (34:06.240)
at least from my outside perspective.
Lex Fridman (34:09.880)
Will we one day be able to regenerate any organ
Lex Fridman (34:13.220)
or part of the human body?
Lex Fridman (34:15.640)
Any of you?
Robert Langer (34:16.880)
I mean, it's exciting to think about future possibilities
Lex Fridman (34:19.400)
of tissue engineering.
Lex Fridman (34:22.720)
Do you see some tissues more difficult than others?
Lex Fridman (34:25.100)
What are the possibilities here?
Robert Langer (34:27.000)
Yeah, well, of course, I'm an optimist.
Lex Fridman (34:29.160)
And I also feel the timeframe,
Robert Langer (34:30.760)
if we're talking about someday,
Lex Fridman (34:32.320)
someday could be hundreds of years.
Lex Fridman (34:33.860)
But I think that, yes, someday,
Lex Fridman (34:36.080)
I think we will be able to regenerate many things.
Lex Fridman (34:39.280)
And there are different strategies that one might use.
Lex Fridman (34:41.840)
One might use some cells themselves.
Robert Langer (34:44.840)
One might use some molecules
Lex Fridman (34:47.600)
that might help regenerate the cells.
Lex Fridman (34:49.700)
And so I think there are different possibilities.
Lex Fridman (34:51.920)
What do you think that means for longevity?
Robert Langer (34:54.720)
If we look maybe not someday, but 10, 20 years out,
Lex Fridman (35:00.000)
the possibilities of tissue engineering,
Robert Langer (35:01.840)
the possibilities of the research that you're doing,
Lex Fridman (35:04.440)
does it have a significant impact
Lex Fridman (35:06.800)
on the longevity of human life?
Lex Fridman (35:10.040)
I don't know that we'll see
Robert Langer (35:11.120)
a radical increase in longevity,
Lex Fridman (35:12.800)
but I think that in certain areas,
Robert Langer (35:15.900)
we'll see people live better lives
Lex Fridman (35:19.420)
and maybe somewhat longer lives.
Robert Langer (35:21.700)
What's the most beautiful scientific idea
Lex Fridman (35:25.740)
in bioengineering that you've come across
Lex Fridman (35:28.220)
in your years of research?
Lex Fridman (35:30.740)
I apologize for the romantic question.
Robert Langer (35:33.460)
No, that's an interesting question.
Lex Fridman (35:35.460)
I certainly think what's happening right now
Robert Langer (35:37.900)
with CRISPR is a beautiful idea.
Lex Fridman (35:39.580)
That certainly wasn't my idea.
Robert Langer (35:42.100)
I mean, but I think it's very interesting here
Lex Fridman (35:45.980)
what people have capitalized on
Robert Langer (35:48.820)
is that there's a mechanism by which bacteria
Lex Fridman (35:52.980)
are able to destroy viruses.
Lex Fridman (35:54.780)
And that understanding that leads to machinery
Lex Fridman (35:58.620)
to sort of cut and paste genes and fix a cell.
Lex Fridman (36:06.860)
So that kind of, do you see a promise
Lex Fridman (36:09.380)
for that kind of ability to copy and paste?
Robert Langer (36:13.700)
I mean, like we said, the human body is complicated.
Lex Fridman (36:16.860)
Is that, that seems exceptionally difficult to do.
Robert Langer (36:23.260)
I think it is exceptionally difficult to do,
Lex Fridman (36:25.220)
but that doesn't mean that it won't be done.
Robert Langer (36:27.940)
There's a lot of companies and people trying to do it.
Lex Fridman (36:30.460)
And I think in some areas it will be done.
Robert Langer (36:32.500)
Some of the ways that you might lower the bar
Lex Fridman (36:36.300)
are not, are just taking,
Robert Langer (36:39.180)
like not necessarily doing it directly,
Lex Fridman (36:40.900)
but you could take a cell that might be useful,
Lex Fridman (36:45.780)
but you want to give it some cancer killing capabilities,
Lex Fridman (36:48.740)
something like what's called a CAR T cell.
Lex Fridman (36:50.980)
And that might be a different way
Lex Fridman (36:52.380)
of somehow making a CAR T cell and maybe making it better.
Lex Fridman (36:56.260)
So there might be sort of easier things
Lex Fridman (36:58.460)
and rather than just fixing the whole body.
Lex Fridman (37:01.540)
So the way a lot of things have moved with medicine
Lex Fridman (37:04.100)
over time is stepwise.
Lex Fridman (37:06.140)
So I can see things that might be easier to do
Lex Fridman (37:10.260)
than say, fix a brain.
Robert Langer (37:11.860)
That would be very hard to do,
Lex Fridman (37:13.940)
but maybe someday that'll happen too.
Lex Fridman (37:16.420)
So in terms of stepwise, that's an interesting notion.
Lex Fridman (37:19.260)
Do you see that if you look at medicine or bioengineering,
Lex Fridman (37:25.180)
do you see that there is these big leaps
Lex Fridman (37:29.140)
that happen every decade or so, or some distant period,
Lex Fridman (37:33.460)
or is it a lot of incremental work?
Lex Fridman (37:36.500)
Not, I don't mean to reduce its impact
Robert Langer (37:39.020)
by saying it's incremental,
Lex Fridman (37:40.060)
but is there sort of phase shifts in the science,
Lex Fridman (37:46.300)
big leaps?
Lex Fridman (37:48.220)
I think there's both.
Robert Langer (37:49.700)
Every so often a new technique or a new technology comes out.
Lex Fridman (37:54.300)
I mean, genetic engineering was an example.
Robert Langer (37:56.660)
I mentioned CRISPR.
Lex Fridman (37:58.820)
I think every so often things happen
Robert Langer (38:01.300)
that make a big difference,
Lex Fridman (38:03.340)
but still there's to try to really make progress,
Robert Langer (38:07.580)
make a new drug, make a new device.
Lex Fridman (38:09.820)
There's a lot of things.
Robert Langer (38:11.100)
I don't know if I'd call them incremental,
Lex Fridman (38:12.740)
but there's a lot, a lot of work that needs to be done.
Robert Langer (38:15.780)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (38:16.940)
So you have over, numbers could be off,
Lex Fridman (38:20.900)
but it's a big amount.
Lex Fridman (38:22.020)
You have over 1,100 current or pending patents
Robert Langer (38:25.340)
that have been licensed, sublicensed
Lex Fridman (38:27.260)
to over 300 companies.
Robert Langer (38:29.660)
What's your view, what in your view are the strengths
Lex Fridman (38:33.980)
and what are the drawbacks of the patenting process?
Robert Langer (38:36.660)
Well, I think for the most part, there's strengths.
Lex Fridman (38:39.260)
I think that if you didn't have patents,
Robert Langer (38:42.220)
especially in medicine,
Lex Fridman (38:43.540)
you'd never get the funding that it takes
Robert Langer (38:45.940)
to make a new drug or a new device.
Lex Fridman (38:47.660)
I mean, which according to Tufts,
Robert Langer (38:49.420)
to make a new drug costs over $2 billion right now.
Lex Fridman (38:52.700)
And nobody would even come close to giving you that money,
Robert Langer (38:55.780)
any of that money, if it weren't for the patent system,
Lex Fridman (39:00.780)
because then anybody else could do it.
Robert Langer (39:03.100)
That then leads to the negative though.
Lex Fridman (39:08.300)
Sometimes somebody does have a very successful drug
Lex Fridman (39:11.860)
and you certainly wanna try to make it available
Lex Fridman (39:14.380)
to everybody.
Lex Fridman (39:15.860)
And so the patent system allowed it to happen
Lex Fridman (39:21.140)
in the first place, but maybe it'll impede it
Robert Langer (39:23.820)
after a little bit, or certainly to some people
Lex Fridman (39:26.700)
or to some companies, once it is out there.
Robert Langer (39:31.220)
What's the, on the point of the cost,
Lex Fridman (39:34.660)
what would you say is the most expensive part
Lex Fridman (39:37.620)
of the $2 billion of making a drug?
Lex Fridman (39:40.980)
Human clinical trials.
Robert Langer (39:42.900)
That is by far the most expensive.
Lex Fridman (39:44.620)
In terms of money or pain or both?
Robert Langer (39:47.540)
Well, money, but pain goes, it's hard to know.
Lex Fridman (39:50.660)
I mean, but usually proving things that are,
Robert Langer (39:54.140)
proving that something new is safe and effective in people
Lex Fridman (39:57.740)
is almost always the biggest expense.
Robert Langer (40:00.420)
Could you linger on that for just a little longer
Lex Fridman (40:02.740)
and describe what it takes to prove,
Robert Langer (40:06.300)
for people that don't know, in general,
Lex Fridman (40:09.580)
what it takes to prove that something is effective on humans?
Robert Langer (40:12.940)
Well, you'd have to take a particular disease,
Lex Fridman (40:17.660)
but the process is you start out with,
Robert Langer (40:20.460)
usually you start out with cells,
Lex Fridman (40:21.980)
then you'd go to animal models.
Robert Langer (40:23.420)
Usually you have to do a couple animal models.
Lex Fridman (40:25.780)
And of course the animal models aren't perfect for humans.
Lex Fridman (40:28.660)
And then you have to do three sets of clinical trials
Lex Fridman (40:31.060)
at a minimum, a phase one trial to show that it's safe
Robert Langer (40:34.140)
in small number of patients, a phase two trial
Lex Fridman (40:36.580)
to show that it's effective in a small number of patients,
Lex Fridman (40:39.220)
and a phase three trial to show that it's safe and effective
Lex Fridman (40:42.500)
in a large number of patients.
