David Kaplan holds an Endowed Chair, the Stern Family Professor of Engineering, at Tufts University. He is Professor & Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and also holds faculty appointments in the School of Medicine, the School of Dental Medicine, Department of Chemistry and the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. His research focus is on biopolymer engineering to understand structure-function relationships, with emphasis on studies related to self-assembly, biomaterials engineering and functional tissue engineering/regenerative medicine. He has published over 700 peer reviewed papers and edited eight books and the studies include a variety of structural proteins (collagens, elastins, resilins, silks). The lab has pioneered the study of silk-based biomaterials in regenerative medicine, from fundamental studies of the biochemistry, molecular biology and biophysical features of this class of fibrous proteins to their impact on stem cell functions, medical device formation, complex tissue formation. Studies are also focused on tissue engineering and regenerative medicine with the use of complex 3D tissue co-culture systems to establish and study human tissues in the laboratory and in animal systems. These systems are used to study a range of tissues (e.g., brain, kidney, cervical, adipose, bone marrow, intestine) and diseases (e.g., obesity, diabetes, cancers, polycystic kidney, infectious diseases).  Interfaces with optical imaging tools are also exploited. Since 2004 he has directed the NIH P41 Tissue Engineering Resource Center (TERC) that involves Tufts University and Columbia University.  He serves of the editorial boards of numerous journals and is Editor in Chief for ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering.  He has received a number of awards for teaching, was Elected Fellow American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, received the Columbus Discovery Medal and the Society for Biomaterials Clemson Award for contributions to the literature.