News: Daniel Anderson receives 2023 Wilhelm Exner Medal

Award honors researchers who “have had a direct impact on business and industry through their scientific achievements and contributions.”

Department of Chemical Engineering

Professor Daniel Anderson has won the 2023 Wilhelm Exner Medal, awarded by the Austrian Industry Association, for excellence in research and science since 1921. Anderson will receive the award during the Wilhelm Exner Medal Foundation’s Exner Lectures, May 22-23 in Vienna, Austria.

“Professor Anderson has changed our world,” says Elazer R. Edelman, Edward J. Poitras Professor in Medical Engineering and Science, and the director of the MIT Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES). “The devices, and indeed concepts, he has created, have shaped how many think, and have enabled new therapies. We are honored to have him as part of our faculty and we celebrate this award with our international community."

“The Exner Medal exemplifies a goal of chemical engineering: being able to bring success in the lab out into the world where it can improve lives and the environment,” shares Paula T. Hammond, Institute Professor and the head of the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering. “Dan’s innate ability to bridge his innovative research with entrepreneurial achievement has helped provide lifesaving therapies to people around the world. He is very deserving of this prestigious recognition.”

A professor of chemical engineering, Anderson is a core faculty member of IMES, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and a faculty member of the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST). IMES is HST's home at MIT. He is a leading researcher in the fields of nanotherapeutics and biomaterials, and has pioneered the development of smart materials.

Anderson received a BA in mathematics and biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of California at Davis. Anderson’s work has led to advances in a range of areas, including medical devices, cell therapy, drug delivery, gene therapy and material science, and has resulted in the publication of more than 500 papers, patents, and patent applications. He has founded several companies, including Living Proof, Olivo Labs, Crispr Therapeutics (CRSP), Sigilon Therapeutics, Verseau Therapeutics, Orna, and VasoRx. He recently received a $25 million grant from Sanofi to advance his RNA research.

Anderson’s Exner Lecture will discuss how medical devices have had a profound impact on human health, including living medical devices and the broad potential use of nanoparticles and RNA in human therapeutics.

Previous winners of the Wilhelm Exner Medal include MIT faculty members Edward Boyden (2020) and Robert Langer (2012), who is an affiliate faculty member of IMES.

* Originally published in MIT News.