Mehmet Toner

Mehmet Toner (born 1958) is a Turkish biomedical engineer. He is currently the Helen Andrus Benedict Professor of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School, with a joint appointment as professor at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST).

Toner is a co-founder and Associate Director of the Center for Engineering in Medicine (CEM) at MGH and Director of the Biomedical Engineering Research and Education Program at MGH. He is one of the Senior Scientific Staff of the Shriners Hospital for Children. He is the founding director of the National Institute of Health's BioMicroElectroMechanical Systems or BioMEMS Resource Center at MGH.

Toner has made contributions to the fields of cryobiology and biopreservation and to the wider field of biomedical engineering. He has developed techniques in microtechnology and nanotechnology for use in clinical medicine, including the treatment of cancer. at the Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), completing his Ph.D. in 1989.

Career In 1990 Toner joined the faculty of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and became an assistant professor in biomedical engineering at Harvard Medical School. He became an associate professor in 1996, and a professor in 2002. He is jointly appointed as a professor of health sciences and technology for the Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology.

In 1999, Toner helped to found the Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, serving as associate editor.

Research Toner's early work focused on understanding cellular injuries during cryopreservation and finding optimum strategies for cell preservation. Toner developed a theory of intra-cellular ice formation while completing his PhD in Medical Engineering at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As part of that work, he proposed acetylated trehalose as a novel cryoprotectant.

Toner's later work includes bio-sensing, regenerative medicine, and tissue engineering. He has helped to develop microelectromechanical and microfluidic devices for point-of-care detection of cancer, AIDS, genetic defects and infectious diseases.

Awards and memberships 2025, Mustafa Prize 2019, Member, US National Academy of Medicine (NAM) 2017, Member, US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) 2016, Fellow, US National Academy of Inventors (NAI) 2010, Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Thoracic Oncology Research Team Award, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2010, Rock Stars of Science, GQ Magazine and Geoffrey Beene Foundation 2008, Breakthrough Award, Popular Mechanics 1999, Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) 1997, John F and Virginia B Taplin Faculty Fellow Award Faculty Fellow Award, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1995, Whitaker Foundation Special Opportunity Award 1994, Y. C. Fung Faculty Award in Bioengineering, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) (intra-cellular ice formation)