Lex Fridman (40:44.540)
And that could end up being hundreds
Lex Fridman (40:46.900)
or thousands of patients.
Lex Fridman (40:49.260)
And they have to be really carefully controlled studies.
Lex Fridman (40:52.620)
And you'd have to manufacture the drug,
Robert Langer (40:55.060)
you'd have to really watch those patients.
Lex Fridman (40:58.860)
You have to be very concerned that it is gonna be safe.
Lex Fridman (41:03.140)
And then you look and see, does it treat the disease better
Lex Fridman (41:07.500)
than whatever the gold standard was before that?
Robert Langer (41:10.860)
Assuming there was one.
Lex Fridman (41:12.780)
That's a really interesting line.
Robert Langer (41:14.420)
Show that it's safe first, and then that it's effective.
Lex Fridman (41:17.980)
First do no harm.
Robert Langer (41:19.220)
First do no harm, that's right.
Lex Fridman (41:21.380)
So how, again, if you can linger in a little bit,
Lex Fridman (41:26.140)
how does the patenting process work?
Lex Fridman (41:29.140)
Yeah, well, you do a certain amount of research,
Robert Langer (41:32.660)
though that's not necessarily has to be the case.
Lex Fridman (41:35.300)
But for us, usually it is.
Robert Langer (41:36.820)
Usually we do a certain amount of research
Lex Fridman (41:40.420)
and make some findings.
Lex Fridman (41:41.860)
And we had a hypothesis, let's say we prove it,
Lex Fridman (41:46.380)
or we make some discovery, we invent some technique.
Lex Fridman (41:49.580)
And then we write something up, what's called a disclosure.
Lex Fridman (41:52.940)
We give it to MIT's technology transfer office.
Robert Langer (41:55.620)
They then give it to some patent attorneys,
Lex Fridman (41:57.820)
and they use that plus talking to us
Lex Fridman (42:00.900)
and work on writing a patent.
Lex Fridman (42:03.740)
And then you go back and forth with the USPTO,
Robert Langer (42:07.700)
that's the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Lex Fridman (42:09.900)
And they may not allow it the first, second or third time,
Lex Fridman (42:14.340)
but they will tell you why they don't.
Lex Fridman (42:17.140)
And you may adjust it,
Lex Fridman (42:18.180)
and maybe you'll eventually get it, and maybe you won't.
Lex Fridman (42:21.540)
So you've been part of launching 40 companies
Robert Langer (42:24.980)
together worth, again, numbers could be outdated,
Lex Fridman (42:28.500)
but an estimated $23 billion.
Robert Langer (42:33.260)
You've described your thoughts
Lex Fridman (42:34.700)
on a formula for startup success.
Lex Fridman (42:36.980)
So perhaps you can describe that formula
Lex Fridman (42:38.940)
and in general describe what does it take
Lex Fridman (42:41.540)
to build a successful startup?
Lex Fridman (42:44.180)
Well, I'd break that down into a couple of categories.
Lex Fridman (42:46.540)
And I'm a scientist and certainly
Lex Fridman (42:48.660)
from the science standpoint, I'll go over that.
Lex Fridman (42:50.700)
But I actually think that really the most important thing
Lex Fridman (42:54.180)
is probably the business people that I work with.
Lex Fridman (42:57.660)
And when I look back at the companies that have done well,
Lex Fridman (43:01.580)
it's been because we've had great business people.
Lex Fridman (43:03.860)
And when they haven't done as well,
Lex Fridman (43:05.220)
we haven't had as good business people.
Lex Fridman (43:06.940)
But from a science standpoint,
Lex Fridman (43:08.820)
I think about that we've made some kind of discovery
Robert Langer (43:12.540)
that is almost what I'd call a platform
Lex Fridman (43:15.340)
that you could use it for different things.
Lex Fridman (43:17.860)
And certainly the drug delivery system example
Lex Fridman (43:20.540)
that I gave earlier is a good example of that.
Robert Langer (43:22.660)
You could use it for drug A, B, C, D, E and so forth.
Lex Fridman (43:27.100)
And that I'd like to think that we've taken it far enough
Lex Fridman (43:30.420)
so that we've written at least one really good paper
Lex Fridman (43:33.300)
in a top journal, hopefully a number
Robert Langer (43:36.340)
that we've reduced it to practice and animal models
Lex Fridman (43:39.340)
that we've filed patents, maybe had issued patents
Robert Langer (43:45.380)
that have what I'll call very good and broad claims.
Lex Fridman (43:48.340)
That's sort of the key on a patent.
