Phillip B. Messersmith is the Class of 1941 Professor in the Departments of Bioengineering and Materials Science and Engineering at UC-Berkeley. He is currently chair of the Department of Bioengineering. He earned his B.S. degree in life sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana, M.S degree in bioengineering from Clemson University, and his Ph.D. degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana. Previously, Dr. Messersmith was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University (1993-1994), and a faculty member at University of Illinois at Chicago (1994-1997) and Northwestern University (1997-2014). Dr. Messersmith has published over 220 papers and has 46 US patents awarded. His awards and honors include a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health, the Langmuir Lecture Award from the American Chemical Society, and the 2013 Clemson Award for Basic Research from the Society for Biomaterials. Dr. Messersmith is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Materials Research Society, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the International Union of Societies of Biomaterials Science and Engineering. His current research interests are centered on structure-processing-property relationships in biological and bioinspired materials, molecular phenomena at interfaces, bioinspired adhesives, and novel materials for regenerative medicine.