Welcome to our sixth episode of Curiosity podcast, where we go deep on a wide variety of technical topics with the smartest leaders in the world. This is hosted by Immad Akhund, cofounder and CEO of Mercury and Raj Suri, cofounder of Presto and Lyft.
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Transcription of our conversation with Robert Langer
00:00:00:01 - 00:00:20:03
Bob Langer
And so tissue engineering is the idea. And Jay Vacanti and I came up with this idea that you could take make tissues and organs from scratch, and you can now use that to create artificial skin. And there are a lot of companies trying to develop, you know, organs and tissues from scratch. And a lot of them are also trying to develop organs and tissues on a chip.
00:00:20:10 - 00:00:27:07
Bob Langer
I wouldn't call that necessarily mainstream that people use this every day, but I believe at some point they will.
00:00:37:16 - 00:00:49:12
Immad Akhund
Hi, welcome to Curiosity podcast, where we go deep on a wide variety of technical topics with the smartest leaders in the world. I'm a mother and I'm the co-founder and CEO of Mercury and also invested in 300 plus companies.
00:00:49:22 - 00:01:16:14
Raj Suri Suri
Hi, And I'm Raj Suri Suri Suri. I'm the co-founder of Lift and Presto! Automation. Today we're talking to Dr. Robert Langer, who is the most cited engineer ever in history, and the co-founder of 40 companies in the biotech space, specifically focusing on drug delivery and tissue engineering. When I was a student at MIT, I had a chance to get to meet him and and, you know, he was an inspiration then.
00:01:16:14 - 00:01:44:18
Raj Suri Suri
But then he you know, he's become even more preeminent thanks to his co-founding of Moderna, which happened in about 2010. I think Bob Langer is, you know, prolific as an academic, creating 40 different companies. And he has a very unique style of of being an entrepreneur. I think in mind, you know, this is something we don't really see in the software world, You know, somebody making such a big impact in a very tough space.
00:01:45:03 - 00:02:08:21
Immad Akhund
Yeah, Bob Langer, just very humble. You know, It doesn't seem like it. You he makes it sound like he hasn't really done much. He's really just had this, like, massive impact and he's still extremely optimistic, even though he's been doing it for such a long time. And it's obvious, like from his humbleness, willing to work with a lot of people and being so optimistic about about the world.
00:02:09:03 - 00:02:12:22
Immad Akhund
Yeah, that's where a lot of his kind of ideas and impact comes from.
00:02:13:01 - 00:02:37:19
Raj Suri Suri
We go into, you know, three main areas with Bob Langer. We go into, you know, technology like the technologies he's developed is inventions because he's not just working on existing technology he's been inventing the whole time. And, you know, we go into his model for being an entrepreneur and also just some management and life advice because he's built a a factory of innovation for biotech, which I think is unparalleled.
00:02:38:07 - 00:03:00:15
Raj Suri Suri
And there's a lot to learn from. Bob Langer, whoever you are as a listener as to how we can maximize innovation and an impact. So very excited for the conversation. Hey Bob Langer, welcome to the Curiosity podcast. This is an honor for for me and my to the chance to chat with you. I've been, you know, so inspired by what you've been doing since the MIT days.
00:03:00:20 - 00:03:14:06
Raj Suri Suri
So since then I founded a couple of tech companies, software company, nothing to do with Kemi, but, you know, always really excited to learn more about biotech and see how it what lessons can be applied just generally, and also excited to see how the technology is developing.
00:03:14:11 - 00:03:35:06
Immad Akhund
So that's kind of why Raj Suri Suri and I started this podcast. We always enjoy talking to experts in and other fields that we don't know that much about. You know, one of the cool things about you is you applied kind of chemical engineering to medicine, which, you know, not that many people have been thinking about these kind of multidisciplinary things.
00:03:35:06 - 00:03:42:15
Immad Akhund
And I think that's like we had a lot of kind of good ideas come from. So we're hoping we can get to spread my ideas and have a good conversation.
00:03:42:17 - 00:04:10:04
Raj Suri Suri
You've been working on the cutting edge of various fields, you know, through throughout your career, and I'm just wondering, you know, having looked at some of your or read about some of your inventions and and achievements in various fields, I'm wondering what technologies that you've developed are you the most proud of? And which do you believe that are very promising but haven't yet, you know, become mainstream or across the chasm into into becoming widely adopted?
00:04:10:06 - 00:04:33:20
Bob Langer
Well, I guess I'd say that the work we've done on drug delivery systems, microparticles and nanoparticles that that I think by now is pretty widely adopted. Not that there's not a lot going on in that area and a lot more work to be done. But I'd say that that those are used for really the basis for many different things that we all use.
00:04:33:20 - 00:05:10:09
Bob Langer
I mean, the most famous recent example would be the COVID vaccines. You know, all of those are in nanoparticles. Some of that work in terms of its early origins, go back to the seventies and work that I did many years ago. But of course, many, many people and many companies have developed it further. But there was a paper we wrote in Nature in 1976 showing for the first time that what people thought couldn't be done in terms of delivering large molecules and DNA and RNA or large molecules or proteins and peptides, but that people thought what couldn't be done actually for the first time could be done.
00:05:10:17 - 00:05:31:08
Bob Langer
And I think that ended up being important for a number of reasons. So that that would be an example of a technology that, you know, I am proud of and of course many people have contributed to. But a lot of it started with things that we did in terms of areas that I think called a lot of promise that I hope will have even more impact.
00:05:31:08 - 00:05:52:17
Bob Langer
There's that some is the area of tissue engineering and and so tissue engineering is the idea. And Jay Vacanti and I came up with this idea that you could take make tissues and organs from scratch and you can now use that to create artificial skin. And there are a lot of companies trying to develop, you know, organs and tissues from scratch.
00:05:52:17 - 00:06:02:23
Bob Langer
And a lot of them are also trying to develop organs and tissues on a chip. I wouldn't call that necessarily a mainstream that people use this every day, but I believe at some point they will.
00:06:03:13 - 00:06:06:18
Immad Akhund
As they are using stem cells. Or is there another technology there?
00:06:06:22 - 00:06:32:06
Bob Langer
Well, it can be using stem cells, but it could also be using the patient's own cells. It could be using, you know, like for example, in our lab, we've made hearts on a chip and it could be with heart muscle cells. We've made gastrointestinal tract on a chip, and that's using intestinal cells. We're working on developing a brain on a chip that actually involves seven separate cell types.
00:06:32:06 - 00:06:57:05
Bob Langer
We're collaborating with leeway science and the brain and cognitive sciences Department and the Picower Institute. So they're different things and they can be stem cells. In the last one, we've taken stem like cells and converted them to different brain cells, different brain cell types so that you could make patient specific organs on a chip to do drug testing.
00:06:57:10 - 00:07:00:23
Bob Langer
But there's all kinds of possibilities depending on what somebody wants to do.
00:07:01:05 - 00:07:06:09
Immad Akhund
When you say Chip, you don't mean a computer chip, right? Like this is another usage of the word chip.
00:07:06:09 - 00:07:28:06
Bob Langer
It would be a chip like system. I mean, in the sense that it actually could be a computer chip if you could get the cells to grow on them. And you might want to use even things on the computer chip to analyze information or to do microfluidics to flow media into it. But but you're right, it's not a classic computer chip.
00:07:28:22 - 00:07:37:06
Immad Akhund
And like, the idea is you could grow a whole heart using these methods. Is there any limitations to like what you can do?
00:07:38:08 - 00:07:53:21
Bob Langer
Well, I think the limitations right now are scientific limitations. I mean, you know, I think we can certainly grow our muscle. I think a whole heart someday probably, that will be able to be done. But I don't know that we're there yet. I don't think we are.
00:07:54:08 - 00:08:13:19
Raj Suri Suri
What is the state of the technology like? How close are we? So it's funny because imagine I work in this this field where intelligence is being, you know, made to be synthetic with artificial intelligence, whereas you know, you're working in this field where you're making like actually artificial tissues. Right. And how far along is that technology?
00:08:14:08 - 00:08:36:23
Bob Langer
Well, from a clinical standpoint, like I say, you can make new skin. Now, it's not perfect, but you can certainly make new skin for patients with diabetic skin ulcers or patients who are burned. You can also making blood vessels. One of my former postdocs, Lauren Nicholson, she's CEO of a company, a site that's making new blood vessels and neurons phase three trials.
00:08:37:18 - 00:08:56:10
Bob Langer
They've even made new blood vessels for people in Ukraine, you know, that were in the war. So so that that's also mood moving pretty well. But there are many others that are at much earlier stages. You know, there's work going on and pretty much creating any new tissue or organ. Some are more challenging than others.
00:08:56:13 - 00:09:08:23
Raj Suri Suri
Oh, that's fascinating. What is the difference between some of the progress and like skin cells and blood vessels versus like a heart? Like, what are the some of the complexities you see between the different types of cells?
00:09:09:07 - 00:09:36:09
Bob Langer
Well, first, I guess I'd say structural things which skin and blood vessels are, to a certain extent are I think it's a little bit easier to do something structural than something functional. But I mean, that's a real generalization. But I think it's it's it's not an unreasonable way to look at it. Also, sometimes there's many cell types that you want to build in, and sometimes you need vascularization, you need innovation.
00:09:36:15 - 00:09:51:15
Bob Langer
So some some tissues are going to be more challenging than others. Some cells may be hard to preserve or keep in the rights what's called differentiated state. So there could be a lot of different challenges depending on the tissue or organ.
00:09:52:00 - 00:10:04:17
Immad Akhund
What do you think of the idea of making kind of, I guess, chicken breasts or like of beef steak using, I assume, similar ish technology? There's a bunch of companies kind of working on that.
00:10:05:02 - 00:10:27:17
Bob Langer
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Well, I mean, when we did that tissue engineering back in the early eighties, you know, over the years, a lot of people, in fact, two of my students, Shulamit live and Berg in Israel and now they kind of mosinee in California. They have started companies to do just what you said. I mean, they can make meat that way and steak that way.
00:10:28:11 - 00:10:38:09
Bob Langer
So I think I think it's a good idea. I mean, I think it's it's absolutely worth worth trying to do. None of these things are trivial, but I think it's it's worthwhile.
00:10:39:02 - 00:10:51:20
Immad Akhund
You would say it's still a science problem, right? It's not like an engineering problem. Right now. It's it's it's still like getting it all to work. And tasting good is still like you'd have to make a significant scientific discovery for that.
00:10:52:05 - 00:11:09:20
Bob Langer
I think it's both. I think it's some engineering, some optimization and some science. But the things that you're just saying about getting the right flavor and texture and everything, those are things that people are working on. And of course that may vary depending on what you're trying to do, whether it's hamburger, steak or something else.
00:11:11:01 - 00:11:31:12
Raj Suri Suri
Just taking this a little bit forward, assuming that we're successful with building these synthetic tissues, I mean, can you play that out for society And just thinking about like you know, at some point, do you have humans with, you know, 5% synthetic, 10% or 20%? I can see it going all the way up. You know, who do you having almost like fully synthetic humans.
00:11:32:07 - 00:11:39:17
Raj Suri Suri
Do you think that's how it's going to be adopted? I'm like, how do you, you know, obviously is going to be curing diseases first, but how does that work?
00:11:41:05 - 00:12:06:18
Bob Langer
Yeah, I think I see it more as the second. In other words, if somebody has a burn you get, you can make skin from scratch. And really the skin ideally would be natural skin. Same thing with the blood vessels. And I would continue, you know, same thing with cartilage and same thing with bone and really much anything. Usually you're right that people have lost some tissue or damaged it and you're repairing it.
00:12:07:03 - 00:12:32:07
Bob Langer
So but usually the strategy that we've adopted has been largely to take cells from the patient themselves or a close relative or, like you said, stem cells. And basically if you do stem cells, you convert them to the cell type. You want to put them on like a scaffold and the scaffold helps them to reorganize. But ultimately that scaffold itself completely dissolves.
00:12:32:07 - 00:12:47:04
Bob Langer
It's like a template that completely dissolves and then you really get back the organ or tissue that you might have started with or something that's as close to that as possible, whether it be skin or any of the other tissues that I mentioned.
00:12:47:17 - 00:13:06:10
Raj Suri Suri
The potential is really significant for for all these things. One question I have in general about the technology and when you're thinking about technology, is technology problems in solving them. Have you found any applications for this new form of are you familiar with the what's happening recently in the last few months with so I'm.
00:13:06:11 - 00:13:36:10
Bob Langer
Familiar with a I, I mean, I'll just say this at a high level. I think I in the medical area definitely has potential and I think it'd be useful for a lot of things. And but at the same time I think there's also a lot of hype and a lot of places claiming to use AI. But my understanding of AI and we, you know, I interact with people at MIT who are real experts at this, like say, Rosina Bartoli and others is is that you really have to have good data sets to do it.
00:13:36:18 - 00:13:58:14
Bob Langer
So, for example, if so, I've certainly seen companies and business by and say, well, what I could do is, you know, say I want to make a a lipid nanoparticle or new drug or something like that. And I'll just go to the literature and I'll evaluate and take the data from 5000 papers and I'll put it all into this, you know, computer program and I'll get an answer.
00:13:58:23 - 00:14:26:07
Bob Langer
I don't think that's going to work because the fact is, you don't know all the variables, right? You don't know if somebody is taking a drug when they ate their last meal. What was in the meal, what the temperature was outside, what, you know, a million different things that aren't known. So I think in a case like that, which what I control uncontrolled data sets, which you get from the literature, which you really can't compare, and yet plenty of people are claiming they can.
00:14:26:14 - 00:14:45:19
Bob Langer
I don't think that will lead you anywhere. That and that's certainly been my understanding. I think where you can use it appropriately is to create large data sets that are well-controlled, where you do know all those variables. And I think that can can be very useful. I think it's going to be useful in the medical area for imaging.
00:14:45:23 - 00:15:06:07
Bob Langer
Regina Barclay, who I mentioned, has already been doing that for breast cancer imaging. I think it can be useful in drug development in some cases. I mean people are exploring that. I know she and Jim Collins at MIT here are doing that because you could analyze chemical structures, but the things would need to be well-controlled. So I think the question is what are people doing?
00:15:06:07 - 00:15:22:14
Bob Langer
And what are they claiming they can do and so forth. You know, I've certainly seen lots of people claiming they're using AI, and that's going to change the pharmaceutical industry and it probably will change it in some ways. But a lot of the ways that are being claimed I don't think are going to happen.
