Elazer R. Edelman, MIT Cabot Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, and Harvard Medical School Professor of Medicine, is a cardiac care unit cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and director of MIT’s Biomedical Engineering Center. His research melds clinical and medical training, focusing on how tissue architecture and local biochemical regulation maintain homeostasis. Edelman and his students were amongst the first to validate that vascular diseases are the sum of effects from endogenous growth promoters like heparin and suppressors like heparin-binding growth factors, to define the nomenclature and kinetics of the FGF-2 receptor complex, and demonstrate that mode of growth factor or inhibitor delivery determines biologic effect.

Applied research flows from recapitulating natural regulation. The development and mathematical characterization of perivascular and stent-based drug delivery mimicked natural control of chemomediators, and design of endovascular stents from first principles leveraged understanding of vascular repair and innovations in computational modeling. Basic and applied aspects are intimately joined as exemplified by work with antisense oligonucleotides, HDL receptor biology and tissue engineered endothelial implants in vascular and cancer diseases. More than 330 students and fellows have passed through Edelman’s laboratory.

Edelman is fellow of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, American Society for Clinical Investigation, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors. As Chief Scientific Advisor of Science: Translational Medicine and member of the FDA Scientific Board he has set the tone for the national debate on translational research and innovation. He has received multiple awards and honors including most recently the Clemson Award for Basic Research from the Society for Biomaterials, the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture, Weill-Cornell Medical School, the Massimo Calabresi Lecturer, Yale University, the Flexner Discovery Lecturer, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Plenary Lecture, Irish Royal Society, Galway, Ireland, and Order of Civil Merit of Spain. As an avid ice hockey goalie, Dr. Edelman’s most impressive accomplishment involves passing three levels of coaching licensure from the Massachusetts Youth Hockey league and coaching his sons’ Brookline Bantam B team.