Lex Fridman (43:50.860)
And then in our case, a lot of times when we've done it,
Lex Fridman (43:55.020)
a lot of times it's somebody in the lab
Robert Langer (43:57.780)
like a postdoc or graduate student
Lex Fridman (43:59.380)
that spent a big part of their life doing it
Lex Fridman (44:01.740)
and that they wanna work at that company
Lex Fridman (44:03.740)
because they have this passion
Robert Langer (44:04.780)
that they wanna see something they did
Lex Fridman (44:06.580)
make a difference in people's lives.
Robert Langer (44:09.380)
Maybe you can mention the business component.
Lex Fridman (44:12.980)
It's funny to hear Grace had to say
Robert Langer (44:15.300)
that there's value to business folks.
Lex Fridman (44:17.940)
Oh yeah, well.
Robert Langer (44:18.780)
That's not always said.
Lex Fridman (44:20.420)
So what value, what business instinct is valuable
Lex Fridman (44:25.220)
to make a startup successful, a company successful?
Lex Fridman (44:29.180)
I think the business aspects are,
Robert Langer (44:32.180)
you have to be a good judge of people
Lex Fridman (44:35.740)
so that you hire the right people.
Robert Langer (44:37.700)
You have to be strategic so you figure out
Lex Fridman (44:40.460)
if you do have that platform
Robert Langer (44:41.820)
that could be used for all these different things.
Lex Fridman (44:44.700)
And knowing that medical research is so expensive,
Lex Fridman (44:47.620)
what thing are you gonna do first, second,
Lex Fridman (44:49.180)
third, fourth and fifth?
Robert Langer (44:51.980)
I think you need to have a good,
Lex Fridman (44:53.660)
what I'll call FDA regulatory clinical trial strategy.
Robert Langer (44:58.100)
I think you have to be able to raise money incredibly.
Lex Fridman (45:01.580)
So there are a lot of things.
Robert Langer (45:02.740)
You have to be good with people, good manager of people.
Lex Fridman (45:05.260)
So the money and the people part I get,
Lex Fridman (45:08.460)
but the stuff before in terms of deciding the A, B, C, D,
Lex Fridman (45:13.020)
if you have a platform which drugs to first take a testing,
Robert Langer (45:16.660)
you see nevertheless scientists
Lex Fridman (45:18.900)
as not being always too good at that process.
Robert Langer (45:22.580)
Well, I think they're a part of the process,
Lex Fridman (45:24.260)
but I'd say there's probably, I'm gonna just make this up,
Lex Fridman (45:28.180)
but maybe six or seven criteria that you wanna use
Lex Fridman (45:31.780)
and it's not just science.
Robert Langer (45:33.300)
I mean, the kinds of things that I would think about
Lex Fridman (45:35.180)
is, is the market big or small?
Robert Langer (45:37.900)
Is the, are there good animal models for it
Lex Fridman (45:41.260)
so that you could test it and it wouldn't take 50 years?
Robert Langer (45:45.560)
Are the clinical trials that could be set up
Lex Fridman (45:48.420)
ones that have clear end points
Lex Fridman (45:51.960)
where you can make a judgment?
Lex Fridman (45:53.700)
And another issue would be competition.
Robert Langer (45:58.860)
Are there other ways that some companies
Lex Fridman (46:00.420)
out there are doing it?
Robert Langer (46:01.540)
Another issue would be reimbursement.
Lex Fridman (46:05.820)
You know, can it get reimbursed?
Lex Fridman (46:07.540)
So a lot of things that you have manufacturing issues
Lex Fridman (46:10.180)
you'd wanna consider.
Lex Fridman (46:11.860)
So I think there are really a lot of things
Lex Fridman (46:13.700)
that go into whether you,
Lex Fridman (46:15.540)
what you do first, second, third, or fourth.
Lex Fridman (46:19.300)
So you lead one of the largest academic labs in the world
Robert Langer (46:23.100)
with over $10 million in annual grants
Lex Fridman (46:27.020)
and over a hundred researchers,
Robert Langer (46:28.520)
probably over a thousand since the lab's beginning.
Lex Fridman (46:31.740)
Researchers can be individualistic and eccentric.
Lex Fridman (46:37.100)
How do I put it nicely?
Lex Fridman (46:38.580)
There you go, eccentric.
Lex Fridman (46:40.000)
So what insights into research leadership can you give
Lex Fridman (46:43.140)
having to run such a successful lab
Lex Fridman (46:45.340)
with so much diverse talent?
Lex Fridman (46:49.440)
Well, I don't know that I'm any expert.
Robert Langer (46:50.780)
I think that what you do to me,
Lex Fridman (46:53.500)
I mean, I just want,
Robert Langer (46:54.900)
I mean, this is gonna sound very simplistic,
Lex Fridman (46:56.380)
but I just want people in the lab to be happy,
Robert Langer (46:58.940)
to be doing things that I hope
Lex Fridman (47:00.260)
will make the world a better place,
Robert Langer (47:02.700)
to be working on science
Lex Fridman (47:04.460)
that can make the world a better place.
