And, for that matter, for someone who struggled for years to get his pioneering work in drug delivery accepted by the scientific establishment. It’s hard not to see Langer as a medical Willy Wonka, with armies of students and post docs, beavering away on the huge range of his research interests. Sophisticated large-molecule drugs, that can target diseases such as cancer, diabetes and mental illness, were too big to pass through polymers. “We thought it could be a new way of treating cancer,” Langer says, “and it’s become that. “Why not apply that to other diseases, such as HIV?”Because of the wide use of treatments based on his work, Langer has met many of the people whose lives he has affected.

Source: The Guardian October 17, 2016 06:45 UTC