Laura Niklason, M.D., Ph.D.

Founder, Humacyte

297 - Words of Wisdom from Six Women Who Persisted

Laura Niklason, founder of the regenerative medicine company Humacyte, has been a patient advocate and an inventor throughout the course of her career. Dr. Niklason is a physician who specialized in intensive care unit medicine, where she helps patients with life-threatening diseases. She is the Nicholas M. Greene Professor in Anesthesia and Biomedical Engineering at Yale University, where she has been on faculty since 2006.

Her research focuses primarily on regenerative strategies for cardiovascular and lung tissues. Dr. Niklason's bioengineered blood vessels are currently undergoing clinical trials, and are the first life-sustaining engineered tissues to be studied under a Phase III trial. Her lab was also one of the first to describe the engineering of whole lung tissue that could exchange gas in vivo, and her 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. In April 2017, Dr. Niklason was also recognized by Fortune among a prestigious list of 34 leaders for driving impactful change in healthcare.

Dr. Niklason received her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Chicago, and her M.D. 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. Dr. Niklason is recognized as a global expert in cellular therapies and regenerative medicine. Today, she continues to teach, maintain a vigorous scientific laboratory, and speaks nationally and internationally on her research and exciting, emerging medical discoveries.