Doug Lauffenburger

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ford Professor of Bioengineering in the Departments of Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biology

Douglas Lauffenburger is Ford Professor of Bioengineering in the Departments of Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biology at MIT.  Dr Lauffenburger’s BS and PhD degrees are in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois (1975) and the University of Minnesota (1979).  A central focus of his research program is systems biology approaches to cell-cell communication and cell signaling important in pathophysiology, with application to therapeutics discovery and development in cancer, pathogen infection, and inflammatory disease. Lauffenburger has co-authored the monograph Receptors: Models for Binding, Trafficking & Signaling (Oxford Press, 1993) and co-edited the book Systems Biomedicine: Concepts and Perspectives (Elsevier Press, 2010). More than 100 doctoral students and postdoctoral associates have undertaken research education under his supervision.

Prof Lauffenburger has served as a scientific advisor to numerous biotech/pharma companies and biomedical science foundations. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Engineering, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and American Association for Advancement of Science, and has served as President of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Chair of the College of Fellows of American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering, and on the Advisory Council for NIGMS, and as a co-author of the 2009 NRC report on A New Biology for the 21st Century.