00:15:22:21 - 00:15:35:20
Immad Akhund
Google did this thing called Alpha Fold where they can predict of protein folding structures are did you think that was a very impactful thing in your field or is that kind of outside your field?
00:15:36:02 - 00:15:43:17
Bob Langer
No, it's outside my field, but I know enough to know. I think it's very impactful. Yeah, I think that's a terrific, terrific advance.
00:15:44:03 - 00:15:48:05
Immad Akhund
Is there things like that that you think are like still unsolved that I could help with?
00:15:48:11 - 00:16:23:01
Bob Langer
Well, I think there are a lot of things that I can help with. I mean, I think I can help on probably, you know, looking at proteins which that which that that could do. I'm trying to help figure out the right structures, your data sets. You know, let's say you do did experiments where you had literally thousands of of molecules and you looked at transport of and you knew the structures you and you had a good brain barrier model, for example, that might help you figure out what types of molecules, what kind of structures would be best at crossing the blood brain barrier.
00:16:23:14 - 00:16:46:17
Bob Langer
Again, if you know enough about different goals, like, say, you have a receptor and you want something to bind to it appropriately, I think it could be useful in areas like that. So I think there are plenty of places that will make it impact again. Nanoparticles are another one, you know, nanoparticles. If somebody looks at a leopard nanoparticle, there's four components.
00:16:47:10 - 00:17:12:17
Bob Langer
If you have high purity nanoparticles and you're able to analyze the surface and try to figure out what happens, you know, with cells, I think you could use that to maybe design better nanoparticles. So I think there's a lot of things that could be done going forward. I think it's harder to go backwards and say, you know, there's all this data in the literature and I'm going to mine it and I'm going to get an answer.
00:17:13:19 - 00:17:37:17
Raj Suri Suri
I'm curious about that last piece, actually, you know, you mentioned. Yeah, yeah, you can you can look at the data, at all the literature and but you don't know some of the other circumstantial information about, you know, what the situation might be, though. Do you think, though, that all the circumstantial information will eventually end up in a database as well and then they are be able to train themselves both on the literature and the situation, Whatever, you know, the other data is big.
00:17:37:18 - 00:17:49:02
Raj Suri Suri
Ultimately, you can make the air smarter if you had the right data and eventually all the data is going to end up in the air. So it should be able to make better decisions than a human in almost every situation when it has the right data.
00:17:49:23 - 00:18:13:16
Bob Langer
Well, I think you're saying what I'm saying. In other words, if you have the right data. Yeah, then then it would be useful. I agree with that. So I do think it will be useful when you have the right data. What I'm trying to say is a lot of people right now don't have the right data and are making the claim that it's going to you know, I can just go to the literature without having, as you said, the right data and get answers that are going to lead somewhere.
00:18:13:21 - 00:18:34:00
Bob Langer
But sure, I do think in a going forward basis it will be valuable. But exactly when you'll be in a position to know what. All that right data is, that's not necessarily so straightforward, right? I mean, just to pick one example that I mentioned, you know, you do a clinical trial, different people have different things or different ages.
00:18:34:00 - 00:18:58:04
Bob Langer
They've had all different kinds of environments. I think it's nontrivial to figure out what all the right data is. So that so that may take a substantial amount of time. I mean, years now when that will be available is anybody's guess. But I think the but but you're hitting on really the important question to me is when will we have the right data for a lot of things?
00:18:58:04 - 00:19:16:22
Bob Langer
I can be very, very valuable because the data is more simplified. But when you start dealing with medical things, knowing what the right data is, I mean, I think in general people don't know, right, with I mean, nutrition alone is a pretty good example. I mean, there's always kind of speculation about what we should eat, what we shouldn't eat.
00:19:17:03 - 00:19:33:15
Bob Langer
And by the way, whenever we eat anything, there's probably thousands of components in what we eat. So thousands of different molecules. So, so so I think that will be a great opportunity for someday. But but if people think it's going to be tomorrow, I don't think so. Yeah. And by the.
00:19:33:15 - 00:19:34:04
Raj Suri Suri
Way, if they have.
00:19:34:04 - 00:19:38:06
Bob Langer
The right data, even if we even if we didn't have a we could do a lot better.
00:19:38:13 - 00:19:40:02
Raj Suri Suri
Yes. Yes, absolutely.
00:19:40:02 - 00:19:59:16
Bob Langer
And the last point I guess I'd make is air isn't really new. Air has been around for 60, 70 years, maybe longer. You know, all of a sudden because of the certain phenomena, everybody thinks it's changing everything, but it's not a new thing. So I think it's great. But the hype level is also pretty high.
00:20:00:10 - 00:20:24:02
Immad Akhund
Yeah, it's getting it's hype cycle moment. I had a question. It kind of goes back to what you said earlier. You know, m RNA, I guess was discovered in the sixties and then you did work on it in the nineties and obviously we had the COVID vaccine in 2020. That's a long path. What were the things that changed that like enabled Moderna?
00:20:24:07 - 00:20:27:05
Immad Akhund
Maybe give us a quick history of like how that came about?
00:20:27:15 - 00:20:59:01
Bob Langer
Sure. Well, I think the scientific issues and business issues, so science, things that were important to add look at it is, you know, like you said, money itself was discovered in and, you know, in the sixties we did delivery with tiny particles of nucleic acids and RNA being in nanoparticle in the in seventies, in the mid seventies, as you go into the eighties, then people would also encapsulate messenger RNA and certain things like lipid nanoparticles.
00:20:59:03 - 00:21:44:08
Bob Langer
And then there was a group in Germany which would ultimately to Iraq which started to look at RNA for vaccines. There was a group out of Penn which was called Weissman, that worked on ways of modifying RNA to control its immunogenicity, which was 2005. Then I'd say Biontech, which was now the second company to start. Both biotech, curevac and violent tech were tiny companies started in Germany and they were going to make messenger RNA and therapeutics and 2010, that's when Derek Rossi came to see me and he had done work building on some of that pen work, but actually using it for very different purposes.
00:21:44:08 - 00:22:10:02
Bob Langer
He was trying to convert like a certain type of cell into what's called an IP cell. That's a stem like cell. And people had done that with DNA before, but nobody had ever done with RNA. So he did that and he came to see me. He was interested in starting a company. People had tried. In fact, the pen people tried to start a company in 2005, but they weren't able to get people interested.
00:22:10:02 - 00:22:34:12
Bob Langer
People didn't think it was going to work. So you only had the two German companies starting. So in 2010, Derek myself and Chan, we talked to was a cardiologist at Harvard, and then Noubar Afeyan, who is a chemical engineer, a very visionary guy. He started a flagship pioneering, and so he thought that that would be a very good thing to do and put some money into it.
00:22:35:06 - 00:23:01:03
Bob Langer
Mr. Springer So that started in 2010. And then we did, you know, really met almost pretty much weekly to develop plans for what we might think about money being useful. But one of the key things also was hiring great people. So we hired Stephane Bancel in 2011 to be the CEO and Stephen Ho the next year to be president, and we kept hiring people.
00:23:01:03 - 00:23:24:19
Bob Langer
In fact, a number of people from a donor are my own students. So it kept evolving from from there. And of course, you know, a lot of time, if you look at it, the either the scientific literature or the business literature, people would always say that moderna's was way overvalued. It was never going to work and so forth.
