Laura E. Niklason is Nicholas Greene Professor of anesthesiology and biomedical engineering at Yale University. She is the co-founder of Humacyte and specializes in vascular and lung engineering. Her work on lab-grown lungs was recognized as one of the top 50 most important inventions of 2010 by Time magazine.
Niklason was a faculty member at Duke University from 1998 to 2005. In 2004, Niklason along with doctors Shannon Dahl and Juliana Blum co-founded Humacyte, an organization producing humanacellular matrix products for both vascular and non-vascular applications. In 2010, Niklason and her colleagues were able to successfully create in the lab a rat lung that could inhale and exhale carbon dioxide. In 2013, Niklason along with Duke researcher 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 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 bio-engineered blood vessels.
Philanthropy
The Brady W. Dougan and Laura E. Niklason House at University of Chicago was named for her.
2011: Winner of Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Innovators Award for 2011, for development of "off-the-self" tissue engineered vascular graft to treat patients with vascular disease. Award went to Humacyte, Inc, of which Niklason is the Founder.
2011: Winner of Frost & Sullivan Growth, Innovation & Leadership Award 2011, for development of engineered vascular graft. Award went to Humacyte Inc, of which Niklason is Founder.
Niklason is the co-author of more than 120 publications. A selected list follows:
Niklason, L., Gao, J., Abbott, W.M., Hirschi, K.K., Houser, S., Marini, R., Langer, R. "Functional Arteries Grown in Vitro," Science,, 5413, 489 – 493.
Borel, C., McKee, A., Parra, A., Haglund, M., Solan, A., Prabhakar, V., Sheng, H., Warner, D., Niklason, L. "Possible Role for Vascular Cell Proliferation in Cerebral Vasospasm After Subarachnoid Hemorrhage", Stroke,, 34:427-433.
Poh, M., Boyer, M., Dahl, S., Pedrotty, D., Banik, S., McKee, J., Klinger, R., Counter, C., Niklason, L. "Blood Vessels Engineered From Human Cells," The Lancet,, 366, 9489; 891-892.
Gong, Z., Niklason, L. "Small-Diameter Human Vessel Wall Engineered From Bone Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells," The FASEB Journal,, 22:1635-1648.
Petersen, T.H., Calle, E.A., Zhao, L., Lee, E.J., Gui, L., Raredon, M.B., Gavrilov, K., Yi, T., Zhuang, Z.W., Breuer, C., Herzog, E., Niklason, L.E. "Tissue-Engineered Lungs for In Vivo Implantation," Science,, 329, 5991; 538-41.
