{"360011":{"#nid":"360011","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Bridging the Gap","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Master of Biomedical Innovation and Development Biomedical Innovation and Development (BioID) was created specifically to develop a new generation of biomedical leaders and entrepreneurs who can expertly bridge the gap between the bench and the bedside, turning biomedical research into practical therapies and products for improving patient care. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThis is very real-world, practice-based training in the development of medical devices and biomedical products,\u201d says Sathya Gourisankar, director of the BioID program, who brings 30 years of medical device industry research and development experience to his role, including project management, pre-clinical and clinical biomaterials research, and regulatory submissions. \u201cWe offer very holistic and balanced training so that, by the end of this intense one-year program, our students will have a good grasp of all the processes and linkages needed to convert an idea into a product reality that addresses an unmet clinical need.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOffered by the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), and now in its second year, BioID gives students access to industry experts and insights, enabling them to study a wide range of career possibilities while learning how to carefully navigate the product development process. The three-semester program begins in August with the fall semester and runs through July. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioID has more than doubled in size since its debut in August 2013 with 10 students (last year\u2019s batch of students, who graduated on August 1, 2014, were all placed, and some received multiple offers prior to graduation). This year\u2019s class of 21 students is a diverse group in terms of gender, residency and background \u2013 12 female, nine male, 10 from other states, six from other nations. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESome students come from the professional world, physicians like Lance Black, who became frustrated with poorly designed medical equipment while practicing in the U.S. Air Force, and chose to leave clinical practice so he could improve the situation by learning more about the practical translational aspects of research and innovation with the hope of developing better medical devices. And other students, like Erin Roberts, are taking the next logical step in their education as they try to launch their fledgling biomedical careers.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cSo far, it\u2019s been an intense and well-rounded experience,\u201d says Roberts, whose undergraduate degree is in biology engineering, with a biomedical emphasis. \u201cI had an internship at Caterpillar, and though it wasn\u2019t the biomedical industry, it did show me the manufacturing and business side, and that appealed to me more than the idea of academia and research. I felt like this program would give me the tools I needed to transition into the medical device industry.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe BioID students work in teams of five or six, with different individual strengths matched together. Early in the fall semester, Gourisanker brings in a handful of clinicians and experts to pitch different sets of problems or unmet needs and the students may choose one to address. For example, Roberts\u2019 team, Nuvo Khoja, is developing a better hernia repair device, addressing a problem presented by a clinical mentor.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAt the end of each semester, the teams meet and make presentations, in which they summarize the status of their projects. Recently, the current BioID class held its first end-of-semester presentation at program headquarters, Technology Enterprise Park, where students have access to state of the art classroom and conference space and business facilities as well as a fully equipped machine shop where they can create product prototypes. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe four teams (MedaWorks, MEDlanta, Nuvo Khoja, and Paxor) took turns giving their reports, each student getting a chance to practice their presentation and public speaking skills at the front of the room, while associate director of BioID (and Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience member) Julia Babensee looked on, and Gourisankar sat near the front of the class, occasionally peppering the presenters with helpful insights and probing questions.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBy the end of the third semester, in July 2015, each team will conceivably have a pre-clinical prototype, a potentially successful answer to a clinical problem. Along the way, the students also will have charted a certain career path, thanks in part to the massive amount of networking the BioID program affords them, in the way of world-class guest lecturers \u2013 clinicians, entrepreneurs, FDA experts and others who share their career case studies.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThat has been extremely helpful, the guest speakers we see on a daily and weekly basis. It\u2019s really helped me narrow down my career interests,\u201d says Roberts, who has become particularly interested in regulatory affairs. \u201cYou get so much experience and exposure in a short time. And I mean exposure to virtually every type of job you can have within a medical device company. What I\u2019ve learned here since August has been like a year\u2019s worth of education in any other setting.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"BioID graduate program giving students real-world biomedical exposure"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBioID graduate program giving students real-world biomedical exposure\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"BioID graduate program giving students real-world biomedical exposure"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2015-01-05 00:51:51","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:46","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-01-04T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2015-01-04T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"359991":{"id":"359991","type":"image","title":"BioID Presentation Reflection","body":null,"created":"1449245782","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:16:22","changed":"1475895096","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:36","alt":"BioID Presentation Reflection","file":{"fid":"202075","name":"presentation.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/presentation_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/presentation_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1001299,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/presentation_0.jpg?itok=tg_CTP0S"}},"360001":{"id":"360001","type":"image","title":"BioID student Lance Black","body":null,"created":"1449245782","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:16:22","changed":"1475895096","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:36","alt":"BioID student Lance Black","file":{"fid":"202076","name":"presenter.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/presenter_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/presenter_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1529606,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/presenter_0.jpg?itok=ALS9qjhz"}}},"media_ids":["359991","360001"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/bioid.gatech.edu\/","title":"BioID"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"},{"id":"8383","name":"Product Development"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"359981":{"#nid":"359981","#data":{"type":"news","title":"BME On Display","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIf you ever wondered what a biomedical engineer\u2019s education looks like, there is now tangible evidence on display in the U.A. Whitaker Biomedical Building. Two new, custom designed and built exhibit cases have been installed in the first floor lobby of the building, headquarters of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), spotlighting the innovative, award-winning work of students. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe idea was to create something that showcased what the students are achieving in this department, because when you look around here, you really don\u2019t get an idea of what a biomedical engineer BME person does,\u201d says James Rains, design instructor and ddirector of the BME Capstone Design program. \u201cSo we came up with the idea of display cases in the lobby, something to represent our relevant contributions to solving healthcare problems, the really cool and exciting things our students are doing, and give them more recognition.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBME design instructor Raja Schaar, who has an extensive background in creating exhibits for major museums across the Southeast (such as the Museum of Art and Design Atlanta and the Ocmulgee National Monument in Macon), took the lead in designing and building the displays, which will feature rotating examples of Capstone, InVenture, and other student projects. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re highlighting their story,\u201d says Schaar, while busily arranging sequential prototype iterations to showcase one student team\u2019s project. Schaar, who was a lecturer in Georgia Institute of Technology\u2019s School of Industrial Design for more than eight years before moving over to BME, adds, \u201cWe push them to embrace the design process and they take things beyond what we teach them.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA permanent piece in the exhibit space is an older model Coulter Counter that will feature the names of Capstone student design champions (think of Capstone or InVenture, for example) engraved on the side. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like the Stanley Cup from the National Hockey League, but for BME. We\u2019ll engrave the names of winning students from each semester. It\u2019s their chance to be immortalized, so they can come back in 20 years and show their kids,\u201d says Rains, who can\u2019t do that with his own kids, even though he was a Georgia Tech Capstone champion in 1998. \u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERains was part of a team that developed a remote controlled \u2018smart home,\u2019 but actually won as part of the team that designed a self-feeding, one-handed soldering. The atmosphere surrounding student innovation and entrepreneurship has changed since then, Rains says. \u201cWe really encourage our students to follow through with their projects, to file for patent, or create their own start-up. There are now programs that allow the students a pathway for pursuing these ideas further, such as Startup Summer. It\u2019s a different world now.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"New exhibit space showcases award-winning work of students"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENew exhibit space showcases award-winning work of students\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"New exhibit space showcases award-winning work of students"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2015-01-05 00:14:27","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:46","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-01-04T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2015-01-04T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"355481":{"id":"355481","type":"image","title":"Raja","body":null,"created":"1449245756","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:56","changed":"1475895087","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:27","alt":"Raja","file":{"fid":"201341","name":"rajacase.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/rajacase_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/rajacase_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1893649,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/rajacase_0.jpg?itok=jcdMyCYh"}},"355461":{"id":"355461","type":"image","title":"Raja and Rains","body":null,"created":"1449245743","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:43","changed":"1475895087","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:27","alt":"Raja and Rains","file":{"fid":"201339","name":"raja_and_rains.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/raja_and_rains_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/raja_and_rains_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":4101748,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/raja_and_rains_0.jpg?itok=c3CfMmlU"}}},"media_ids":["355481","355461"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"359471":{"#nid":"359471","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Emory Pediatric Bioengineering Summer Program Accepting Undergraduate Applications","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETen undergraduate students from across the country will have the unprecedented opportunity to participate in the Nation\u2019s only pediatric bioengineering program.