Elazer Reuven Edelman MD, PhD

Elazer R. Edelman is the Edward J. Poitras Professor in Medical Engineering and Science at MIT, where he directs the Institute of Medical Engineering and Science. He is also Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a cardiac intensive care unit cardiologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston.

Edelman received Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and in Applied Biology, Master of Science Bioelectrical Engineering and Ph.D. in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics from MIT, and M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School. Graduate work with Robert Langer defined the mathematics of regulated drug delivery systems. After internal medicine training and clinical fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine at BWH he was Research Fellow in Pathology at Harvard Medical School with Morris Karnovsky investigating the biology of vascular repair.

His research interests meld medical and scientific training leveraging pathophysiologic insight to improve clinical decision-making and device design. Studies of endothelial and vascular biology led to discovery of the mutable dynamic of endothelial state and importance in regulation of vascular diseases and cancer. His group reasoned that optimal control of biologic events recapitulated natural regulation. Hence, polymeric controlled drug delivery systems should mimic natural release and vascular implants devised with intimate knowledge of injury they induce. Perivascular and stent-based drug delivery, mechanical organ support and percutaneous heart valves are examples of the former, and therapeutic tissue engineered endothelial cell constructs of the latter.