Principal Investigator
Institute Professor and Vice Provost for Faculty
Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
she/her/hers
Paula T. Hammond is Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Vice Provost for Faculty. She is a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, the MIT Energy Initiative, and a founding member of the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology. The core of her work is the use of electrostatics and other complementary interactions to generate functional materials with highly controlled architecture. Her research in nanomedicine encompasses the development of new biomaterials to enable drug delivery from surfaces with spatio-temporal control. She also investigates novel responsive polymer architectures for targeted nanoparticle drug and gene delivery, and has developed self-assembled materials systems for electrochemical energy devices.
Professor Paula Hammond was elected into the National Academy of Science in 2019, the National Academy of Engineering in 2017, the National Academy of Medicine in 2016, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013. She is one of only 25 distinguished scientists elected to all three national academies. She won the ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science in 2018, and she is also the recipient of the 2013 AIChE Charles M. A. Stine Award, which is bestowed annually to a leading researcher in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of materials science and engineering, and the 2014 AIChE Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research. She was selected to receive the Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Teal Innovator Award in 2013, which supports a single visionary individual from any field principally outside of ovarian cancer to focus his/her creativity, innovation, and leadership on ovarian cancer research. By developing degradable electrostatically assembled layer-by-layer (LbL) thin films that enable temporal and even sequential controlled release from surfaces, Paula Hammond pioneered a new and rapidly growing area of multicomponent surface delivery of therapeutics that impacts biomedical implants, tissue engineering and nanomedicine. A key contribution is her ability to introduce not only controlled release of sensitive biologics, but her recent advances in actually staging the release of these drugs to attain synergistically timed combination therapies. She has designed multilayered nanoparticles to deliver a synergistic combination of siRNA or inhibitors with chemotherapy drugs in a staged manner to tumors, leading to significant decreases in tumor growth and a great lowering of toxicity. The newest developments from her lab offer a promising approach to messenger RNA (mRNA) delivery, in which she creates pre-complexes of mRNA with its capping protein and synthesized optimized cationic polypeptides structures for the co-complexation and stabilization of the nucleic acid-protein system to gain up to 80-fold increases in mRNA translation efficiency, opening potential for vaccines and immunotherapies. Professor Hammond has published over 320 papers, and over 20 patent applications. She is the co-founder and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of LayerBio, Inc. and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Moderna Therapeutics.
Education
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993
M.S., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1988
S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984
Honors and Awards
Franklin Institute’s Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry, 2024
Honorary Doctorate from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and commencement speaker, 2023
James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, 2023
American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Doing a World of Good Medal, 2022
American Chemical Society (ACS) Fellow, 2022
President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), 2021
Inaugural Black in Cancer Distinguished Investigator Award, 2021
MIT Institute Professor, 2021
AIChE Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement by a Woman Chemical Engineer, 2019
MIT Committed to Caring (C2C) Award, 2019
MRS Turnbull Lectureship Award from the Materials Research Society, 2019
AIChE’s Margaret H. Rousseau Pioneer Award, 2019
Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, 2019
ACS Nat’l Award in Applied Polymer Science, 2018
Elected to the National Academy of Engineering, 2017
Elected to the National Academy of Medicine, 2016
Elected AIChE Fellow, 2016
Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research, 2014
Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2013
Charles M.A. Stine Award, 2013
Ovarian Cancer Research Program Teal Innovator Award, 2013
Elected Fellow, ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry (POLY), 2012
Distinguished Scientist Award, the Harvard Foundation, 2010
Elected AIMBE Fellow, 2010
Bayer Distinguished Lecturer, 2004
Georgia Tech Outstanding Young Alumni Award, 2004
Radcliffe Institute Fellow, Harvard University, 2003
Henry Hill Lecturer Award, 2002
Junior Bose Faculty Award, 2000
GenCorp Signature University Award, 2000
Lloyd Ferguson Young Scientist Award, 2000
NSF Career Award, 1997
EPA Early Career Award, 1996
DuPont Young Faculty Award, 1996
3M Innovation Fund Award, 1995
NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemistry, Harvard University, 1994
Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow, 1992
MIT Karl Taylor Compton Prize, 1992
Eastman Kodak Theophilus Sorrel Fellow, 1990