00:23:25:00 - 00:23:50:12
Bob Langer
That, by the way, even happened even in 2020 when we did the first COVID vaccines, The Boston Globe, our local newspaper, you know, after we announced the phase one data, they had a big front page article with my picture on the front page because they asked different scientists and clinicians and analysts, stock analysts what they thought. And the headline was, This is not how you do science, because they were all wrong.
00:23:50:22 - 00:24:19:21
Bob Langer
But that's often the case. And in these areas that a lot of people think they know what's right and what's wrong. To me, that was an opportunity to do some real good for the world. And of course, Moderna, you know, and Biontech, which I mentioned before, those two little tiny companies, no big company would touch on messenger RNA for COVID vaccine until you know well, but finally, Pfizer would get involved.
00:24:19:22 - 00:24:32:09
Bob Langer
They did a little bit with Biontech in 2018 and they became their partner in 2020. We talked to different companies like Merck, and they all said, no, this is never going to work. So we did it ourselves. And of course, that changed history.
00:24:32:16 - 00:24:39:05
Immad Akhund
Why do you think it is that people always reacting like that to new ideas, that they're kind of dismissive of them.
00:24:39:05 - 00:24:57:00
Bob Langer
And, well, your guess is as good as mine. I always think there's this thing I call conventional wisdom, which is in the textbooks. And a lot of people have worked in areas for years and they think there's only one answer to some of these things. And usually there are older people and but but they're very good at telling you you're wrong.
00:24:57:00 - 00:25:22:18
Bob Langer
I've experienced that my whole life. When we did the early drug delivery work, they said that was impossible and that was like science fiction. Same thing with the tissue engineering. Any time new ideas come up, I think the challenged conventional wisdom, you'll get a lot of opposition from different communities. I think they come from different reasons. The scientific community, you know, they think there's a certain way of thinking and a certain way of not thinking.
00:25:23:02 - 00:25:45:01
Bob Langer
I think the the stock analysts I mean, your guess is as good as mine. I mean, there's so many things that go on in that area, you know, people shorting stocks, you know, and they get benefit out of analysts saying bad things. And the analysts themselves, honestly, they I don't think, have the background to understand these things, at least a lot of them in any deep way.
00:25:45:01 - 00:26:05:23
Bob Langer
And when you look back at what's happened, it would be staggering if you tried to use artificial intelligence to look at how the stock analysts pick. It would be pretty interesting. A lot of them wouldn't do very well. And finally, you have the news, news media, you know, which wants to titillate people and get people excited and often pick bad quotes for headlines and things like that.
00:26:06:03 - 00:26:08:15
Bob Langer
And they sell newspapers that way.
00:26:08:20 - 00:26:24:19
Immad Akhund
Do you think it matters? Because if something is valuable and the idea is valuable, eventually like someone will buy it and like the market is like maybe a reasonable truth seeker? Or do you think a lot of innovation and ideas are held back because of this kind of conventional wisdom and I guess incentive structures in the system?
00:26:25:09 - 00:26:47:19
Bob Langer
Well, I think they they can be held back a lot depends on the determination of the people that are pushing them. And in the medical area, I'd say it also depends on their ability to raise funds. You know, like I mentioned, the people at Penn that did outstanding work, I mean, they tried to start a company in 2005 and they weren't able to, you know, maybe if they had been able to, things would have gotten better sooner.
00:26:48:18 - 00:27:11:10
Bob Langer
I can tell you, when I was a post-doc, I was this goes back to 1974. The reason I developed those nanoparticles in the first place was to isolate molecules that would stop blood vessels from going to tumors. Those are called angiogenesis inhibitors. And you know what happened There is, again, a lot of people said that would be impossible, fortunately.
00:27:12:20 - 00:27:33:05
Bob Langer
Well, fortunately and unfortunately so. It took 28 years from our paper in science before the first blood vessel inhibitor was approved. And the reason it was, again, is because Genentech and they had a scientist, Napoleon Ferrara First they put billions of dollars in it, and he was very determined to show that you could do this kind of thing.
00:27:33:05 - 00:27:54:04
Bob Langer
And that would lead to Avastin, which has been one of the best selling biotech drugs in history, also to to new drugs that could stop macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. But the point is, is if you didn't have the naysayers. So to speak, or money flowed more easily, I think treatments for diseases would have happened sooner.
00:27:54:20 - 00:28:09:07
Raj Suri Suri
That's fascinating, Bob Langer. You know, we face the same issues in software. I'm curious, you've been coming up with new solutions to old problems for many, many years, you know, several decades now. What is your process? How do you come up with these ideas to solve these problems?
00:28:09:12 - 00:28:35:18
Bob Langer
So a lot of what I do is starts out in the academic lab and usually it's curiosity driven research or we're trying to, you know, solve some type of, you know, very futuristic problem. So the idea is I mean, I've gotten ideas from listening to the radio, from watching TV. Sometimes people come to me with medical problems and so forth, you know, so they could come from any place.
00:28:35:18 - 00:28:57:07
Bob Langer
They could also come from students or post-docs. And so they've come from all kinds of ways. There's not a particular model for that. But I guess the point is if we go and we solve some of these things or we make a discovery or an invention that I feel can have an impact, I don't want to just to be sitting in the lab at a scientific paper.
00:28:57:07 - 00:29:16:15
Bob Langer
I wanted to get out and do some good in the world. That's where patents come in and that's where companies come in. And I think the challenge of the company is very different because you have what I call a platform technology. I mean, messenger RNA and nanoparticles are certainly a good example of that. And and then you have to think, well, where could it be most useful?
00:29:16:22 - 00:29:35:09
Bob Langer
And you don't get that many shots on goal because if you pick the wrong ones, you know, you're spending a lot of money. And if the company may not do well. So I think it's important to really analyze once you have these platform technologies where it can have the greatest impact. And to me, that's a partnership. It's not just me.
00:29:35:14 - 00:29:53:03
Bob Langer
In fact, I may play even a small or medium role. It's a combination of scientists, business people, clinicians, regulatory people, marketing people and so forth, trying to ask, well, you know, in each of their areas where this technology might make an impact and where it might not.
00:29:53:17 - 00:30:05:12
Raj Suri Suri
Yeah. So you see your role as like the fire starter, someone to like get get an idea, the visibility it needs to get the attention of all these people to kind of make good decisions about how to leverage the technology.
00:30:05:12 - 00:30:28:12
Bob Langer
Well I think it's more than that. I mean, basically the the invention or discovery often starts in a laboratory. But a lot of times the students who work on it and the post-docs who work on it, they want to see it make a difference. So we've started a company to do that. We you know, we've already spent maybe four or five years in the laboratory on it.
00:30:29:22 - 00:30:54:23
Bob Langer
And some of my students are investment people like in venture capital. And so forth. And I might talk to them or some of the people in the lab might talk to them and then they might put some funding into into this. And I think everybody participates, you know, in terms of it's a it's a team effort between myself, the investors, any other founders and and the early stage employees.
00:30:54:23 - 00:30:56:13
Bob Langer
And then you keep going from there.