Lex Fridman (47:06.140)
And I guess my feeling is if we're able to do that,
Lex Fridman (47:11.300)
you know, it kind of runs itself.
Lex Fridman (47:13.940)
So how do you make a researcher happy in general?
Lex Fridman (47:17.360)
I think when people feel,
Robert Langer (47:19.260)
I mean, this is gonna sound like, again,
Lex Fridman (47:21.460)
simplistic or maybe like motherhood and apple pie,
Lex Fridman (47:23.600)
but I think if people feel they're working on something
Lex Fridman (47:26.540)
really important that can affect many other people's lives
Lex Fridman (47:30.180)
and they're making some progress,
Lex Fridman (47:32.600)
they'll feel good about it
Lex Fridman (47:34.100)
and they'll feel good about themselves
Lex Fridman (47:35.420)
and they'll be happy.
Lex Fridman (47:37.240)
But through brainstorming and so on,
Lex Fridman (47:39.820)
what's your role and how difficult is it as a group
Robert Langer (47:43.940)
in this collaboration to arrive at these big questions
Lex Fridman (47:49.420)
that might have impact?
Robert Langer (47:51.100)
Well, the big questions come from many different ways.
Lex Fridman (47:54.620)
Sometimes it's trying to, things that I might think of
Robert Langer (47:57.420)
or somebody in the lab might think of,
Lex Fridman (47:59.500)
which could be a new technique
Robert Langer (48:00.900)
or to understand something better.
Lex Fridman (48:02.900)
But gee, we've had people like Bill Gates
Lex Fridman (48:05.560)
and the Gates Foundation come to us
Lex Fridman (48:07.180)
and Juvenile Diabetes Foundation come to us and say,
Lex Fridman (48:10.140)
gee, could you help us on these things?
Lex Fridman (48:11.740)
And I mean, that's good too.
Robert Langer (48:13.540)
It doesn't happen just one way.
Lex Fridman (48:16.900)
And I mean, you've kind of mentioned it, happiness,
Lex Fridman (48:20.800)
but is there something more,
Lex Fridman (48:24.720)
how do you inspire a researcher
Lex Fridman (48:26.440)
to do the best work of their life?
Lex Fridman (48:28.300)
So you mentioned passion and passion is a kind of fire.
Lex Fridman (48:32.660)
Do you see yourself having a role to keep that fire going,
Lex Fridman (48:35.980)
to build it up, to inspire the researchers
Robert Langer (48:39.900)
through the pretty difficult process
Lex Fridman (48:42.840)
of going from idea to big question, to big answer?
Robert Langer (48:47.840)
I think so.
Lex Fridman (48:48.680)
I think I try to do that by talking to people
Robert Langer (48:52.680)
going over their ideas and their progress.
Lex Fridman (48:56.840)
I try to do it as an individual.
Robert Langer (49:00.000)
Certainly when I talk about my own career,
Lex Fridman (49:01.880)
I had my setbacks at different times
Lex Fridman (49:04.640)
and people know that, that know me.
Lex Fridman (49:06.920)
And you just try to keep pushing and so forth.
Lex Fridman (49:12.080)
But yeah, I think I try to do that.
Lex Fridman (49:15.760)
But yeah, I think I try to do that
Robert Langer (49:17.920)
as the one who leads the lab.
Lex Fridman (49:20.960)
So you have this exceptionally successful lab
Lex Fridman (49:23.320)
and one of the great institutions in the world, MIT.
Lex Fridman (49:29.280)
And yet sort of, at least in my neck of the woods
Robert Langer (49:32.680)
in computer science and artificial intelligence,
Lex Fridman (49:36.560)
a lot of the research is kind of,
Robert Langer (49:40.520)
a lot of the great researchers, not everyone,
Lex Fridman (49:43.060)
but some are kind of going to industry.
Robert Langer (49:46.920)
A lot of the research is moving to industry.
Lex Fridman (49:49.680)
What do you think about the future of science in general?
Lex Fridman (49:52.600)
Is there drawbacks?
Lex Fridman (49:54.440)
Is there strength to the academic environment
Lex Fridman (49:58.200)
that you hope will persist?
Lex Fridman (49:59.920)
How does it need to change?
Lex Fridman (50:02.120)
What needs to stay the same?
Lex Fridman (50:04.200)
What are your thoughts on this whole landscape
Lex Fridman (50:05.920)
of science and its future?
Lex Fridman (50:08.000)
Well, first I think going to industry is good,
Lex Fridman (50:10.400)
but I think being in academia is good.
Lex Fridman (50:12.840)
You know, I have lots of students who've done both
Lex Fridman (50:15.240)
and they've had great careers doing both.
