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About the Event

This exclusive event celebrates innovation and the trailblazers behind it. “Bearers of Innovation” is a prestigious gathering, honoring the Cornell visionaries across campuses whose technologies were licensed or optioned in FY 2023, as well as the lead inventors who submitted their inaugural disclosures during that period.

Event Details:

Date: May 9th, 11:30 a.m.

Locations:

  • Statler Ballroom, Ithaca
  • Griffis Faculty Club, NYC

Attendance to this exclusive event is by invitation only. We look forward to see more innovators who disclosed or licensed a technology in our next celebration.

Robert S. Langer ’70 completed his undergraduate studies in Chemical Engineering at Cornell University and obtained his ScD in Chemical Engineering at MIT. He joined MIT as an Assistant Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry in 1978. Dr. Langer has written over 1,250 articles and also has nearly 1,050 patents worldwide. Dr. Langer’s patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 250 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology and medical device companies.

Dr. Langer has received over 220 major awards. He is one of 5 living individuals to have received both the United States National Medal of Science (2006) and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011). He also received the 2002 Charles Stark Draper Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers, the 2008 Millennium Prize, the world’s largest technology prize, the 2012 Priestley Medal, the highest award of the American Chemical Society, the 2013 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the 2014 Kyoto Prize. He is also the only engineer to receive the Gairdner Foundation International Award; 82 recipients of this award have subsequently received a Nobel Prize. Among numerous other awards Langer has received are the Dickson Prize for Science (2002), Heinz Award for Technology, Economy and Employment (2003), the Harvey Prize (2003), the John Fritz Award (2003) (given previously to inventors such as Thomas Edison and Orville Wright), the General Motors Kettering Prize for Cancer Research (2004), the Dan David Prize in Materials Science (2005), the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2005), the largest prize in the U.S. for medical research, induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2006), the Max Planck Research Award (2008), the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research (2008), the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize (2011) and the Terumo International Prize (2012). In 1998, he received the Lemelson-MIT prize, the world’s largest prize for invention for being “one of history’s most prolific inventors in medicine.” In 1989 Dr. Langer was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1992 he was elected to both the National Academy of Engineering and to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2012 he was elected to the National Academy of Inventors.

Agenda

11:30 AM – Buffet open

12:00 PM – Welcome Remarks by Alice Li, Ph.D. ’98, CLP, Executive Director, Center for Technology Licensing (CTL) at Cornell University and Lisa Placanica, Ph.D. ’09, Managing Director, CTL at Weill Cornell Medicine Enterprise Innovation.

12:10 PM – Keynote Speaker: Robert S. Langer ’70, Institute Professor at MIT

12:25 PM – Recognition of those who have disclosed their first invention as lead inventor and those whose invention was licensed or optioned in FY 2023.

12:35 PM – Have fun with “Pursuit of Cornell Innovation” scavenger hunt, take a photo on the photobooth with a fellow inventor, and enjoy dessert.

1:00 PM – Closing remarks and Networking