In the nine years since he established the Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Biomaterials at Harvard Medical School, the research of Dr. Omid Farokhzad has formed the foundation of three biotechnology startup.

Those firms — BIND Therapeutics in Cambridge and Selecta Bioscience and Blend Therapeutics in Watertown — now employ 120 people and have collectively raised $210 million in venture backing and signed long-term partnerships with pharmaceutical companies worth $2 billion.

All three firms are exploring ways to commercialize the advances in nanomaterials and nanoscience made in Farokhzad’s lab at Harvard Medical School. And while he remains a close adviser to the leadership of those companies, Farokhzad has chosen to continue to focus on the science.