Lex Fridman (50:18.480)
I think from an academic standpoint,
Robert Langer (50:21.280)
I mean, the biggest concern probably that people feel today,
Lex Fridman (50:24.920)
you know, at a place like MIT
Robert Langer (50:26.560)
or other research heavy institutions is gonna be funding
Lex Fridman (50:30.240)
and particular funding that's not super directed,
Robert Langer (50:34.060)
you know, so that you can do basic research.
Lex Fridman (50:37.080)
I think that's probably the number one thing,
Lex Fridman (50:39.360)
but you know, it would be great if we as a society
Lex Fridman (50:43.400)
could come up with better ways to teach,
Robert Langer (50:45.640)
you know, so that people all over could learn better.
Lex Fridman (50:50.160)
You know, so I think there are a number of things
Robert Langer (50:51.820)
that would be good to be able to do better.
Lex Fridman (50:55.320)
So again, you're very successful in terms of funding,
Lex Fridman (50:58.900)
but do you still feel the pressure of that,
Lex Fridman (51:01.980)
of having to seek funding?
Robert Langer (51:04.640)
Does it affect the science or is it,
Lex Fridman (51:07.420)
or can you simply focus on doing the best work of your life
Lex Fridman (51:11.260)
and the funding comes along with that?
Lex Fridman (51:14.040)
I'd say the last 10 or 15 years,
Robert Langer (51:16.240)
we've done pretty well funding,
Lex Fridman (51:18.460)
but I always worry about it.
Robert Langer (51:19.760)
You know, it's like you're still operating
Lex Fridman (51:23.640)
on more soft money than hard.
Lex Fridman (51:25.860)
And so I always worry about it,
Lex Fridman (51:27.760)
but we've been fortunate that places have come to us
Robert Langer (51:33.000)
like the Gates Foundation and others,
Lex Fridman (51:34.880)
Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, some companies,
Lex Fridman (51:37.600)
and they're willing to give us funding
Lex Fridman (51:39.760)
and we've gotten government money as well.
Robert Langer (51:42.200)
We have a number of NIH grants and I've always had that
Lex Fridman (51:44.760)
and that's important to me too.
Lex Fridman (51:47.180)
So I worry about it, but you know,
Lex Fridman (51:51.480)
I just view that as a part of the process.
Robert Langer (51:53.760)
Now, if you put yourself in the shoes of a philanthropist,
Lex Fridman (51:57.440)
like say I gave you $100 billion right now,
Lex Fridman (52:02.200)
but you couldn't spend it on your own research.
Lex Fridman (52:05.560)
So how hard is it to decide which labs to invest in,
Lex Fridman (52:12.800)
which ideas, which problems, which solutions?
Lex Fridman (52:16.460)
You know, cause funding is so much,
Robert Langer (52:19.120)
such an important part of progression of science
Lex Fridman (52:22.960)
in today's society.
Lex Fridman (52:24.560)
So if you put yourself in the shoes of a philanthropist,
Lex Fridman (52:26.720)
how hard is that problem?
Lex Fridman (52:27.560)
How would you go about solving it?
Lex Fridman (52:29.320)
Sure, well, I think what I do, the first thing is different
Robert Langer (52:32.400)
philanthropists have different visions.
Lex Fridman (52:34.760)
And I think the first thing is to form a concrete vision
Robert Langer (52:37.620)
of what you want.
Lex Fridman (52:38.460)
Some people, I mean, I'll just give you two examples
Robert Langer (52:41.100)
of people that I know.
Lex Fridman (52:44.320)
David Koch was very interested in cancer research
Lex Fridman (52:47.480)
and part of that was that he had prostate cancer.
Lex Fridman (52:51.640)
And a number of people do that along those lines.
Robert Langer (52:55.440)
They've had somebody, they've either had cancer themselves
Lex Fridman (52:57.960)
or somebody they loved had cancer
Lex Fridman (53:00.000)
and they wanna put money into cancer research.
Lex Fridman (53:02.700)
Bill Gates, on the other hand,
Robert Langer (53:04.160)
I think when he had got his fortune,
Lex Fridman (53:06.480)
I mean, he thought about it and felt, well,
Lex Fridman (53:08.560)
how could he have the greatest impact?
Lex Fridman (53:10.180)
And he thought about, you know, helping people
Robert Langer (53:12.520)
in the developing world and medicines
Lex Fridman (53:15.660)
and different things like that, like vaccines
Robert Langer (53:18.040)
that might be really helpful for people
Lex Fridman (53:20.160)
in the developing world.
Lex Fridman (53:21.120)
And so I think first you start out with that vision.
Lex Fridman (53:25.720)
Once you start out with that vision, whatever vision it is,
Robert Langer (53:29.440)
then I think you try to ask the question,
Lex Fridman (53:33.760)
who in the world does the best work if that was your goal?
Robert Langer (53:38.360)
I mean, but you really, I think have to have
Lex Fridman (53:40.240)
a defined vision.
