Prof. William R. Wagner (the Editor-in-Chief, Acta Biomaterialia) and Prof. Subhash Mahajan (the Coordinating Editor of Acta Journals), wrote in the award letter that "The field of nominees was very impressive, and the task of selecting a winner was challenging.  Not only did your paper demonstrate exceptional value to the biomaterials community, but your personal credentials and recommendations were also exemplary." Acta Biomaterialia only makes two of these awards each year. The award will be presented to Dr. Gaharwar at the Materials Science and Technology Conference and Exposition (MS&T) 2012, to be held in Pittsburgh, PA, this year.

Dr. Gaharwar is currently a Postdoctoral Associate in the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT with Prof. Robert Langer and research fellow in the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Materials at Harvard University with Prof. Ali Khademhosseini. Dr. Gaharwar received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue University in 2011 under the mentorship of Prof. Gudrun Schmidt. He also received a M.Tech degree in Materials Science from Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay in 2007. Dr. Gaharwar has published 15 journal articles in high-impact peer reviewed journals, 1 book chapter and more than 50 conference presentations. He actively serves as an ad-hoc reviewer for more than 10 journals and is actively involved in various professional organizations (BMES, MRS, SFB, TERMIS, Sigma Xi).