David Kaplan is the Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering at Tufts University, a Distinguished University Professor, and a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. He also holds secondary appointments in the School of Medicine, School of Dental Medicine, and the Departments of Biology and Chemistry at Tufts. The research focus in his laboratory is on biopolymer engineering to understand structure-function relationships for biomaterials, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, and cellular agriculture. He has published over 1,000 peer reviewed publications, he is the editor-in-chief of ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering, and he serves on many editorial boards and programs for journals and universities. He has directed or co-directed the NIH P41 Resource Center on tissue engineering for over 20 years, and over the last four years he has directed the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture funded by the USDA.
Students that trained in his laboratory now run about 70 independent academic laboratories around the world, and the laboratory has also been responsible for over fifteen startup ventures mostly led by former students. These ventures have resulted in FDA-approved medical devices as well as consumer-facing products on the market today. Professor Kaplan has received a number of awards for his research and his teaching, including a Columbus Discovery Award and the Society for Biomaterials Clemson Award for contributions to the literature. He was elected as a Fellow to the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, the National Academy of Inventors, the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering and the National Academy of Engineering.