Robert Langer (53:41.060)
Vision first.
Lex Fridman (53:41.900)
Yeah, and I think that's what people do.
Robert Langer (53:45.080)
I mean, I have never seen anybody do it otherwise.
Lex Fridman (53:48.360)
I mean, and that, by the way,
Robert Langer (53:49.760)
may not be the best thing overall.
Lex Fridman (53:53.280)
I mean, I think it's good that all those things happen,
Robert Langer (53:55.600)
but, you know, what you really want to do,
Lex Fridman (53:57.800)
and I'll make a contrast in a second,
Robert Langer (54:00.440)
in addition to funding important areas,
Lex Fridman (54:02.680)
like what both of those people did, is to help young people.
Lex Fridman (54:07.760)
And they may be at odds with each other
Lex Fridman (54:10.120)
because a far more, a lab like ours,
Robert Langer (54:13.080)
which is, you know, I'm older, is, you know,
Lex Fridman (54:15.680)
might be very good at addressing some of those kinds
Robert Langer (54:18.680)
of problems, but, you know, I'm not young.
Lex Fridman (54:20.680)
I train a lot of people who are young,
Lex Fridman (54:22.720)
but it's not the same as helping somebody
Lex Fridman (54:24.480)
who's an assistant professor someplace.
Lex Fridman (54:26.480)
So I think what's, I think, been good about our thing,
Lex Fridman (54:30.960)
our society, or things overall,
Robert Langer (54:33.280)
are that there are people who come at it
Lex Fridman (54:35.040)
from different ways, and the combination,
Robert Langer (54:37.840)
the confluence of the government funding,
Lex Fridman (54:40.380)
the certain foundations that fund things,
Lex Fridman (54:43.880)
and other foundations that, you know,
Lex Fridman (54:46.640)
want to see disease treated,
Robert Langer (54:48.280)
well, then they can go seek out people,
Lex Fridman (54:51.480)
or they can put a request for proposals
Lex Fridman (54:53.240)
and see who does the best.
Lex Fridman (54:54.680)
You know, I'd say both David Koch and Bill Gates
Robert Langer (54:58.000)
did exactly that.
Lex Fridman (54:58.960)
They sought out people, both of them, you know,
Robert Langer (55:02.200)
or their foundations that they were involved in,
Lex Fridman (55:04.200)
sought out people like myself.
Lex Fridman (55:07.480)
But they also had requests for proposals.
Lex Fridman (55:11.400)
Now, you mentioned young people,
Lex Fridman (55:12.720)
and that reminds me of something you said
Lex Fridman (55:14.160)
in an interview of Written Somewhere,
Robert Langer (55:17.720)
that said some of your initial struggles
Lex Fridman (55:21.840)
in terms of finding a faculty position, or so on,
Robert Langer (55:28.200)
that you didn't quite, for people,
Lex Fridman (55:30.120)
fit into a particular bucket, a particular.
Robert Langer (55:33.000)
Right.
Lex Fridman (55:35.000)
Can you speak to that?
Robert Langer (55:38.240)
How, do you see limitations to the academic system
Lex Fridman (55:41.760)
that it does have such buckets?
Robert Langer (55:44.120)
Is there, how can we allow for people
Lex Fridman (55:49.120)
who are brilliant, but outside the disciplines
Lex Fridman (55:56.400)
of the previous decade?
Lex Fridman (55:59.600)
Yeah, well, I think that's a great question.
Robert Langer (56:01.320)
I think that, I think the department heads
Lex Fridman (56:03.620)
have to have a vision, you know, and some of them do.
Robert Langer (56:07.040)
Every so often, you know, there are institutes
Lex Fridman (56:11.040)
or labs that do that.
Robert Langer (56:13.400)
I mean, at MIT, I think that's done sometimes.
Lex Fridman (56:17.480)
I know mechanical engineering department just had a search,
Lex Fridman (56:21.240)
and they hired Gio Traverso, who is one of my,
Lex Fridman (56:25.440)
he was a fellow with me, but he's actually
Robert Langer (56:28.200)
a molecular biologist and a gastroenterologist.
Lex Fridman (56:32.000)
And, you know, he's one of the best in the world,
Lex Fridman (56:34.200)
but he's also done some great mechanical engineering
Lex Fridman (56:37.240)
and designing some new pills and things like that.
Lex Fridman (56:39.800)
And they picked him, and boy, I give them a lot of credit.
Lex Fridman (56:43.880)
I mean, that's vision, to pick somebody.
Lex Fridman (56:46.880)
And I think, you know, they'll be the richer four.
Lex Fridman (56:49.880)
I think the Media Lab has certainly hired, you know,
Robert Langer (56:52.120)
people like Ed Boyden and others who have done,
Lex Fridman (56:55.400)
you know, very different things.
Lex Fridman (56:56.820)
And so I think that, you know, that's part of the vision
Lex Fridman (57:00.480)
of the leadership who do things like that.