00:30:57:03 - 00:31:17:03
Immad Akhund
I think Roger's question was kind of, you know, what's stopping you becoming the conventional wisdom? You've been around for a long time. You've seen a lot of things probably fail and a lot of science not work as well outright. Like how do you stop approaching new things with like cynicism and like saying, Hey, we tried this, it doesn't work.
00:31:17:16 - 00:31:41:21
Bob Langer
When I talk to students, it's not in my mind that certain things are probably not going to work. It's more, how long will it take to get them to work? Something could be scientifically flawed. I mean, that's a whole different thing. But a lot of times when somebody comes up with a global idea, I don't know that it's not going to work, but it may take a very, very long time to get it to work because there's so much science that needs to be understood.
00:31:42:09 - 00:32:06:03
Bob Langer
So I think when I usually talk to people, that's what I try to get them to think about, like, well, what's the plan? How do we get from the idea or the invention to it becoming a reality? What needs to be done? And that, by the way, I mean, that's part of what somebody does, a Ph.D. thesis. I think that's part of what they go through is to devise a plan to to do what we're just saying.
00:32:06:12 - 00:32:19:18
Bob Langer
And I think that's a great learning experience. But I can see early on and if the students sees early on that something might take, you know, 30 or 40 years, well, that might not be the best thesis or the best post-doctoral project.
00:32:20:14 - 00:32:34:09
Immad Akhund
Have you sometimes come across things that you thought would take 30, 40 years but actually did get done surprisingly quickly? Or maybe things that you thought were scientifically not possible, but someone discovered something like surprising or novel?
00:32:34:18 - 00:32:56:17
Bob Langer
I mean, there's interesting things happen all the time, but I'm not that much of a skeptic. So, you know, as you can probably see, I mean, I, I kind of think that almost anything is probably possible. It may just be a question of how how long will it take, how many people can you get to work on it and how much money can you raise to do it?
00:32:58:01 - 00:33:23:16
Bob Langer
But certainly certain things have been done quickly. I mean, obviously the COVID vaccine is a tremendous example of getting that. But but what did that take? That took not only good science, it took a tremendous amount of money. It took the government, you know, really getting behind it with Operation Warp Speed. It took the FDA and other agencies, you know, allowing things to happen faster than they normally would.
00:33:23:18 - 00:33:41:11
Bob Langer
I always believed it would work. I mean, I but but I certainly think that the fact that we were able to get a vaccine in less than a year was pretty historic. I mean, I think before that the fastest was maybe five years and usually a lot longer than that. So I think and this is with a whole type of technology.
00:33:41:16 - 00:34:07:01
Bob Langer
So so I think but but I again, my I certainly thought even though a lot of people told us that was impossible, it would be ridiculous. And all the stock analysts said it would fail. And a lot of clinicians, too. I never thought it would. I mean, we had good pretty good preclinical data in animals. We had good clinical data with other vaccines, even though it was early in humans and we had a great team.
00:34:07:12 - 00:34:15:15
Bob Langer
So I don't know that you can always predict how fast, but that was an example to your question of what I think by any standards was exceptionally that's.
00:34:16:02 - 00:34:33:18
Raj Suri Suri
Obviously what we were able to accomplish with the COVID was was amazing with, you know, being able to deliver that innovation in a year. It makes you think like, how many opportunities are we missing with other innovations and how many people are dying needlessly, suffering needlessly because we don't have that well collective well to get some stuff done.
00:34:33:18 - 00:34:43:22
Raj Suri Suri
And maybe we're just too mired in our conventional wisdom to get stuff done. What changes would you like to see in our ecosystem to, like, drive more innovation across the board?
00:34:44:11 - 00:35:19:11
Bob Langer
Well, I think it's complex. First, you know, there's always this thing in medicine about first, do no harm. But I mean, you have to ask why did we get the COVID vaccine in the first place? Well, part of that was that there was a lot of money. That's something the government is obviously against right now. If you look at that, some of the laws that are being passed, you know, like the IRA law, I mean, that's going to make sure that there is a lot less money available for doing the kind of research through new startups.
00:35:19:11 - 00:35:39:13
Bob Langer
I think that actually just as an example at Bio, which is the big biological conference that they have every year, 20,000 people come in Boston. It was funny, I was just reading the newspaper today, you know, it's the IRA, it's called the Inflation Reduction Act. And the bio people were all calling it the innovation reduction, which I hadn't heard before.
00:35:39:13 - 00:36:01:12
Bob Langer
But it certainly makes sense when you probably know Merck is suing the government on that law. But things like that are going to make it harder to raise money. I mean, you guys will know this better than me, right? An investor has a chance to invest in the next Facebook or the next Moderna, The medical things, you know, they do take longer and they also cost more money.
00:36:01:16 - 00:36:25:09
Bob Langer
So if you start creating laws that make it harder for the medical companies, so it's actually going in the opposite direction, I would say, of of allowing these things to happen faster. I think there are other laws, too, or other indications. You know, certainly there have been indications that from some politicians that the pharmaceuticals companies must charge too much money.
00:36:25:12 - 00:36:49:06
Bob Langer
I understand that I mean, but again, it goes back to that thing. If you if investors can make more money on Facebook then which they probably have done very well on then on the medicine as well. You know, they'll keep investing in the Facebook and you won't have any of the journeys of the future. And finally, on patents, you know, there's certainly been talk about patents that, you know, should be given away free.
00:36:49:10 - 00:37:09:12
Bob Langer
But investors in biotech, I mean, they feel if they put a couple billion dollars into something, they don't want somebody else to do it. So I think, you know, laws on patents are important. And finally, I mean, I tax law is, of course, going to have a huge effect. The low capital gains tax certainly makes for any investor more attractive and so forth.
00:37:09:17 - 00:37:28:01
Bob Langer
So again, I think money is clearly a big driver. Money enabled the fact that they that Operation Warp Speed was able to put money into medicine and other companies, you know, enable that research to be done and the manufacturing to be done quickly. And I think that made enormous amount of difference.
00:37:28:14 - 00:37:47:07
Raj Suri Suri
And one thing, you know, that Silicon Valley is obsessed with is longevity in general, right? A lot of rich people in Silicon Valley and in the tech ecosystem who have, you know, only one desire left to just to live forever. But, you know, there's there's a lot of investment in thought thinking around that as a society. Do you think that longevity should be a goal, like it should be?
00:37:47:12 - 00:38:06:04
Raj Suri Suri
Should we be investing in ways to, you know, live forever or cure disease altogether? Which something I know Mark Zuckerberg wants to do, Right, If that was the case. So, you know, what would be the right trade off in terms of what percentage of our federal budget should be reallocating to, like, stop people from dying of, you know, diseases that could be preventable.
00:38:06:11 - 00:38:23:13
Raj Suri Suri
Because if you can imagine a different society where or a large percentage of our budget went towards curing disease and letting people live longer, do you think that makes sense? And, you know, do you think that the way the technology is progressing, that the money would be well spent?
00:38:24:11 - 00:38:49:09
Bob Langer
Well, I think you have to look at the individual things. I'm a big believer in basic research, you know, curiosity driven research which NIH and other places have funded. I think there's a lot that can be learned by longevity research, just like there's a lot that can be learned by cancer research and any kind of basic research. So I am certainly in favor of any thing like that myself.
