Laura Niklason, PhD, MD

Dr. Niklason is the Nicholas M. Greene Professor at Yale University in Anesthesia and Biomedical Engineering, where she has been on faculty since 2006. Dr. Niklason’s research focuses primarily on regenerative strategies for cardiovascular and lung tissues. Niklason’s engineered blood vessels are currently in clinical trials, and are the first life-sustaining engineered tissue to be studied in any Phase III trial. Niklason’s lab was also one of the first to describe the engineering of whole lung tissue that could exchange gas in vivo, and this work was cited in 2010 as one of the top 50 most important inventions of the year by Time Magazine. She was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2014, and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2015.

Niklason received her PhD in Biophysics from the University of Chicago, and her MD from the University of Michigan. She completed her residency training in anesthesia and intensive care unit medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and completed post-doctoral scientific training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.