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Laura E. Niklason
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Laura E. Niklason

American anesthesiologist

Laura Elizabeth Niklason is a physician, professor and internationally recognized researcher in vascular and lung tissue engineering. She is the Nicholas M. Greene Professor of Anesthesiology and Biomedical Engineering at Yale University and co-founder, chief executive officer and president of Humacyte, a regenerative medicine company developing bioengineered human tissues.2

From Wikipedia’s article on Laura E. Niklason (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

About

Her work on lab-grown lungs was recognized as one of the top 50 most important inventions of 2010 by Time magazine. Niklason was included on Fortune’s “Digital Health Care Leaders” list in 2017 for her work in regenerative medicine.

Niklason was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2014. In 2015, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. In 2020, Niklason was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for cardiovascular tissue engineering, lung regeneration, and biomedical imaging. She holds more than 40 issued or pending patents in the United States.

From Wikipedia’s article on Laura E. Niklason, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Companies

Early life and education

  • Date not recordedUniversity of Chicago3 4
  • Date not recordedMassachusetts General Hospital3
  • Date not recordedUniversity of Michigan3
  • Date not recordedUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign3 4
  • Date not recordedMassachusetts Institute of Technology3
  • Date not recordedUniversity of Michigan Medical School3 5

Laura Niklason was born in Evanston, Ill. She earned a B.S. in physics and a B.A. in biophysics from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign campus) in 1983. She holds an M.D. from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of Chicago. Niklason completed her medical training in anesthesiology and critical care medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1996.

From Wikipedia’s article on Laura E. Niklason (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Career

Occupation: university teacher, medical specialist.8

Known for: Humacyte (United States).9

Niklason was a faculty member at Duke University from 1998 to 2005. In 2004, Niklason along with Drs. Shannon Dahl and Juliana Blum, co-founded Humacyte, a company based in Durham, North Carolina, that is pioneering the development and manufacture of off-the-shelf, universally implantable, bioengineered human tissues to improve the lives of patients and transform the practice of medicine. In 2006, Niklason joined the faculty at the Yale School of Medicine, where she currently serves as an adjunct professor of anesthesia and biomedical engineering.

In 2010, Niklason and her colleagues were able to successfully produce an engineered rat lung that could inhale and exhale carbon dioxide. In 2013, Niklason along with Duke researcher Dr. Jeffery Lawson, developed a bioengineered blood vessel, which Lawson grafted into an artery in a Duke patient's arm.

In 2016, Niklason was named as the Nicholas M. Greene Professor of Anesthesiology and Biomedical Engineering at Yale. As part of a research team, Niklason conducted clinical trials into the effectiveness of giving patients experiencing kidney failure bioengineered blood vessels.

In 2020, Niklason was appointed CEO and president of Humacyte. During Niklason's tenure, the company went public through a merger with Alpha Healthcare Acquisition Corp in 2021.

From Wikipedia’s article on Laura E. Niklason (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Personal life

  • CitizenshipUnited States10

Philanthropy

The Brady W. Dougan and Laura E. Niklason House at University of Chicago was named for her.

From Wikipedia’s article on Laura E. Niklason (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sources

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