Elazer R. Edelman

Elazer R. Edelman is an American engineer, scientist and cardiologist. He is the Edward J. Poitras Professor in Medical Engineering and Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), and a practicing cardiologist at BWH. He is the director of MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES), the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center, and the MIT Clinical Research Center. He is also the Program Director of the MIT Graduate Education in Medical Sciences program within the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. At BWH, he serves as a senior attending physician in the coronary care unit. He is currently the Chief Scientific Advisor for the journal Science Translational Medicine. Edelman has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Inventors, National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine.
Background and education.
Edelman was raised in the greater Boston area. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and in Applied Biology, and a master's degree in EECS. He earned his M.D. degree with distinction from Harvard Medical School and Ph.D. in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics within the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He conducted his Ph.D. thesis work under the direction of Robert Langer to define the mathematics of regulated and controlled drug delivery. Edelman completed his medical training at Brigham and Women's Hospital and is board certified in internal medicine and cardiology. Following this, he spent six years as a research fellow under the tutelage of Prof. Morris J. Karnovsky to work on the biology of vascular repair. Edelman and his wife, Cheryl, have 3 children: Alex, A.J., and Austin.
Research.
Edelman is a major advocate of multidisciplinary research. Through his research centers, he combines teams of clinicians, engineers, and scientists from both academia and industry to create highly effective and clinically relevant solutions to medical problems. Through this approach, Edelman and his students have been credited as some of the key contributors and pioneers of the coronary stent. They critically aided in the development, characterization, and optimization of the first bare-metal stents and subsequent iterations including drug-eluting stents. Edelman's research programs fall in the following general categories:
Awards and honors.
Edelman has authored or co-authored more than 680 original scientific publications, holds some 80 patents, and has trained more than 300 students and post-doctoral fellows. He has served on several advisory boards including the Science Board to the Food and Drug Administration.
Edelman has been elected a fellow of the Association of American Physicians, American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, American Society of Clinical Investigators, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Association of University Cardiologists, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Medicine, and National Academy of Inventors. He received the Officer's Cross of the Spanish Order of Civil Merit in 2010.
Selected awards received by Edelman include: