Laura Niklason is the Nicholas M. Greene Professor at Yale University, with primary appointments in the Department of Anesthesiology and affiliations in Biomedical Engineering at the Yale School of Medicine. She has been a faculty member since 2006 and leads a pioneering research program in regenerative medicine. MD, University of Michigan (1991) PhD in Biophysics, University of Chicago (1988) Residency, Anesthesia and Critical Care, Massachusetts General Hospital (1995) Postdoctoral Training, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Her research focuses on tissue engineering of cardiovascular and pulmonary systems . She is renowned for developing engineered blood vessels currently in Phase III clinical trials —the first life-sustaining engineered tissue to reach this stage. Her lab was also among the first to engineer functional lung tissue capable of gas exchange in vivo, recognized by Time Magazine in 2010 as one of the top 50 inventions of the year. Recent publications highlight trends in bioengineered vascular grafts , lung regeneration , vascular disease modeling , and clinical translation of acellular tissues . Her work spans from fundamental mechanobiology to health economics and primate transplantation studies. Her major scientific honors include: Elected to the National Academy of Medicine (2015) Inducted into the National Academy of Inventors (2014) Niklason actively advises researchers and leads the Niklason Lab at Yale, supported by NIH funding and collaborations across stem cell science and vascular biology. She has no known grants listed in the text, but her lab's productivity and clinical trials indicate substantial research support. Her work continues to bridge engineering, medicine, and clinical practice toward regenerating human tissues. She is affiliated with the Yale Stem Cell Center and the NIH T32 Program , and her lab focuses on vascularized cardiac and lung tissue, thoracic conduits, cellular aging, and intimal hyperplasia.







