TThree scientists – Robert Langer, Paul Alivisatos and Chad Mirkin – have been awarded the 2024 Kavli Nanoscience Prize for their seminal work in biomedicine, the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters announced on Wednesday.
The $1 million Kavli Prize recognizes scientists for significant contributions and breakthroughs in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience every two years. Of the 65 laureates awarded the prize since 2008, 10 have won the Nobel Prize.
The work of the laureates has collectively revolutionized medical treatment at the nanoscale – with applications ranging from therapeutics and vaccines to bioimaging and diagnostics. “Their work underscores the immense potential of nanoscience to shape our understanding and improve our lives in profound ways,” Lise Øvreås, president of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, wrote about the laureates.
A serial entrepreneur, Langer — who co-founded Moderna and just launched another new biotech this week — is a prolific scientist with more than 415,000 citations and 1,400 articles. Kavli’s award focused on his work to improve drug delivery.
As a postdoctoral fellow, Langer created a delivery system that controlled the release of drugs using a polymer carrier. The idea and even Langer’s results were met with skepticism. In 1976, Langer and his postdoctoral mentor Judah Folkman showed how his drug delivery system could be used to slow the growth of tumors. But he didn’t stop there.
By shrinking polymer carriers to the nanoscale, they could smuggle drugs into more tissues—but the unstable delivery systems often fell apart or were destroyed by the body before reaching their target. So Langer manipulated the nanoparticle complexes so that they could remain intact for hours, allowing for the highly controlled release of their drugs.
After his breakthrough, Langer said his work went in a number of directions — synthesizing new materials, changing the timing of release and applying the technology to vaccines. “And then I also had other ideas that weren’t just drug delivery — I had drug removal ideas, cell delivery ideas,” he said.
Langer has nearly 1,500 patents licensed or sublicensed to more than 400 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Companies like Alkermes are using Langer’s nanotechnology in the form of “injectable microspheres” to treat type 2 diabetes, schizophrenia and more.
Langer said that when he first joined Folkman at Boston Children’s Hospital, he was the only engineer — it was unheard of for chemical engineers to do postdoctoral work in a surgical oncologist’s lab.
“It’s worth the risk — I think it’s worth getting rejected, and I think it’s worth trying to shoot for things that really make a difference,” Langer said. “That’s a lesson I’ve learned for me, but I try to pass it on to my students as well.”
Physical chemist Alivisatos, currently president of the University of Chicago, has been recognized for his application of “quantum dots” in medicine. These nanoparticles absorb and emit light at wavelengths dependent on their size and power many television and computer displays. Quantum dots, discovered in 1980, were limited to these technological applications until Alivisatos came along. He discovered how to make them compatible with living systems by encapsulating the quantum dots in a silicon shell, making them stable and soluble in water.
Now, quantum dots can be used as fluorescent markers to help biomedical researchers study cells and even deliver therapies. For example, in photodynamic therapy for the treatment of cancer, light emitted by quantum dots can activate drugs to induce the death of cancer cells.
Chad Mirkin, a chemist at Northwestern University, pioneered the construction of spherical nucleic acids, or SNAs—a collection of synthetic strands of DNA or RNA bound to a Koosh-ball-shaped nanoparticle core. Mirkin discovered that SNAs can be used as diagnostic tools to detect extracellular DNA signatures, proteins and other molecules that indicate the presence of disease.
Later, Mirkin focused on building SNA diagnostics that would work inside cells. But nucleic acids and cells, both negatively charged, repel each other. Getting SNA inside proved impossible without toxic transfection agents.
Mirkin said it took his team more than a decade to find a solution. Finally, they discovered that SNAs can enter cells using transport vessels called endosomes. With this kind of approach, they could also be used for treatment: SNAs have been found to enter brain tumors, regulate the expression of cancer genes and slow tumor growth.
“Sometimes it’s good to just break free from conventional wisdom and just out of curiosity say, ‘What’s going to happen?'” Mirkin said.
More recently, the Mirkin lab has expanded even further, delving into SNA-based cancer immunotherapy and Covid-19 vaccines during the height of the pandemic.
“It wasn’t good enough for us to do science,” Mirkin said. “Let’s make scientific discoveries, but let’s connect the dots and ask how we use those discoveries to create new technologies that improve the world.”