\u0026nbsp; The program is made possible due to the collaborative efforts of Emory University and Georgia Tech\u2019s Biomedical Engineering Department, the Department of Pediatrics within Emory University\u0027s School of Medicine, Emory College\u2019s Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURE), and Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta.\u0026nbsp; Students will have the opportunity to not only work in a lab doing Pediatric Engineering research, but also will shadow clinicians to better understand pediatric medicine.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022This is one of the only training programs in the country focused solely on pediatric bioengineering,\u0022 says Michael E. Davis, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory and director of the Pediatric Center for Cardiovascular Biology at Emory and Children\u0027s Healthcare of Atlanta.\u0026nbsp; Nearly $500,000 in funding over five years will allow 10 talented undergraduate students each year from around the United States to work for a pediatric engineering project over the summer. The students also will shadow clinicians to better understand childhood diseases and receive training in scientific reading, writing, and scientific processes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAll interested students should apply directly to the Emory SURE Program by clicking \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cse.emory.edu\/home\/projects\/students\/sure.html\u0022\u003EHERE\u003C\/a\u003E, and select the PERSE program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Application deadline February 2, 2015"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EApplication deadline February 2, 2015\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Application deadline February 2, 2015"}],"uid":"27159","created_gmt":"2014-12-30 13:58:04","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:46","author":"Vickie Okrzesik","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-30T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-30T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"359461":{"id":"359461","type":"image","title":"SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research Experience)","body":null,"created":"1449245775","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:16:15","changed":"1475895096","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:36","alt":"SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research Experience)","file":{"fid":"201532","name":"sure-program.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sure-program_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sure-program_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":1059521,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/sure-program_0.png?itok=rItlj8V0"}}},"media_ids":["359461"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.cse.emory.edu\/home\/projects\/students\/sure.html","title":"SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research Experience)"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.pedsresearch.org\/","title":"Emory+Children\u0027s Pediatric Research Center"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"113241","name":"Emory Pediatric Bioengineering Summer Program"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"357901":{"#nid":"357901","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Study shows how breast cancer cells break free to spread in the body","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMore than 90 percent of cancer-related deaths are caused by the spread of cancer cells from their primary tumor site to other areas of the body. A new study has identified how one important gene helps cancer cells break free from the primary tumor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA gene normally involved in the regulation of embryonic development can trigger the transition of cells into more mobile types that can spread without regard for the normal biological controls that restrict metastasis, the new study shows.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnalysis of downstream signaling pathways of this gene, called SNAIL, could be used to identify potential targets for scientists who are looking for ways to block or slow metastasis.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis gene relates directly to the mechanism that metastatic cancer cells use to move from one location to another,\u201d said Michelle Dawson, an assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. \u201cIf you have a cell that overexpresses SNAIL, then it can potentially be metastatic without having any environmental cues that normally trigger this response.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and was published December 9 in \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.fasebj.org\/content\/early\/2014\/12\/07\/fj.14-257345.abstract\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThe Journal\u003C\/em\u003E \u003Cem\u003Eof the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cem\u003E (FASEB).\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPreviously, Dawson and Daniel McGrail, the lead author on the new study, published a study showing \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.news.gatech.edu\/2014\/05\/08\/ovarian-cancer-cells-are-more-aggressive-soft-tissues\u0022\u003Ehow ovarian cancer cells respond to the mechanics of their bodily environment\u003C\/a\u003E. Their data showed that ovarian cancer cells are more aggressive on soft tissues \u2013 such as the fatty tissue that line the gut \u2013 due to the mechanical properties of this environment. The finding is contrary to what is seen with other malignant cancer cells that seem to prefer stiffer tissues.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the new study, the researchers show how overexpression of the gene SNAIL \u003Cem\u003Ein vitro \u003C\/em\u003Eallows breast cancer cells to operate independently of the mechanics of the environment inside the body. Growing evidence suggests that cancer cells metastasize by hijacking the process by which cells change their type from epithelial (cells that lack mobility) to mesenchymal (cells that can easily move). In the new study, the researchers examined the biophysical properties of breast cancer cells that had undergone this epithelial to mesenchymal transition (through overexpression of SNAIL).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research team measured the mechanical properties within the nucleus and cytosol of breast cancer cells, and then measured the surface traction forces and the motility of the cells on different substrates. They found that cells became much softer, which could help them spread throughout the body.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDawson\u2019s lab collaborated with the lab of \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.mcdonaldlab.biology.gatech.edu\/john_mcdonald.htm\u0022\u003EJohn McDonald\u003C\/a\u003E, a professor in the School of Biology at Georgia Tech, to use microarray analysis to examine changes in genes related to the observed biophysical changes. The researchers found that regardless of the substrate that the cells were grown on, cells that overexpress SNAIL look and act like aggressive cancer cells.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe found that when the cells express SNAIL, they have biophysical properties that are similar to what we see for an activated metastatic cancer cell,\u201d Dawson said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlthough SNAIL triggers a transformation that helps cells move from the primary tumor to the metastatic site, once the cell arrives at the metastatic site and that tumor starts to grow, SNAIL no longer helps cancer progress. Though becoming softer may help cells spread to the secondary site, they were no longer sturdy enough to form a secondary tumor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe cells need to transfer back to the epithelial state so they can withstand solid stress,\u201d Dawson said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers hopethat their unique blend of microarray analysis and characterization of physical changes in breast cancer cells undergoing metastasis could aid the search for ways to block or slow the spread of cancer.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe think this work has great potential to lead to a new approach to cancer therapeutics,\u201d said McDonald, who is also the director of the Integrated Cancer Research Center at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research is supported by the National Science Foundation\u003C\/em\u003E \u003Cem\u003Eunder award numbers 1032527, 1411304 and DGE-0965945. Any conclusions or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsoring agency.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: Daniel J. McGrail, et al., \u201cSNAIL-induced epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition produces concerted biophysical changes from altered cytoskeletal gene expression.\u201d (\u003Cem\u003EFASEB\u003C\/em\u003E, December 2014) \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.fasebj.org\/content\/early\/2014\/12\/07\/fj.14-257345.abstract\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www.fasebj.org\/content\/early\/2014\/12\/07\/fj.14-257345.abstract\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E 177 North Avenue\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u0026nbsp; USA\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/twitter.com\/GTResearchNews\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E@GTResearchNews\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brett Israel (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/twitter.com\/btiatl\u0022\u003E@btiatl\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brett Israel\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMore than 90 percent of cancer-related deaths are caused by the spread of cancer cells from their primary tumor site to other areas of the body. A new study has identified how one important gene helps cancer cells break free from the primary tumor.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A new study has identified how one important gene helps cancer cells break free from the primary tumor."}],"uid":"27902","created_gmt":"2014-12-17 13:05:15","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:41","author":"Brett Israel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-17T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-17T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"357871":{"id":"357871","type":"image","title":"MCF7 cells","body":null,"created":"1449245767","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:16:07","changed":"1475895093","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:33","alt":"MCF7 cells","file":{"fid":"202070","name":"mcf7_cells.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mcf7_cells.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mcf7_cells.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":181034,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/mcf7_cells.jpg?itok=9Te6Fpyh"}},"357831":{"id":"357831","type":"image","title":"Dawson and McGrail","body":null,"created":"1449245767","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:16:07","changed":"1475895093","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:33","alt":"Dawson and McGrail","file":{"fid":"202069","name":"14c10202-p23-004_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/14c10202-p23-004_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/14c10202-p23-004_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1771425,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/14c10202-p23-004_0.jpg?itok=7TVFaK0R"}}},"media_ids":["357871","357831"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"140","name":"Cancer Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"385","name":"cancer"},{"id":"112801","name":"Daniel mcgrail"},{"id":"10364","name":"Metastasis"},{"id":"10683","name":"Michelle Dawson"},{"id":"169692","name":"snail"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/btiatl\u0022\u003E@btiatl\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-385-1933\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"356451":{"#nid":"356451","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Prausnitz named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMark Prausnitz, a Regents\u2019 Professor in the School of Chemical \u0026amp; Biomolecular Engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). He joins an elite group of just 414 NAI Fellows worldwide.