00:38:49:09 - 00:39:08:13
Bob Langer
But that being said, I don't know that will necessarily live longer. I think we probably will live somewhat longer, but I expect at some point it's going to be tougher and tougher, you know, to you know, you'll hit different limits, different ways. But I think if you learn things through that kind of research, I mean, I think that's great.
00:39:08:13 - 00:39:31:05
Bob Langer
And, you know, it's terrible when, you know, little children suffer and die of things like cancer and where people have various diseases. So I think the more we can do to understand those and maybe find some treatments and cures, I'm personally for, I mean, people can argue against it. They they may say, well, people live too long already too much money spent on medicine.
00:39:31:05 - 00:39:48:12
Bob Langer
I certainly understand those arguments. I mean, to me, my health is, to me the most important thing in the world, so of my family and my friends and so forth. So I, I think it's a very important thing. But, you know, there are lots of other obviously very important things, too.
00:39:48:20 - 00:40:11:23
Immad Akhund
I guess a bit of a change of topic. You've been involved with founding 40 companies, I believe. I assume you've had the opportunity to found hundreds of companies since you're obviously well connected and you've been part of so many discoveries, like when you decide to, I guess, help a company and go all in. You know, that decision probably similar to like a decision that early stage investor might make.
00:40:12:00 - 00:40:20:06
Immad Akhund
What are the factors that you think about before you're like, okay, you know, this is something that I want to give my attention and name to words.
00:40:20:17 - 00:40:44:18
Bob Langer
Yeah, well, I think you should do different things first. What We start from the lab, I always feel, and most of all the companies have something to do from our lab, you know? So they're the rules I've often used are that we've got a platform technology, you know, nanoparticles are Microparticles are an example of that because that ultimately gives you the opportunity to plug and play with different molecules and those particles and so forth.
00:40:44:23 - 00:41:05:23
Bob Langer
But there are lots of things that are platform technology. So they have a platform technology that we've done enough work that it seems like at least in animals, it's going to work that we've published papers on and ideally papers and, you know, journals like Science or Nature that make a big impact and that we have good patent coverage on on it as well.
00:41:06:03 - 00:41:25:19
Bob Langer
And usually also since most of the time I've done it with my students and post-docs that some of them are really interested in seeing the work, they did it out to the world. So those would be the general criteria that I've used for first, starting a company, but I've also been an advisor to companies and on the boards of different companies.
00:41:25:19 - 00:41:42:08
Bob Langer
And you know, there again, it might depend whether the company was a big company that was doing things that I thought were worthwhile. I was on the board for a while, for a while before we sold it to Pfizer for the last, say, five and a half years of the out of it, I was on the board of Millipore.
00:41:42:08 - 00:42:03:23
Bob Langer
I thought those were good companies doing good things. And I've been on the boards, scientific advisory boards of a number of companies. The reason I've done it is I felt that they were doing good science that would be helpful to the world. And sometimes sort of colleagues of mine have asked me to do those things and or friends and or former students and all that makes a difference to.
00:42:04:14 - 00:42:26:11
Immad Akhund
Got it. So you'd like them to be platform technologies, which makes sense. I think platforms in something fairly different in software. I was interested in going one step deeper, like what I did that many platform technologies with like drugs or I guess the chemical field. Like do they come along like very frequently or is this a once every decade?
00:42:26:11 - 00:42:32:12
Immad Akhund
There's like an interesting platform technology that like deserves like in multiple investments?
00:42:32:20 - 00:42:56:12
Bob Langer
Well, I think so. The answer is both in a way. I mean, I think totally transformative platforms. Yeah, they may be come along once in a decade, but like there are lots of things are platforms. Platforms just means you have some vehicle or some approach of making things and that you can make many things. So examples of ones I've been involved with, well, I start out with Genentech.
00:42:56:12 - 00:43:18:20
Bob Langer
I mean that's a platform. They use genetic engineering to make protein. A protein, B, protein. C, we started a company called Momenta, which was really the first polysaccharide company we could sequence polysaccharides. And so there are a lot of them, and we've made a number of drugs from that alnylam, which I was involved in from the beginning on the scientific advisory board.
00:43:18:20 - 00:43:48:13
Bob Langer
That's the opposite of messenger. RNA is using what's called SARS. It's a way of knocking genes down. So you can do that with all kinds of genes. And medicine obviously is gain of function, you know, by putting messenger RNA and nanoparticles. I mean, there are a lot of different, I'd say, platform technologies. I mean, but the ones that are truly transformative that clearly there are less and we may not know at the start which ones are going to be transformative then which ones are viable.
00:43:48:23 - 00:44:07:13
Raj Suri Suri
It's very unusual, obviously, for anyone to found 40 companies. I'm not sure if anyone has done that ever. You know, maybe you would know. But it's it's amazing that you've done that. I mean, even people in the press, like we talked about, Elon founded four or five. Why don't other academics, do you think, kind of follow that path?
00:44:08:00 - 00:44:27:22
Raj Suri Suri
You know, haven't you set out like a a blueprint for other academics to be as entrepreneurial as you given the success you've had, the impact you've had? It seems to me like a, you know, a no brainer that academics who want to see their work create impact, which I'm sure everybody does. In addition, shouldn't they follow the the Dr. Langer path?
00:44:28:21 - 00:44:47:08
Bob Langer
Well, I think not necessarily. I mean, first of all, when somebody becomes a professor, I mean, which is what I'm doing, I mean, they may not care at all about companies. A lot of people I know they're excited just about the scientific research, about their discoveries. There's been all kinds of great discoveries throughout history. And I mean, I think that's wonderful.
00:44:47:18 - 00:45:11:21
Bob Langer
I'm also an engineer. I'm not, you know, a a basic biologist or something like that. So, you know, I suppose there's something about me and about engineering that, you know, wants to not just publish these things and make a discovery, but that wants to see it applied towards different things. But I don't think there's any one way that people should do things.
00:45:12:15 - 00:45:33:17
Bob Langer
I think people have to follow their heart. I also think, though, that when I started doing this in the eighties, I don't think it was a very accepted thing. I certainly got criticized a lot for that, too, but I think today it is more accepted and lots of people have started companies and I expect more it will, but I don't I think everybody should just follow their heart.
00:45:33:17 - 00:45:38:12
Bob Langer
I mean, whatever it is that is, they're going to be excited about and think they can do good with.
00:45:38:22 - 00:45:53:11
Immad Akhund
It seems like MIT has been quite supportive of of you and like doing this spin offs. Do you feel like a lot of other people, you know, would want to do this and follow their heart but are held back by the kind of academic institution there at MIT?
00:45:53:14 - 00:46:12:18
Bob Langer
Is has a good environment for I think that MIT is generally supportive. I think other schools are starting to get more and more supportive. Certainly at Stanford, as I have a great track record over the years. But I think a lot of schools are trying to do this better and better. At least that's my that would be my observation.
00:46:12:21 - 00:46:35:08
Raj Suri Suri
I had a question about the talent. I mean, like, you know, in the in the softball world, we often find that technical founders struggle to to learn everything they need to learn about starting a company. There's a lot of business elements. There's a lot of legal elements, you know, management skills. Do you find the same similar challenges when your grad students are becoming senior people at these companies?
00:46:35:11 - 00:46:42:05
Raj Suri Suri
You know, how do you build an actual company out of a technology? You know, do you have these similar scaling problems and how do you typically like to address it?
