diabetics

As a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado, Kristi Anseth built advanced materials for semiconductors. But the chemical engineer’s past would soon draw her away from microchips and into the body. “I played basketball and volleyball in school and had my fair share of knee injuries,” says Anseth, who has won nearly two dozen awards for her research. “I also had an aunt die in childbirth from a heart defect, and a brain aneurysm killed my father. I realized that the processes I was developing could work inside the human body to mimic healing.”