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe designation honors those who \u201chave demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPrausnitz was chosen for the honor based on his revolutionary work in drug delivery technologies, especially microneedles, which are tiny needles (about 400 to 700 microns long) that can be designed as skin patches that provide a simple, painless and inexpensive way to \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.news.gatech.edu\/2014\/02\/26\/self-administration-flu-vaccine-patch-may-be-feasible-study-suggests\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Eadminister influenza, polio, measles and other vaccines\u003C\/a\u003E. Microneedles also can be prepared for \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.chbe.gatech.edu\/hg\/item\/347131\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Emicroinjection into the eye \u003C\/a\u003Efor highly targeted therapies designed to increase drug effectiveness and safety.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur laboratory not only strives to advance scientific understanding and provide research training to students but also seeks to make inventions that can benefit society,\u201d Prausnitz said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPrausnitz will be honored at the NAI Fellows Luncheon and Induction Ceremony at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena on March 20. The event is part of the organization\u2019s annual conference.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPrausnitz also was \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.chbe.gatech.edu\/hg\/item\/309131\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Enamed to the list of the World\u2019s Most Influential Scientific Minds \u003C\/a\u003Ethis year.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Mark Prausnitz, a ChBE faculty member, has been elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). There are only 414 NAI Fellows worldwide."}],"uid":"28045","created_gmt":"2014-12-15 18:05:27","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:41","author":"Amy Schneider","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-16T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-16T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"72459":{"id":"72459","type":"image","title":"Mark Prausnitz and microneedle patch","body":null,"created":"1449177930","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:25:30","changed":"1475894658","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:18"}},"media_ids":["72459"],"groups":[{"id":"1240","name":"School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAmy Schneider\u003Cbr \/\u003ESchool of Chemical \u0026amp; Biomolecular Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E(404) 385-2299\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:news@chbe.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Enews@chbe.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"355441":{"#nid":"355441","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Molecular \u201chats\u201d allow in vivo activation of disguised signaling peptides","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen someone you know is wearing an unfamiliar hat, you might not recognize them. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are using just such a disguise to sneak biomaterials containing peptide signaling molecules into living animals.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen the disguised peptides are needed to launch biological processes, the researchers shine ultraviolet light onto the molecules through the skin, causing the \u201chat\u201d structures to come off. That allows cells and other molecules to recognize and interact with the peptides on the surface of the material.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis light-activated triggering technique has been demonstrated in animal models, and if it can be made to work in humans, it could help provide more precise timing for processes essential to regenerative medicine, cancer treatment, immunology, stem cell growth, and a range of other areas. The research represents the first time biological signals presented on biomaterials have been activated by light through the skin of a living animal, and could provide a broader platform technology for launching and controlling biological processes in living animals.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMany biological processes involve complex cascades of reactions in which the timing must be very tightly controlled,\u201d said Andr\u00e9s Garc\u00eda, a Regents Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech and principal investigator for the project. \u201cUntil now, we haven\u2019t had control over the sequence of events in the response to implanted materials. But with this technique, we can deliver a drug or particle with its signal in the \u2018off\u2019 position, then use light to turn the signal \u2018on\u2019 precisely when needed.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESupported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, the research was reported December 15, 2014, in the journal \u003Cem\u003ENature Materials\u003C\/em\u003E. It resulted from collaboration between scientists from Georgia Tech and the Max-Planck Institute in Germany through the Materials World Network Program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen biomaterials are introduced into the body, they normally stimulate an immune system response immediately. But the researchers used molecular cages like hats to cover binding sites on the peptides that are normally recognized by cell receptors, preventing recognition by the animal\u2019s cells. The cages were designed to detach and reveal the peptides when they encounter specific wavelengths of light.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDuring the five-year project, the research team \u2013 which included Ted Lee and Jose Garcia from Georgia Tech and Aranzazu del Campo from Max-Planck \u2013 modified peptides that normally trigger cell adhesion to present the molecular cage in order to disguise them. They showed that disguised peptides introduced into animal models on biomaterials could trigger cell adhesion, inflammation, fibrous encapsulation, and vascularization responses when activated by light. They also showed that the location and timing of activation could be controlled inside the animal by simply shining light through the skin.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe work involved numerous controls to ensure that the triggering observed by the researchers was actually done by exposure of the peptides \u2013 not the light, or the removal of the protective cage. The researchers also had to demonstrate that the \u201chats\u201d were stable enough that they didn\u2019t come off spontaneously, but only when the link between the molecular cage and the peptide was severed by the ultraviolet light.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmong the experiments was use of the peptide to attract cells that would attach themselves to the biomaterial. \u201cWe showed that if we left the hat on, there would be few cells attracted to the material, Garc\u00eda said. \u201cBut when we take the hat off, we recruited a lot of cells to the material. That shows we can activate the peptide, and that the activation has a biological consequence.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnother experiment showed that the timing of peptide activation could affect the quantity of fibrosis, an immune system response that builds a protective capsule around an implanted biomaterial. By delaying the exposure of the peptides until after the bulk of the inflammation reaction had taken place, the thickness of the fibrosis capsule was significantly reduced, allowing it to be better incorporated into the body.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn another experiment, the researchers showed that removing the hats could trigger the growth of blood vessels into the material. This vascularization is critical in regenerative medicine, but must take place at the right time to be successful.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe showed that if you keep the hat on, you get no vessel in-growth into the material,\u201d explained Garc\u00eda. \u201cBut if we turn on the light, we get growth of new blood vessels into the material. We can control what happens and when it happens by when we expose the protective cages to light.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the future, photochemists at the Max-Planck Institute will be working on alternative cages that would be triggered by different wavelengths of light. As much as 90 percent of the ultraviolet light used in the experiments was lost in passing through the skin of the animal model, limiting the use of that wavelength to locations immediately below the skin.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDevelopment of alternate \u201chats,\u201d the molecular cages that protect the peptides, could allow sequential activation by light, and light activation of molecules at locations deeper inside the body.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELight, heat, and electricity have been used to trigger biological processes in vitro, Garc\u00eda noted. Light is especially useful because it can be patterned to control processes spatially, which is also important because the processes must occur not only at the right time, but also the right place.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe technique we developed is a general strategy that we can apply to other biological signals to see if they have similar spatio-temporal effects,\u201d said Garc\u00eda. \u201cWe see this as a beginning. From here, there are many, many applications that we can follow.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to those already mentioned, the research involved Ankur Singh, Edward Phelps and Asha Shekaran from Georgia Tech, and Julieta Paez, Simone Weis and Zahid Shafiq from the Max-Planck Institute. Lee now works for Dexcom, a San Diego-based company that focuses on continuous glucose monitoring systems for use by people with diabetes, and Singh is currently an assistant professor at Cornell University.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThe research was supported by the Materials World Network Program of the National Science Foundation under grants DFG AOBJ 569628 and NSF DMR-0909002, by the National Institutes of Health under grants R01-AR062368 and R01-AR062920, and by the NIH Cell and Tissue NIH Biotechnology Training Grant T32-GM008433. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: Lee, Ted, et al., \u201cLight-triggered in vivo Activation of Adhesive Peptides Regulates Cell Adhesion, Inflammation and Vascularization of Biomaterials,\u201d Nature Materials 2014.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u0026nbsp; USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or Brett Israel (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen someone you know is wearing an unfamiliar hat, you might not recognize them. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are using just such a disguise to sneak biomaterials containing peptide signaling molecules into living animals.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Using molecular \u0022hats,\u0022 researchers have developed a way to sneak biomaterials containing the signaling molecules into living animals."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2014-12-13 12:31:48","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:41","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-15T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-15T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"355421":{"id":"355421","type":"image","title":"Light-activated peptide","body":null,"created":"1449245743","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:43","changed":"1475895087","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:27","alt":"Light-activated peptide","file":{"fid":"201337","name":"light-activated_peptide.