00:46:42:12 - 00:47:05:17
Bob Langer
Well, I think, you know, you have to look at each situation individually. I mean, there's different issues depending on what the technology is and what the goals are. You know, some things might be easier than others. Some might require complex manufacturing. So I think you have to, you know, really do an assessment of what the technology is to sort of and again, that assessment might not be done just by me.
00:47:05:17 - 00:47:11:04
Bob Langer
There might be other people like possible investors or advisors or, you know, that would help on that.
00:47:12:05 - 00:47:23:12
Raj Suri Suri
Yeah. Do you rely on the investors to kind of come in and form the team, form the management team and figure out how to monetize and create impact out of the technology well?
00:47:23:12 - 00:47:51:02
Bob Langer
We've done it all kinds of ways. You know, some investors are better at it than others and some like doing it more than others. So I think it again really depends on the situation. You know, and different investors that I've worked with have different models. Some of these investors are actually very good at it. I mean, they have PhDs, they've run companies before others, you know, more passive and, you know, we'll let others do it.
00:47:51:08 - 00:47:54:20
Bob Langer
I'm flexible. I just, you know, to me, I just want to make this thing happen.
00:47:55:06 - 00:48:14:14
Immad Akhund
Moderno is kind of rare in that they went all the way and actually manufactured at most of the time. These companies end up working with an existing big pharma company and either sell to them or license it. Do you think the model where a company does go all the way tends to be better because like they can continue to innovate?
00:48:15:08 - 00:48:21:07
Immad Akhund
Or do you think just selling to an existing pharma company and scaling that way is like a fine model, which is the normal one?
00:48:21:17 - 00:48:43:20
Bob Langer
Yeah, I don't know that there's any one model. Certainly the companies that have become successful, big biotechs, they all started out doing what I call deals like at Moderna, there was initial deal, 40 targets for heart disease, you know, for $280 million plus different milestones. I mean, when I was an advisor to Genentech, I remember they got started that way.
00:48:43:21 - 00:49:14:10
Bob Langer
They did early deals with large companies with human growth hormone and then later insulin. But with Alnylam, we you know, we had deals with Novartis and and Roche and so forth. And with the momenta we had deals, I think with Novartis and Mylan and a few others. So you get started that way and that gives you an opportunity to have to make some progress on somebody else's dollar, though they get rates and sales too.
00:49:14:16 - 00:49:34:14
Bob Langer
But our also enables you, I think, to have credibility with investors. But all those four companies that I mentioned or five, they basically, you know, had enough money that they had infrastructure so that even though they did some of the early deals with large companies, they then had the wherewithal and the funding to do stuff on their own.
00:49:34:14 - 00:49:58:04
Bob Langer
And they have I mean, all those companies, you know, can stand on their own right now. That doesn't mean they won't work with large companies, but they've been able to do it. I think that's a very good model. But having said that, I don't I don't think there's any reason why if people feel at some point in time that they want to sell it to somebody, to a large company, I mean, they can do that, too.
00:49:58:04 - 00:50:20:05
Bob Langer
I mean, that's a return on investment. A lot of it will depend on what the board and shareholders want to. You know, when you're on a board of directors, you have a fiduciary responsibility, you know, to the shareholders. So if somebody comes along and makes a tremendous offer, it's you know, you're almost breaking the law. If you don't, you know, take it.
00:50:20:08 - 00:50:42:03
Bob Langer
I mean, I remember even when I was on the board of Wyeth and we sold it to Pfizer for something like a 67% premium, which, you know, I would think by any standards, pretty good. It was $68 billion. And that was, I think, 14, 15 years ago. I had people serving, you know, lawsuits to me that night, just because I was on the board of directors because they thought it should be more so.
00:50:42:03 - 00:50:47:11
Bob Langer
I don't think there's any any one one way I think you can do okay in different ways.
00:50:47:17 - 00:51:09:04
Raj Suri Suri
But one thing I'm curious about, how do you view the like the Internet and and software world? There's obviously a ton of entrepreneurial energy going into that world. But when you look at the types of problems are working on the efficacy, I think very trivial compared to what problems are you're working on. You know, like, you know, people working on photo sharing apps or social networks or things like that.
00:51:09:13 - 00:51:14:02
Raj Suri Suri
Do you view that as kind of a waste of talent, a waste of effort or energy? How do you view that?
00:51:14:06 - 00:51:36:09
Bob Langer
Really, just to be blunt, I think any kind of entrepreneurism in general is is a good thing. And I think if you create jobs, if you create products that are good products, that that people will enjoy, I think that's a good thing. I you know, I'm obviously prejudiced because in terms of what things because I think saving lives or improving lives is important.
00:51:36:15 - 00:51:45:02
Bob Langer
But I think any type of service or product that people are going to enjoy and people get excited about making it happen, I think that's been good.
00:51:45:14 - 00:52:07:17
Raj Suri Suri
Sounds great. I would love to talk a little bit about just like your just life advice management advice. You know, I think one thing that really struck me is that like your talent management style is super unique. You hit on it a little bit earlier that you think people should follow their heart right? And you're very sort of non prescriptive over what people should do.
00:52:07:18 - 00:52:28:04
Raj Suri Suri
You work with some of the most talented people in the world coming through your graduate program and you know, your research assistants. Do you try to ever kind of like have a certain set of common values or like a goal that you give to them? Like, hey, let's try to have as much impact as possible or just trying to do X, Y and Z and kind of point them towards a direction, or are you more laissez faire?
00:52:28:04 - 00:52:32:16
Raj Suri Suri
If they're interested in the research, they're interested, or you try to drive them towards a certain goal?
00:52:33:00 - 00:52:57:00
Bob Langer
Well, I think both. I mean, at a high level, I want people to be excited about research, to know that research can do a lot of good. But when it gets to the specifics, I might start out with a global idea of what we're going to do on on some area. I guess I often would do that. And we and especially if we have funding for it, you know, which you know, is what pays for the graduate students and postdocs.
00:52:57:07 - 00:53:26:00
Bob Langer
So I'd say I would do all that. But I also want people to develop and to come up with their own plans and their own ideas. So I kind of feel like I'm a guide in a way. You know, one thing I've often said as a as the way I think about myself being a professor is that when somebody is a student, right in grammar school, high school, maybe even college, they're judge almost entirely on how good their answers are to somebody else's questions.
00:53:26:18 - 00:53:50:02
Bob Langer
But in life, I think what's more important isn't the answers. It's how good your questions are. If you ask really big questions that can change the world, that's very important. So I kind of view my job in a way as how do I help students or postdocs make a transition from somebody who can give good answers to somebody who can also ask good questions.
00:53:50:22 - 00:53:59:15
Raj Suri Suri
I love that, Bubba. What examples would you give? Like some some big questions that you think people should be asking or some questions like that, like helping them think bigger?
00:53:59:21 - 00:54:20:10
Bob Langer
There's a lot of things I'm not even sure where to start, but I mean, I think trying to understand the brain, you know, which we don't understand at all, and how do you go about it? I mean, one of the approaches that we've using, I kind of alluded to this before, is trying to create brains on a chip where you could have different cell types that you might be able to interrogate or understand better.
