CAMBRIDGE – December 13, 2016 – David Mooney, the Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School for Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and a Core Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard, has been elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).  
Mooney is recognized by the NAI for having demonstrated “a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.”
Mooney has authored more than 350 scientific papers and is an inventor on more than 28 issued U.S. patents.
“I am honored to be elected to an institution that celebrates American ingenuity and the translation of discoveries to practical use, and this is really a testimony to the brilliant students, fellows and co-workers with whom I’ve been able to work and invent over the years,” said Mooney.
Mooney has developed numerous technologies advancing tissue engineering, immunotherapy, and mechanotherapy. Most recently he and his team have developed a microfluidic-based method for encapsulating single cells within hydrogels, which could improve stem cell-based therapies and even enable precision tissue engineering using cell-by-cell construction. He has also recently developed a method for predicting how a tumor tissue’s physical properties affect the efficacy of chemotherapy drugs and also demonstrated that direct physical stimulation of injured skeletal muscles impacts biological processes and improves muscle regeneration.