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/light-activated_peptide_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/light-activated_peptide_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":3247226,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/light-activated_peptide_0.jpg?itok=kQuSQ1aF"}},"355431":{"id":"355431","type":"image","title":"Light-activated peptide Garcia","body":null,"created":"1449245743","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:43","changed":"1475895087","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:27","alt":"Light-activated peptide Garcia","file":{"fid":"201338","name":"andres_garcia1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/andres_garcia1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/andres_garcia1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2669574,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/andres_garcia1_0.jpg?itok=Qwe7MI6R"}}},"media_ids":["355421","355431"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"140","name":"Cancer Research"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"539","name":"Andres Garcia"},{"id":"112271","name":"light-activated"},{"id":"112281","name":"molecular cages"},{"id":"112291","name":"molecular hats"},{"id":"1113","name":"peptide"},{"id":"170997","name":"signalling"},{"id":"2378","name":"Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"355061":{"#nid":"355061","#data":{"type":"news","title":"BME Team Takes Capstone Crown","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETwice every year, senior engineering students at the Georgia Institute of Technology come together for a serious, grown-up version of show-and-tell called the Capstone Design Expo. It\u2019s a judged showcase of innovative solutions, a public unveiling of prototype products designed to address real-world problems. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis year\u2019s fall edition (held December 4 at McCamish Pavilion) featured 106 teams from senior design courses offered across the engineering spectrum at Georgia Tech, including mechanical engineering (ME), electrical and computer engineering (ECE), industrial and systems engineering (ISyE), and industrial design. But it was a team from the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) that took the top prize as overall winner of the Capstone Design Expo.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWinning this is an incredible honor. It\u2019s humbling, the crowning achievement of my experience at BME and Georgia Tech, independent of winning. It was just a tremendous experience,\u201d says Andy Kolpitcke, lead designer of the winning team, OculoSeal, which included fellow BME seniors Jackie Borinski, Mohamad Ali Najia, and Drew Padilla. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked as a group before in some other BME classes and we agreed that we wanted to work in senior design together.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThey designed and created the OculoSTAPLE device, to help in the treatment of ptosis (severely drooping of the upper eyelid), earning the top overall prize of $3,000. It was the highlight of a fruitful evening for BME. A group called Stroke of Genius, which included two BME seniors (Brian Leach and Josh Newton), won the top prize ($1,000) for interdisciplinary teams with their golf cart for children with mobility issues. Capstone winners also were selected from each engineering school or department, and a team called BioDeliver won the BME prize (also $1,000).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca class=\u0022relatedLinks\u0022 href=\u0022http:\/\/www.capstone.gatech.edu\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ECapstone Design\u003C\/a\u003E, a required semester-long course for all Georgia Tech engineering students, puts teams of seniors together with advisors (who often come from a research or industry environment) to design and build and test prototypes that address a broad range of challenges.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt starts in August when we receive a sheet of projects that have been thought up by clinicians and a lot of other people, a wide range of things,\u201d Kolpitcke says. \u201cOur team was looking for something that satisfied an unmet clinical need, that would give us experience working with surgeons and observing surgeries, while working on our mechanical design skills.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat\u2019s how his team linked up with their project sponsor, Dr. Denise Kim, a surgeon at Emory University Hospital who was looking for a better way to repair ptosis. \u201cSo we designed a device to meet those clinical needs and change the way a surgeon can perform that procedure,\u201d says Najia, a former Petit Undergraduate Research Scholar. \u201cThis was a pressing issue to address, because this is not just a cosmetic procedure. This is a functional issue, especially in the elderly population, who might experience obstruction of vision, which can lead to increased rate of fall-related injuries.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOculoSeal\u2019s team members met with Dr. Kim, and witnessed two surgeries over the course of the semester, and what they saw was a difficult, time-consuming procedure that can be cosmetically risky for patients. So they created the OculoSTAPLE device, which simultaneously resects and seals the muscle responsible for elevating the upper eyelid, shortening the time it takes to perform the surgery while mitigating the risk. OculoSTAPLE also has potential applications for aparoscopic, gastrointestinal and biopsy procedures.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMeanwhile, the BioDeliver team of Victoria Geisler, Tarrah Herrmann, Esteban Ongini and Steven Touchton (advissponsored by Dr. Ramsey Kinney at Emory), were recognized for developing a biologic delivery system intended to deliver, \u201cgrowth factors and nutrients that the body needs to heal itself, to the orthopedic injury site during surgery,\u201d according to Geisler, who plans to work in research and development in industry following her graduation this month. \u201cThe beauty of our device is, it\u2019s simple and we\u2019re not trying to convince the surgeon to change his procedure, only improving his patients\u2019 ability to heal and their speed of recovery.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe golf cart designed by the interdisciplinary Stroke of Genius teammates answers a challenge from their sponsors, the Bobby Jones Foundation, Chiari \u0026amp; Syringomyelia Foundation and cart manufacturer E-Z-GO. They want to develop a golf cart that opens the game up to younger players with mobility challenges.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe learned about the idea through an email over the summer, a blast to all students,\u201d says Newton, recalling how he and Leach got involved in the multifaceted project. \u201cBasically, the email asked, \u2018are you interested in sports, in golf in particular, and in working with children who have disabilities?\u2019 Sports. Golf. Kids with disabilities. Those were the key words that caught our attention.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENewton and Leach were part of an all-star interdisciplinary team that included Tre\u2019vorski Garrett, Katilin Kates and Douglas Wisser from ME, and Jeffrey Pettyjohn from ECE. The team met with young wheelchair athletes, asked what they wanted and needed in such a device. The student engineers also considered issues such as material selection, safety factors and swing positioning. \u201cThe responses we got were so important,\u201d Newton says. \u201cWhat it comes down to is, they want to play with Mom and Dad, and they want the cart to be so cool that everybody would want to use it, including their able-bodied friends.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe team drew up 20 to 25 different design concepts until before deciding on a two-person cart that was both functional and cool enough to meet the needs of a discerning potential clientele. In the end, besides being a required project that received the accolades of Capstone Expo judges (faculty, industry professionals, etc.), the experience was also a labor of love for Newton and Leach. \u201cWe\u2019re both avid golfers,\u201d Newton says. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECapstone Design gives students a chance to utilize the engineering design process to create something tangible in response to real-world, open-ended problems. Teams have a $500 budget to develop their prototypes, with thoughts of eventual commercialization. The program is a foundational piece in a growing emphasis on entrepreneurship education at BME and Georgia Tech. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThat\u2019s a big focus for us now, to create an avenue to pursue these kinds of projects further, no matter where they come from, the classroom or outside the classroom,\u201d says James Rains, director of the BME Capstone Design program.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe real value of the Expo may be the exposure each of these teams receive, and the experience of meeting with industry leaders, clinicians, and the other teams. \u201cThe Expo lets us show off our product and move forward with it toward commercialization,\u201d says Najia. \u201cThat\u2019s the real benefit, seeing the other teams and their concepts, talking with people from a diverse array of backgrounds.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe noisy arena was filled with representatives from industry, people engaged in the development of medical devices, professors, volunteers, families, not unlike a festival atmosphere. It was show time: the culmination of the undergraduate experience for some, like Najia and Geisler and Newton, who are graduating this month; or a revelatory peak moment for others, like Kolpitcke, who acknowledges that developing a cutting-edge biomedical solution in the span of a semester was not easy.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI had a limited amount of time to walk around and see all the other stuff people worked on, and it was a great experience,\u201d says Kolpitcke, who graduates in the spring. \u201cThe golf cart, the BioDeliver device \u2013 to see the result of all of the hard work that all of the students put in was inspiring, and something you don\u2019t see on a day to day basis here because sometimes, Tech can be demanding and demoralizing. But this was the \u2018Aha Moment\u2019 for me, when I realized how special this was. Any time you take on a challenge like the one we took on, there is going to be conflict. As a team, we were able to work through the conflicts and the issues, divide up our roles and leverage our skills to come up with a solution, and even if we hadn\u2019t won the overall prize, that\u2019s something we can be proud of.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EContact:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Senior design teams from Coulter Department win big in Fall Expo"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESenior design teams from Coulter Department win big in Fall Expo\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Senior design teams from Coulter Department win big in Fall Expo"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2014-12-11 15:53:51","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:41","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-11T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-11T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"355031":{"id":"355031","type":"image","title":"OculoSeal","body":null,"created":"1449245743","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:43","changed":"1475894494","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:41:34","alt":"OculoSeal","file":{"fid":"202037","name":"oculoseal2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/oculoseal2.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/oculoseal2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2418314,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/oculoseal2.jpg?itok=FxVeVL-7"}},"355041":{"id":"355041","type":"image","title":"BioDeliver","body":null,"created":"1449245743","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:43","changed":"1475895087","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:27","alt":"BioDeliver","file":{"fid":"202038","name":"biodeliver.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/biodeliver.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/biodeliver.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2250239,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/biodeliver.jpg?itok=qTPJ1eQG"}},"355051":{"id":"355051","type":"image","title":"StrokeGenius","body":null,"created":"1449245743","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:43","changed":"1475895087","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:27","alt":"StrokeGenius","file":{"fid":"201327","name":"strokeofgenius.