00:54:20:17 - 00:54:45:04
Bob Langer
But I'm understanding the immune system. That's another thing I think that would be very, very useful. Understanding cancer. I mean, that's still I think puzzling, you know, for everyone. I mean, different people have theories. So I think those are all, you know, big questions that but I mean, I could go on and on there's no shortage of things that I think could make a difference in people's lives.
00:54:45:08 - 00:54:51:15
Bob Langer
We're looking at better nutrition, better vaccines, you know, all kinds of things in the lab that I hope will make a difference.
00:54:52:04 - 00:55:08:02
Immad Akhund
Is there a particular piece of advice you give either around like asking these big questions or is there other things that you're like, hey, I'm always saying the same thing to these kind of students that you have. Is there something that's like a common piece of advice that comes up often?
00:55:08:13 - 00:55:29:15
Bob Langer
Well, I really think it depends at what stage the students are, you know, students or undergraduates. And often even when they're graduates, I always think the most important thing is to learn the fundamentals. I think when you're doing research, you want to start out by really being careful. I know when I first started doing research for a post-doc in our lab, Colin Gardener, he must have had me do a standard curve, you know, 40 times till I got it right.
00:55:29:15 - 00:55:53:06
Bob Langer
And I think that's great, you know, to do really, really reproducible research. But I think it depends. I a style that I that I feel is important. And this relates to something you asked earlier is, you know, there's a lot of ways that you can try to motivate people. And a lot of times one way that people often do it is to criticize people.
00:55:53:13 - 00:56:14:02
Bob Langer
That's not what I do. I mean, if I do anything, I try to do what I'd call positive reinforcement if somebody makes a good finding, you know, I because I believe it and I tell them how important it is if somebody is working on a project that can make a big difference in the world. I again, I try to get across how, how, how that will help people in the world someday.
00:56:14:09 - 00:56:27:14
Bob Langer
And and so I think that that that's the kind of mentor I want to be is is to hopefully encourage people to do good science, to learn the fundamentals, and to try to ideally think big thoughts.
00:56:28:05 - 00:56:52:14
Immad Akhund
Do you think there's a danger in, you know, where in academia is gone that people get more and more specialized in like very specific disciplines rather than having a multi-disciplinary view on things? You know, obviously you applied chemistry to drugs, which was relatively new when you started, and I feel like a lot of actual innovations come from this kind of multidisciplinary.
00:56:52:15 - 00:56:55:00
Immad Akhund
Do you think there's a danger that we're getting more and more specialized?
00:56:55:12 - 00:57:16:14
Bob Langer
Well, I think it's how it's I think a lot depends on how it's done. You know, I think learning the fundamentals, you want things to be, you know, in particular areas. I think for research, I think you can do it either way. You know, I, I think there is a tendency now in academia, in our institute where I am at the Kochen studio, MIT is a good example of multidisciplinary things.
00:57:16:22 - 00:57:48:23
Bob Langer
Classically there's been individual disciplines, but I think more and more people are having multidisciplinary institutes, research institutes. I think that that's good. I also think regular single interdisciplinary institute is good too. At MIT, for example, there's the Koch Institute, which is interdisciplinary as engineers and biologists and clinicians in it. But right across the street from us there's the White Institute, which was on the board for 19 years, and they do just fabulous basic biologic science.
00:57:49:10 - 00:57:57:04
Bob Langer
I mean, I think both are good and both are great at that. A lot of that has to do with the people. So I think it's important to have both those kinds of things.
00:57:57:23 - 00:58:10:04
Immad Akhund
How do you stay kind of motivated and excited, do like not overwork, like what's your kind of process for like staying kind of energetic about everything you're doing?
00:58:10:11 - 00:58:36:04
Bob Langer
I think, you know, working in an academic environment, having great students, teaching, you know, talking to them and being involved. I mean, I'm and I end up being involved in everything from advising companies to advising government to, you know, to giving lectures. You know, I think they're all interesting and all stimulating. So I think trying to do some good at a number of things that I hope helps.
00:58:36:20 - 00:58:44:00
Immad Akhund
You try to have a work life balance. You're just like all in on work and doing everything well.
00:58:44:00 - 00:58:59:11
Bob Langer
I work hard, but I my wife makes sure that I you know, when the kids were little, she had told me you could travel if you need to, but I'd like you to be home by seven every night to spend time with the children. And and I. And it's good having a wife that tells you exactly what she thinks.
00:58:59:18 - 00:59:22:08
Bob Langer
So I did do that. And I still, you know, probably do that. I love spending time with my children now. They're in their late twenties or thirties, but I think that's been great. And I love spending time with my wife, so I certainly think that I've got a decent work life balance. But, you know, part of it I have to give my wife credit for maybe all of it.
00:59:23:03 - 00:59:30:13
Raj Suri Suri
Yeah, I would imagine are in the same boat, you know, where we're both we both have young kids. So, you know, we all we often think about these things.
00:59:30:15 - 00:59:47:12
Bob Langer
One thing I was going to say with young kids, what I did also, which because I was very busy, you know, I'd end up being asked to give lots of lectures and visits, so I'd take each of them one on one, you know, once they were past a certain age, like six or seven on the trip with me, you know, And that was great.
00:59:47:22 - 00:59:57:18
Bob Langer
That was a great way of bonding. And, you know, spent a few days. I mean, the nice thing for me is they still want to do it with their thirties, eight parties at 30. So that's nice. I hope that keeps up.
00:59:58:17 - 01:00:04:19
Immad Akhund
How would you take a young kid on a conference like that? Like with the seven year old, That seems like they'll take a lot of work.
01:00:04:19 - 01:00:26:06
Bob Langer
Yeah, well, conference. I probably didn't have seven, but like, for example, I took my daughter, you know, to New York for a day or two, and I had some good friends in New York, so. And I was giving lectures, you know, she was with my friend. And though she came to the lecture, she started crawling up on the stage.
01:00:26:14 - 01:00:34:09
Bob Langer
I was. But still I'd have I'd often I'd often have friends that would would help this up. I was going to a conference.
01:00:35:06 - 01:00:37:03
Immad Akhund
Yeah, like that idea. We should do that. Right.
01:00:37:11 - 01:00:45:10
Raj Suri Suri
Well, we're just curious. Do you have any parenting advice for us? It sounds like, you know, you've. You've had a very successful time rearing your kids.
01:00:46:01 - 01:01:05:13
Bob Langer
Well, I give my wife more my more credit than I do. And that, by the way, is one of the most important things is right. Good communication with your wife and and as doing what my wife tells me to do. But but I think the parenting advice, probably the most obvious, you know, is is they love spending time with you.
01:01:05:13 - 01:01:20:00
Bob Langer
And and I think that's an important thing. I, I think you know just being a good person and and talking to them about stuff. But I think sometimes talking to them on one on one, you know, which is often very helpful for them.
01:01:20:05 - 01:01:24:03
Immad Akhund
This is awesome. Barb, I think we've we've learned a lot. Thanks for taking the time.
01:01:24:07 - 01:01:32:07
Bob Langer
Well, thank you for having me. Very, very provocative and interesting questions. And I wish you all the best and your competition with your kids.
01:01:33:08 - 01:01:36:15
Raj Suri Suri
Thanks. Really appreciate it. You're an inspiration. Thank you.
01:01:36:15 - 01:01:37:09
Bob Langer
My pleasure.
All things biotech with MIT Professor and Moderna co-founder Bob Langer