Interview with Gregory Riggins

Dr. Gregory Riggins earned his master's of science in bioengineering in 1984 at Penn State and en route to a joint M.D./Ph.D. in genetics at Emory University. Over the past 30 years, he has seen the biomedical engineering field explode, with an emphasis on more technological development. As he puts it, “researchers improve technology to understand the cell and organism, creating a larger number of opportunities and challenges.” The growth has also seen increases in the number of students pursuing biomedical engineering degrees that are ever-increasingly more specialized.

Dr. Riggins jokes that the driving reason for him to come to Penn State in the early 1980s “because I was accepted into the program.” However, he quickly found a home in the tight-knit, five-student artificial heart lab - the only program at the time - run by Dr. William Pierce. He fondly recalls late night poker games and the lab softball team, as well as the 24-hour weekend socializing trips to State College when he was working in Hershey, overall remarking “I had fun at Penn State, I really enjoyed my time there.”

He valued the experience as a great springboard into medicine and believes engineers have a hard time in medical school because the focus is on memorization. But, they excel as doctors because they know how to solve problems.

Dr. Riggins is certainly putting his problem-solving skills to good use today as the Irving J. Sherman Professor of Neurosurgery and Oncology at Johns Hopkins University. His lab is at the forefront of discovering new genetic causes of brain cancer and innovating their treatments and therapies. Looking forward, he is excited to see biomedical engineers tackle new problems, especially related to his own field of oncology.

“Half the problem of cancer is targeting, but nanotechnology today is solving the issue,” he remarks. Advancements in imaging and diagnostics are also helping to catch cancer earlier, something Riggins notes as critical to therapeutic success. “Catching cancer early can increase the survival rate from less than 50 percent to well over 75 percent.” While he relies heavily on his genetics background for his own day-to-day research, his bioengineering training at Penn State, as he puts it, “allows me to talk to physicians and speak their language, and at the same time talk to engineers and speak their language.”

- Nick Frazzette, biomedical engineering undergraduate student