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/strokeofgenius_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/strokeofgenius_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2563723,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/strokeofgenius_0.jpg?itok=LZmilXRX"}}},"media_ids":["355031","355041","355051"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/coe.gatech.edu\/news\/health-projects-shine-fall-capstone-expo","title":"Health Projects Shine at Capstone Expo"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.news.gatech.edu\/features\/caps-innovation-2014","title":"Caps off to Innovation"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"32061","name":"capstone design expo"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"353111":{"#nid":"353111","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Call for BioEngineering Award Nominations","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ENow accepting nominations for the annual Bioengineering Awards at Georgia Tech - Deadline January 31, 2015\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003EDETAILS\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EOutstanding BioE Student Paper\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EAll BioE students are eligible - \u003Cem\u003EMust be currently enrolled\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E$750 cash and plaque award\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ENominated by Advisor - nominations must include a letter of support from advisor discussing impact and significance of the work\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EElectronic copy of paper must accompany nomination\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPaper must be published, in press or accepted in the time frame January 1 - December 31, 2014\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EOutstanding BioE PhD Thesis\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EAll BioE students are eligible - \u003Cem\u003EDo not have to be currently enrolled\u003C\/em\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E$750 cash and plaque award\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ENominated by Advisor\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ENominations must include a letter of support from advisor\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EElectronic copy of Ph.D. thesis must accompany nomination\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EThesis Certificate of Completion form must be signed by ALL committee members in the time frame January 1 - December 31, 2014\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EOutstanding BioE Advisor\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EAll BioE Program Faculty are eligible\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E$500 discretionary funds and plaque\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ENominated by graduate student(s) \u2013 Submit a letter explaining why you are nominating a faculty member.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EChristopher Ruffin Leadership Award\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Student Leadership Award was established to honor the memory of Christopher Ruffin and his exceptional contributions to the BioE Program. Chris began working at GT in 1994 and joined the bioengineering community in April 2001. As Academic Advisor in the BioE Program, Chris worked tirelessly to support the BioE students and faculty.\u0026nbsp; This award recognizes a current graduate student for his or her superior contributions to the BioEngineering Program. The Leadership Award will be awarded to a student whose influence, ideals and activities throughout his\/her time in the BioEngineering Program has left a long lasting and positive impression on the institution and has raised the standard of excellence for future BioEngineering classes. Examples of strong leadership qualities include activities such as peer mentoring, teaching, and service.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENominations should be submitted to \u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.paige@bioengineering.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ELaura Paige\u003C\/a\u003E with the BioE program. Nominations for the Outstanding Awards will be reviewed by the BioE Faculty Advisory Committee and nominations for the Ruffin Leadership Award will be reviewed by a BGA committee. Winners will be announced at the BioE Reception on March 27, 2015 (Recruitment Day).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Submission deadline January 31, 2015"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ECall for BioEngineering Awards Nominations - Deadline Jan 31, 2015\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Submission deadline January 31, 2015"}],"uid":"27349","created_gmt":"2014-12-09 10:46:17","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:47","author":"Floyd Wood","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-09T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-09T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"353211":{"id":"353211","type":"image","title":"Interdisciplinary Bioengineering Graduate Program at Georgia Tech","body":null,"created":"1449245728","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:28","changed":"1475895080","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:20","alt":"Interdisciplinary Bioengineering Graduate Program at Georgia Tech","file":{"fid":"201186","name":"bioe_logo_-_square.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/bioe_logo_-_square_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/bioe_logo_-_square_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":33003,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/bioe_logo_-_square_0.png?itok=5kwBt8Rj"}}},"media_ids":["353211"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/bioengineering.gatech.edu\/","title":"BIOE program"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"140","name":"Cancer Research"},{"id":"141","name":"Chemistry and Chemical Engineering"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"149","name":"Nanotechnology and Nanoscience"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.paige@bioengineering.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ELaura Paige\u003C\/a\u003E - Academic Advisor II\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["laura.paige@bioengineering.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"350901":{"#nid":"350901","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Tech4Good, Capstone Showcase Student Innovation","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech is one of the country\u2019s top engineering schools for many reasons, one of which is its ability to address global issues and produce innovations through student showcases.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETwo of Tech\u2019s major academic showcases take place this week. The second annual \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.calendar.gatech.edu\/event\/347051\u0022\u003ETech4Good Poster Showcase\u003C\/a\u003E and the twice-yearly \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/expo.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ECapstone Design Expo\u003C\/a\u003E both help students gain real world experience and promote creativity in designing their own products for market.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETech4Good lets students from different areas of study work on projects that benefit nonprofit organizations and local communities.\u0026nbsp;It aims to build on current service learning activities on campus and promote social entrepreneurship and civic engagement in Tech\u0027s curriculum.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Capstone Design Expo focuses on mechanical, biomedical, electrical and computer, and industrial and systems engineering projects, as well as industrial design projects. Students in these majors take the Capstone Senior Design course and develop innovative ideas that solve an industry-sponsored challenge, help researchers develop technology, or form the basis for their own startup. Both events allow students to meet professionals from their field of study who provide helpful criticism and potential job and investment offers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFrom helping nonprofit companies to competing for cash prizes and job offers, each expo shows Tech\u2019s student talent. Tech4Good will take place Wednesday, Dec. 3, from 4 \u2013 6 p.m. on the first floor of Clough Commons. The Capstone Design Expo will be held Thursday, Dec. 4, from 5:30 \u2013 8:30 p.m. at McCamish Pavilion. Both events are free and open to the public.\u003C\/p\u003E\u0026nbsp;","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDecember welcomes two of Tech\u0027s major student showcases.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"December welcomes two of Tech\u0027s major student showcases."}],"uid":"28128","created_gmt":"2014-12-02 11:32:28","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:37","author":"Nihit Tiwari","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-02T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-02T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"351071":{"id":"351071","type":"image","title":"Capstone Design Expo","body":null,"created":"1449245714","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:14","changed":"1475895020","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:20","alt":"Capstone Design Expo","file":{"fid":"201109","name":"11p1000-p28-015.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11p1000-p28-015_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11p1000-p28-015_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":3958190,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/11p1000-p28-015_0.jpg?itok=pj_LTqOn"}},"351081":{"id":"351081","type":"image","title":"Tech4Good","body":null,"created":"1449245714","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:14","changed":"1475895078","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:18","alt":"Tech4Good","file":{"fid":"201110","name":"11p1000-p28-019.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11p1000-p28-019_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11p1000-p28-019_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2798113,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/11p1000-p28-019_0.jpg?itok=3bvUHZQt"}}},"media_ids":["351071","351081"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/expo.gatech.edu\/","title":"Capstone Design Expo"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"42901","name":"Community"},{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"42921","name":"Exhibitions"},{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"},{"id":"133","name":"Special Events and Guest Speakers"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"7805","name":"c4g"},{"id":"7806","name":"computing for good"},{"id":"167890","name":"service learning"},{"id":"167488","name":"strategic plan"},{"id":"81001","name":"tech4good"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:stucomm@gatech.edu\u0022\u003ENihit Tiwari\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EInstitute Communications\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["stucomm@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"350981":{"#nid":"350981","#data":{"type":"news","title":"The Buzz on Bioscience","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp class=\u0022intro-text\u0022\u003EBiomedical engineering at Georgia Tech has risen from a handful of projects to national prominence in just two decades. Today, more than half of all incoming freshman pursue a degree in biomedical engineering, biochemistry, or biology. These students want to both understand living systems and make things that improve people\u2019s lives.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENow, more than ever, those opportunities are plentiful in biosciences at Georgia Tech, where researchers are creating medical devices for children, understanding how diseases occur, improving vaccines, and building better biomaterials for drug delivery. Georgia Tech\u2019s unique blend of engineering, biology, chemistry, and computing \u2014 along with partnerships with world-class medical facilities in Atlanta, such as Emory University and Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta \u2014 has transformed the Institute\u2019s campus into a magnet for bio-minded scientists.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat we bring to the table is a new perspective in the biological sciences that is data driven, that is quantitative, that focuses on devices and techniques and on being unafraid to ask fundamental questions,\u201d said Ravi Bellamkonda, the chair and professor of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. \u201cIt\u2019s a different approach to biology as an engineer.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe rise of biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech has created a ripple effect across the biosciences on campus. Biologists studying genetics, ecology, and personalized medicine are collaborating with engineers to solve challenging medical problems. The bio quad, home to the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB); the U.A. Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Building; the Ford Environmental Science and Technology (ES\u0026amp;T) Building; and the Molecular Science and Engineering (M) Building, already forms a hub of interdisciplinary research. Soon, other collaboration-oriented buildings will be added, solidifying the Institute\u2019s commitment to developing its bioscience portfolio, which touches everything from mechanical engineering, to electrical engineering, to materials science and engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBioscience the Georgia Tech way has attracted high-profile faculty, such as M.G. Finn, pioneer of click chemistry and rumored Nobel Prize candidate. Also flocking to campus are fresh young minds, such as Susan N. Thomas, an assistant professor in the new field of immunoengineering. These researchers and others, who might not have come to Georgia Tech even 10 years ago, say that the Institute is already making a dent in some of the world\u2019s biggest medical challenges, and is poised to do more. Nascent fields of research, such as immunoengineering, systems biology, pediatric bioengineering, chemical biology, and biomanufacturing, are emerging strengths on campus, positioning Georgia Tech to help define what these fields become. Georgia Tech is already recognized as a leader in regenerative medicine, cardiovascular engineering, neuroengineering, and mechanobiology.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cConsidering what had been done in the past 10 years, I thought the next 10 years at Georgia Tech would be pretty exciting,\u201d said Finn, the interim chair and professor of the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. \u201cVery few places in the world \u2014 if anywhere \u2014 will embed fundamental science in with applications science and technology better than we do here.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERead more\u0026nbsp;of this article from Georgia Tech\u0027s\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.rh.gatech.edu\/features\/buzz-bioscience\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EResearch Horizons\u003C\/em\u003E\u0026nbsp;magazine\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The biosciences are big at Georgia Tech. Researchers discuss what\u2019s happening and how they see the future."}],"uid":"27902","created_gmt":"2014-12-02 12:30:07","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:37","author":"Brett Israel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-02T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-02T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"351001":{"id":"351001","type":"image","title":"Bioscience faces","body":null,"created":"1449245714","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:14","changed":"1475895078","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:18","alt":"Bioscience faces","file":{"fid":"201961","name":"bioscience_teaser.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/bioscience_teaser.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/bioscience_teaser.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":62236,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/bioscience_teaser.jpg?itok=GCoQz-eS"}}},"media_ids":["351001"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"140","name":"Cancer Research"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"}],"keywords":[{"id":"249","name":"Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"762","name":"Bioscience"},{"id":"1503","name":"Biotechnology"},{"id":"93761","name":"Krish Roy"},{"id":"10832","name":"Manu Platt"},{"id":"5084","name":"Melissa Kemp"},{"id":"111331","name":"mg finn"},{"id":"2471","name":"Ravi Bellamkonda"},{"id":"169542","name":"Susan Thomas"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"},{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-491-6792\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/btiatl\u0022\u003E@btiatl\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"350601":{"#nid":"350601","#data":{"type":"news","title":"UCB-Georgia Tech Day","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIf there was a recurring theme at the first UCB-Georgia Tech Day, it was this bit of common sense: You rarely end up where you start in a career. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat essential piece of career wisdom kept coming up during the November 7th\u0026nbsp; event, when about 70 students from the Georgia Institute of Technology got an insider\u2019s view of a global biopharmaceutical company at the North America Operations headquarters of UCB in Smyrna.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cYou really don\u2019t wind up where you first started,\u201d says Bruce Lavin, vice president of Medical Affairs for UCB, North America. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe experience of his UCB colleague, Deb Hogerman, serves as a fitting example. Thirty years ago, Hogerman never could have imagined that she would become the North America vice president for Regulatory Affairs for a major pharmaceutical company. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI was schlepping around vats of nutrient media, growing E. coli for vaccine research, and I remember thinking, \u2018I went to college for this?\u2019 I mean, it\u2019s an important job, but it\u2019s not what I wanted to do with my career,\u201d Hogerman tells an audience of Georgia Tech students. \u201cWhen I got into this industry 30 years ago, \u2018regulatory affairs\u2019 wasn\u2019t even considered a career path. But it has grown by leaps and bounds since then.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERegulatory Affairs was just one of four specific focus sessions that students were able to take advantage of at UCB-Georgia Tech Day. Lavin led the session on \u2018medical affairs,\u2019 and there were also informative sessions focused on \u2018supply chain,\u2019 as well as \u2018market access and pricing.\u2019 There was also a session, delivered live from the UK by Neil Weir, UCB\u2019s senior vice president for research, on drug development, and a panel discussion featuring a group of UCB executives. The idea was to give Georgia Tech students an unprecedented snapshot of an industry setting.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019ve never done anything like this before,\u201d says Cynthia Sundell, director of life science industry collaborations for the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Tech. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to shed some light on the inner workings of a pharmaceutical company and perhaps provide some guidance in terms of potential careers in the industry. Our students are the biotech workforce of the future. They\u2019re the main reason companies come to us.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe wide-angled approach played well with the students who attended. According to Tom Bongiorno, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in bioengineering, \u201cGeorgia Tech seminars often give students the opportunity to learn about one particular aspect of the pharmaceutical industry, but the UCB visit enabled us to hear a bit about each aspect of the pipeline, from drug discovery to regulatory clearance and marketing, in one day.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EUCB-Georgia Tech Day was the result of a concentrated effort to bring the two entities closer together. Jeff Wren, UCB\u2019s president of the North America Region, has made it clear that he\u2019d like to build a strong relationship with Georgia Tech.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re exploring collaborative research options and thinking of other ways to work closely with Georgia Tech,\u201d Wren says. Plans are in the works, for example, to develop an internship program at UCB, which does about $4.2 billion in annual sales globally (3.4 billion euros), impacting the lives of more than 700,000 patients. \u201cWe prefer to think of our success in terms of the number of patients we serve, and we know every single one of their names.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EUCB has carved out a significant niche in the industry, serving patients by developing and marketing therapeutics in two main focus areas \u2013 central nervous system and immunology. The company, which operates under the banner, \u201cInspired by patients. Driven by science,\u201d also spends more of its revenues on research and development, on a percentage basis, than almost every other pharmaceutical company \u2013 25 to 27 percent, versus an industry average of about 17 percent.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cHardly any other pharmaceutical company in the world invests more in research and development than UCB does,\u201d Wren says. \u201cOne of our primary roles as a pharmaceutical company is delivering phenomenal products to patients, and we can\u2019t do that if we invest any less. So that\u2019s where we spend our time and effort.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhich means as the company transforms \u2013 and it will, Wren says \u2013 the career opportunities in areas requiring advanced degrees will evolve also.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI think the opportunities will be endless in the pharmaceutical industry as we move forward,\u201d Lavin says. \u201cHere we are, a biopharma organization responsible for developing healthcare strategies for patients, based on their unmet needs. How do we respond to those needs? How do we become more innovative? How do we offer better options and improve healthcare? How do we understand how to marry new technology with clinical science? I think the answers are in the students here today.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Students get close-up view of biopharmaceutical powerhouse"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EStudents get close-up view of biopharmaceutical powerhouse\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Students get close-up view of biopharmaceutical powerhouse"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2014-12-01 11:25:05","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:37","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-01T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-01T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"350581":{"id":"350581","type":"image","title":"Jeff Wren","body":null,"created":"1449245702","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:02","changed":"1475895078","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:18","alt":"Jeff Wren","file":{"fid":"201954","name":"ucb-jeff.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ucb-jeff.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ucb-jeff.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1934421,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ucb-jeff.jpg?itok=-wBHAXmP"}},"350591":{"id":"350591","type":"image","title":"Bruce Cindi Student","body":null,"created":"1449245702","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:02","changed":"1478871456","gmt_changed":"2016-11-11 13:37:36","alt":"","file":{"fid":"201955","name":"bruce_cindi_student.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/bruce_cindi_student.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/bruce_cindi_student.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":850757,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/bruce_cindi_student.jpg?itok=wcWT-iUs"}}},"media_ids":["350581","350591"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.ucb.com\/","title":"UCB website"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"139","name":"Business"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"350551":{"#nid":"350551","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Patel Wins Young Investigator Award","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESome day, Yogi Patel expects to enjoy the best of both worlds \u2013 starting a successful company while enjoying a career in academia. Apparently, \u2018some day\u2019 may not be very far off for Patel, a third-year Ph.D. student in the Wallace H. Coulter Department for Biomedical Engineering, who recently won a Young Investigator Award at the IEEE BRAIN Grand Challenges Conference.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe mid-November conference, put on by the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), preceded the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The EMBS meeting focused on engineering challenges related to President Obama\u2019s BRAIN (for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnother goal of the conference was to recognize outstanding young investigators working on innovative research. There were 13 BRAIN Grand Challenge Young Investigator Award winners, students from a range of institutions, including Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., and one from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Patel, who works in the lab of Robert Butera (professor of electrical and computer engineering who holds a joint appointment in the Coulter Department). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cA lot of the work in our lab is based on peripheral nerve stimulation. Nerves are like cables that let us interact with the world and a lot of our work is focused on answering questions such as, how do you selectively stimulate nerves using electricity, how do you selectively block them using electricity, and what information can we read from them,\u201d says Patel, whose research involves the incorporation of micro-needle technology from Atlanta-based Axion BioSystems with standard nerve cuff electrode technology. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re trying to get close to the source of the signal, which is inside the nerve,\u201d he adds. \u201cThe use of micro-needles enables a safe and effective way of recording neural activity from inside the nerve, as opposed to the outside. This may not be a huge leap forward, but it is an incremental leap that helps gain new insights on the types of activity underlying specific neural circuits.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe idea, essentially, is to improve our ability to read and write to the brain through peripheral nerves. Patel and his fellow researchers are developing technology for better, more precise tools when it comes to recording from the nervous system. \u201cWe\u2019re sort of listening in with higher resolution and picking up things we couldn\u2019t pick up before,\u201d says Patel, who also spends time as a mentor in the Petit Scholar program. \u201cThe idea is to provide better ways to get better measurements.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt\u2019s work that he expects will be published early next year and work that will be commercialized, which gets back to the two worlds Patel wants to inhabit \u2013 entrepreneur businessman and academic researcher.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI really want to work at that interface of science and industry \u2013 because both worlds are good at their respective things,\u201d he says. \u201cI think that would provide a better way to identify and understand what the rest of the world around us needs.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"BioE grad student\u2019s innovative research grabs honors at national conference"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBioE grad student\u2019s innovative research grabs honors at national conference\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"BioE grad student\u2019s innovative research grabs honors at national conference"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2014-12-01 11:02:13","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:37","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-01T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-01T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"350401":{"id":"350401","type":"image","title":"Yogi Patel","body":null,"created":"1449245702","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:02","changed":"1475895075","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:15","alt":"Yogi Patel","file":{"fid":"201083","name":"yogi.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/yogi_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/yogi_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2890659,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/yogi_0.jpg?itok=T4ZxG3xP"}}},"media_ids":["350401"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"111361","name":"BRAIN initiative"},{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"349211":{"#nid":"349211","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Tiny Needles Offer Potential New Treatment for Two Major Eye Diseases","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENeedles almost too small to be seen with the unaided eye could be the basis for new treatment options for two of the world\u2019s leading eye diseases: glaucoma and corneal neovascularization.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe microneedles, ranging in length from 400 to 700 microns, could provide a new way to deliver drugs to specific areas within the eye relevant to these diseases. By targeting the drugs only to specific parts of the eye instead of the entire eye, researchers hope to increase effectiveness, limit side effects and reduce the amount of drug needed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor glaucoma, which affects about 2.2 million people in the United States and is the second-leading cause of blindness worldwide, the goal is to develop time-release drugs that could replace daily administration of eye drops. A painless microneedle injection made once every three to six months \u2013 potentially during regular office visits \u2013 could improve treatment outcomes by providing consistent dosages and overcoming patient compliance issues.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the second disease, corneal neovascularization, corneal injury results in the growth of unwanted blood vessels that impair vision. To treat it, the researchers developed solid microneedles for delivering a dry drug compound that stops the vessel growth.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe power of microneedles for treating eye conditions is the ability to target delivery of the drug within the eye,\u201d said Mark Prausnitz, a Regents\u2019 professor in the School of Chemical \u0026amp; Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. \u201cWe are developing different microneedle-based systems that can put the drug precisely into the part of the eye where it\u2019s needed. In many cases, we hope to couple that delivery with a controlled-release formulation that would allow one application to treat a condition for weeks or months.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.chbe.gatech.edu\/hg\/item\/347131\u0022\u003ETo read more, follow this link.\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe microneedles, ranging in length from 400 to 700 microns, could provide a new way to deliver drugs to specific areas within the eye relevant to these diseases. By targeting the drugs only to specific parts of the eye instead of the entire eye, researchers hope to increase effectiveness, limit side effects and reduce the amount of drug needed.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Needles almost too small to be seen with the unaided eye could be the basis for new treatment options for two of the world\u2019s leading eye diseases: glaucoma and corneal neovascularization."}],"uid":"27863","created_gmt":"2014-11-26 09:22:54","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:37","author":"Christa Ernst","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-26T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-26T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"349201":{"id":"349201","type":"image","title":"Eye Microneedle","body":null,"created":"1449245696","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:56","changed":"1475895073","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:13","alt":"Eye Microneedle","file":{"fid":"201950","name":"microneedle_for_eyes.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microneedle_for_eyes.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/microneedle_for_eyes.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2404049,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/microneedle_for_eyes.jpg?itok=bETewPXB"}}},"media_ids":["349201"],"groups":[{"id":"1271","name":"NanoTECH"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"149","name":"Nanotechnology and Nanoscience"}],"keywords":[{"id":"38581","name":"eye disease"},{"id":"12701","name":"Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology"},{"id":"495","name":"Mark Prausnitz"},{"id":"494","name":"Microneedle"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39451","name":"Electronics and Nanotechnology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EStory by John Toon. Courtesy of Research News at Georgia Institute of Technology.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"348981":{"#nid":"348981","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Co-robots Team Up with Humans","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp class=\u0022intro-text\u0022\u003ECharlie Kemp is giving robots common sense. And that\u2019s good news for Californian Henry Evans.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETen years ago, Evans suffered a stroke that left him with limited mobility. Over the past two years, he\u2019s been working with Kemp, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, to develop and test robots that help him shave, adjust a blanket when he\u2019s cold, and even scratch an annoying itch.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe did things with the robots that I never could have imagined,\u201d said Evans, who contacted Kemp after seeing him on a CNN broadcast about health care robots.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERobots working directly with people \u2013 even helping them shave \u2013 is both challenging and unusual. Most robots today work in manufacturing facilities where, for safety reasons, they stay far away from humans. But Georgia Tech robotics researchers believe people and robots can accomplish much more by working together \u2013 as long as the robots have common sense to know, for instance, how much force humans apply when shaving.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cA major challenge for health care robots is that they lack so much of the knowledge and experience that people take for granted,\u201d said Kemp. \u201cTo us, it\u2019s just common sense that everybody has; for robots, it\u2019s a serious impediment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGiving robots common sense is just one milestone on the path to the kinds of collaboration that will be required to meet the needs of a growing population of older persons. Beyond personal care, the benefits of co-robotics are many. To produce better products more efficiently, manufacturing robots will need to team up with humans, each contributing unique abilities. And in defense and homeland security, robots will increasingly have to take on the dangerous jobs, leveraging people\u2019s skills while protecting them from harm.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.rh.gatech.edu\/features\/hi-how-can-i-help-you\u0022\u003ERead more\u003C\/a\u003E of this article from Georgia Tech\u0027s \u003Cem\u003EResearch Horizons\u003C\/em\u003E magazine.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAt Georgia Tech, robots are teaming up with humans to perform tasks in manufacturing, health care, national defense and other areas.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Robots are teaming up with humans to perform tasks in manufacturing, health care, national defense and other areas."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2014-11-25 12:12:45","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:34","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-25T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-25T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"348951":{"id":"348951","type":"image","title":"Swarm robotics - Magnus Egerstedt","body":null,"created":"1449245682","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:42","changed":"1475895073","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:13","alt":"Swarm robotics - Magnus Egerstedt","file":{"fid":"201005","name":"swarm-robots-cover.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/swarm-robots-cover_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/swarm-robots-cover_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1494043,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/swarm-robots-cover_0.jpg?itok=T-t8y5hu"}},"348961":{"id":"348961","type":"image","title":"Healthcare robotics - Charlie Kemp","body":null,"created":"1449245682","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:42","changed":"1475895073","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:13","alt":"Healthcare robotics - Charlie Kemp","file":{"fid":"201006","name":"healthcare-robotics.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/healthcare-robotics_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/healthcare-robotics_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1925398,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/healthcare-robotics_0.jpg?itok=P2BLQPBa"}},"348971":{"id":"348971","type":"image","title":"Tutoring robots - Ayanna Howard","body":null,"created":"1449245682","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:42","changed":"1475895073","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:13","alt":"Tutoring robots - Ayanna Howard","file":{"fid":"201007","name":"tutoring-robots-ayanna-howard.