Lex Fridman (57:03.560)
Do you think one day, you've mentioned David Koch and cancer,
Lex Fridman (57:07.320)
do you think one day we'll cure cancer?
Robert Langer (57:10.520)
Yeah, I mean, of course, one day,
Lex Fridman (57:12.240)
I don't know how long that day will come.
Robert Langer (57:14.280)
Soon.
Lex Fridman (57:15.120)
Yeah, soon, soon, no, but I think.
Lex Fridman (57:17.520)
So you think it is a grand challenge,
Lex Fridman (57:19.200)
it is a grand challenge,
Robert Langer (57:20.120)
it's not just solvable within a few years.
Lex Fridman (57:22.680)
No, I don't think very many things
Robert Langer (57:24.460)
are solvable in a few years.
Lex Fridman (57:25.940)
There's some good ideas that people are working on,
Lex Fridman (57:28.580)
but I mean, all cancers, that's pretty tough.
Lex Fridman (57:32.160)
If we do get the cure, what will the cure look like?
Lex Fridman (57:35.000)
Do you think which mechanisms,
Lex Fridman (57:37.260)
which disciplines will help us arrive at that cure
Robert Langer (57:40.200)
from all the amazing work you've done
Lex Fridman (57:42.680)
that has touched on cancer?
Robert Langer (57:44.000)
No, I think it'll be a combination
Lex Fridman (57:45.520)
of biology and engineering.
Robert Langer (57:46.800)
I think it'll be biology to understand
Lex Fridman (57:50.440)
the right genetic mechanisms to solve this problem
Lex Fridman (57:54.040)
and maybe the right immunological mechanisms
Lex Fridman (57:56.400)
and engineering in the sense of producing the molecules,
Robert Langer (58:00.400)
developing the right delivery systems,
Lex Fridman (58:02.200)
targeting it or whatever else needs to be done.
Robert Langer (58:05.680)
Well, that's a beautiful vision for engineering.
Lex Fridman (58:08.920)
So on a lighter topic, I've read that you love chocolate
Lex Fridman (58:11.880)
and mentioned two places, Ben and Bill's Chocolate Aquarium
Lex Fridman (58:16.920)
and the chocolate cookies, the Soho Globs
Robert Langer (58:20.280)
from Rosie's Bakery in Chestnut Hill.
Lex Fridman (58:22.620)
I went to their website and I was trying
Robert Langer (58:25.400)
to finish a paper last night.
Lex Fridman (58:26.960)
There's a deadline today and yet I was wasting
Robert Langer (58:30.700)
way too much time at 3 a.m. instead of writing the paper,
Lex Fridman (58:34.200)
staring at the Rosie Baker's cookies,
Robert Langer (58:36.400)
which are just look incredible.
Lex Fridman (58:38.320)
The Soho Globs just look incredible.
Lex Fridman (58:40.680)
But for me, oatmeal white raisin cookies won my heart
Lex Fridman (58:44.680)
just from the pictures.
Lex Fridman (58:46.460)
Do you think one day we'll be able to engineer
Lex Fridman (58:49.040)
the perfect cookie with the help of chemistry
Lex Fridman (58:52.900)
and maybe a bit of data driven artificial intelligence
Lex Fridman (58:55.440)
or is cookies something that's more art than engineering?
Robert Langer (59:02.480)
I think there's some of both.
Lex Fridman (59:03.600)
I think engineering will probably help someday.
Lex Fridman (59:06.960)
What about chocolate?
Lex Fridman (59:08.640)
Same thing, same thing.
Robert Langer (59:09.900)
You'd have to go to see some of David Edwards stuff.
Lex Fridman (59:12.840)
He was one of my postdocs and he's a professor at Harvard
Lex Fridman (59:15.840)
but he also started Cafe Art Sciences
Lex Fridman (59:18.520)
and it's just a really cool restaurant around here.
Lex Fridman (59:22.440)
But he also has companies that do ways
Lex Fridman (59:26.960)
of looking at fragrances and trying to use engineering
Robert Langer (59:30.360)
in new ways and so I think that's just an example.
Lex Fridman (59:34.280)
But I expect someday that AI and engineering
Robert Langer (59:38.200)
will play a role in almost everything.
Lex Fridman (59:40.920)
Including creating the perfect cookie.
Robert Langer (59:42.640)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (59:43.480)
Well, I dream of that day as well.
Lex Fridman (59:45.240)
So when you look back at your life,
Lex Fridman (59:47.760)
having accomplished an incredible amount of positive impact
Robert Langer (59:50.640)
on the world through science and engineering,
Lex Fridman (59:53.600)
what are you most proud of?
Robert Langer (59:56.320)
My students, I really feel when I look at that,
Lex Fridman (59:59.400)
we've probably had close to 1,000 students
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