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tutoring-robots-ayanna-howard_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tutoring-robots-ayanna-howard_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1963414,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tutoring-robots-ayanna-howard_0.jpg?itok=a6LmSaY2"}}},"media_ids":["348951","348961","348971"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"14647","name":"healthcare robots"},{"id":"78271","name":"IRIM"},{"id":"667","name":"robotics"},{"id":"2352","name":"robots"},{"id":"110851","name":"tutoring robots"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39521","name":"Robotics"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"348211":{"#nid":"348211","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Coulter Partnership Blasts Off","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA new version of the Coulter Translational Partnership (CTP) at Emory and the Georgia Institute of Technology is putting an even greater emphasis on the \u201ctranslational\u201d part of its name. That was the basic message delivered by Rachael Hagan, director of the CTP, at an open-house re-introduction of the program last Tuesday.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe program, funded by the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, which historically has awarded grants to help move the most promising technologies into commercial development and clinical practice, will continue to do so, but the focus now will be on ideas that are closest to leaving the bench and reaching the bedside.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI\u2019ve had a Coulter grant in the past, and it is vastly different now than what it was before,\u201d says Tom Barker, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), an Emory\/Georgia Tech collaborative endeavor that was the first institution to receive the Coulter Translational Partnership Award, back in 2000. \u201cWe need to reset our mindset about the program. This award is not about research grants. It\u2019s more like a pre-venture fund. And they\u2019ve got the right person driving home the idea that this is for products that can be rapidly translated.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat person is Hagan, who adds, \u201cour researchers will notice that when the selection of funded projects does happen, we\u2019re going to be much more serious about proof of concept.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn the past, earlier phases of research in a project had received funding, but the emphasis always has been, ultimately, on commercialization.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThat\u2019s always been an expectation of the Coulter Foundation,\u201d notes Regents\u2019 Professor Ajit Yoganathan, associate chair for translational research at BME, where he also holds the title of Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair. \u201cThe main thing to remember is, this is not a grant program. This is not a research program, and you can\u2019t really come in with that in mind. This is funding to commercialize intellectual properties, and there are stringent timeline involved. The funding is there to assist people in keeping those timelines.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis Emory\/GT translational partnership is one of 15 CTPs at universities around the country, including the University of Washington-Seattle, where Hagan was the program director for eight years before coming to Atlanta to revive the initiative here.\u0026nbsp; The program now has three people staffing it \u2013 Hagan and two program managers, Shawna Hagen and Katie Merritt.\u0026nbsp; And Hagan says the partnership offers invaluable intellectual capital as well \u2013 consultants who can help put the business and financial pieces together as technologies morph from final concept to commercialization.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe re-launch of the Coulter program is a unique opportunity for investigators in the Georgia Tech-Emory community,\u201d says Johnna Temenoff, BME associate professor and co-director of the Center for Regenerative Engineering and Medicine. \u201cThe fact that the program is committed to finding consultants from both inside and outside the Atlanta community to provide the best advice to prepare investigators to garner external start-up funds is an extremely valuable aspect of this program.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe road to clinical and commercial success begins with ideas, and there a few important dates to remember: Project pre-proposals are due on January 31, 2015, and the funds will be released on July 1st. Researchers interested in funding through the Emory\/Georgia Tech Coulter Translational Partnership can find out more at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/bme.gatech.edu\/bme\/ctp\u0022\u003ECTP website\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Emory-Georgia Tech translational funding program gets re-launched"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEmory-Georgia Tech translational funding program gets re-launched\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Emory-Georgia Tech translational funding program gets re-launched"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2014-11-21 16:14:46","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:34","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-21T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-21T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"348171":{"id":"348171","type":"image","title":"The Coulter Translational Partnership team: (left to right) Program Managers Shawna Hagen and Katie Merritt, and Program Director Rachael Hagan.","body":null,"created":"1449245682","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:42","changed":"1475894966","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:26","alt":"The Coulter Translational Partnership team: (left to right) Program Managers Shawna Hagen and Katie Merritt, and Program Director Rachael Hagan.","file":{"fid":"201945","name":"ctp_team.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ctp_team_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ctp_team_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1992487,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ctp_team_0.jpg?itok=G9CCzwx0"}}},"media_ids":["348171"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"248","name":"IBB"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"347931":{"#nid":"347931","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Atlanta\u2019s importance to engineering\u2019s future brings National Engineering Forum to region","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003EThe National Engineering Forum (NEF), along with the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Georgia Research Alliance, hosted a robust discussion about the future of American engineering Thursday night. The regional dialogue at the iconic Tech Tower brought together executive-level representatives from industry, academia, and government to discuss solutions to the challenges facing America\u2019s engineering enterprise.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003E\u201cSince our nation\u2019s founding, the engineering enterprise has been the wellspring of our security and prosperity,\u201d said Jeff Wilcox, Lockheed Martin\u2019s vice president of engineering and founder of NEF. \u201cThe NEF movement is dedicated to bringing together stakeholders from across the engineering community and developing an actionable roadmap to ensure the sustainability of that enterprise.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003ENEF\u2019s regional dialogue series has been to 14 American engineering hubs, including New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Chicago. Still ahead are dialogues in Phoenix and several more locations in the planning stages.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003E\u201cNEF is a center of gravity pulling everyone together to face engineering\u2019s challenges of capacity, capability and competitiveness. We call those challenges the 3C\u2019s,\u201d Wilcox said. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003EAtlanta was chosen as a regional dialogue city because of its significant role in technology, biomedical engineering, manufacturing, and education. Georgia Tech and the Georgia Research Alliance are ideal NEF hosts. Georgia Tech is a renowned science and technology-focused research institution, serving more than 13,000 students in the College of Engineering. The university is acclaimed for its achievements in clean, sustainable energy research, discoveries in diseases and treatment, and advancements in national defense and security, while the Georgia Research Alliance is aligned with \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003EGeorgia\u2019s universities, and brings focus to science and industry in the region, launching new companies and creating high-value jobs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003E\u201cAt Georgia Tech, we\u2019ve learned that innovation solutions are many times interdisciplinary and the result of collaboration between education, business, industry, and government,\u201d said Georgia Tech President G. P. \u201cBud\u201d Peterson.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003E\u201cRegional dialogues like this one, initiated by the National Engineering Forum, are helping to stimulate the conversation between thought leaders from all of these groups, and helping to build a community of action with tremendous potential in order to advance U.S. leadership in engineering.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003E\u201cEngineering talent is critical to the future of American innovation and competitiveness,\u201d said C. Michael Cassidy, President and CEO of the Georgia Research Alliance. \u0026nbsp;\u201cWe \u003Ca name=\u00222\u0022\u003E\u003C\/a\u003Ewere proud to cohost the NEF Regional dialogue and look forward to collaborating with our partners from the universities, business and government on how to address the needs of the U.S engineering enterprise.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003E\u201cIt is critical that we bring together all those who have a stake in preserving and growing the American engineering enterprise,\u201d said Chad Evans, executive vice president of the Council on Competitiveness. \u201cWe need engineers themselves,along with the business community, government leaders, educators and the media collaborating to enlighten our collective national consciousness about the power of engineering and its vital role in our nation\u2019s competitiveness in the global economy.\u201d \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EAbout the National Engineering Forum:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022MsoNormal\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThe National Engineering Forum (NEF) brings together leaders concerned about the sustainability of the United States engineering field and the impact on the nation\u2019s security and prosperity. NEF involves industry executives, academics, policymakers, media, engineering societies, and nonprofits to develop solutions to the challenges facing the U.S. engineering enterprise. For more on NEF, visit: \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.nationalengineeringforum.com\u0022\u003Ewww.nationalengineeringforum.com\u003C\/a\u003E or follow us on Twitter @NatlEngForum.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe National Engineering Forum (NEF), along with the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Georgia Research Alliance, hosted a robust discussion about the future of American engineering Thursday night. \u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The National Engineering Forum (NEF), along with the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Georgia Research Alliance, hosted a robust discussion about the future of American engineering Thursday night."}],"uid":"27304","created_gmt":"2014-11-21 09:13:29","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:34","author":"Matthew Nagel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-21T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-21T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"161361":{"id":"161361","type":"image","title":"Tech Tower in the Fall","body":null,"created":"1449178896","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:41:36","changed":"1475894796","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:36","alt":"Tech Tower in the Fall","file":{"fid":"195425","name":"falltower.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/falltower_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/falltower_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":752640,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/falltower_0.jpg?itok=BR9z8A30"}}},"media_ids":["161361"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.nationalengineeringforum.com\/","title":"National Engineering Forum"},{"url":"http:\/\/gra.org\/","title":"Georgia Research Alliance"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2239","name":"Council on Competitiveness"},{"id":"246","name":"Georgia Institute of Technology"},{"id":"110521","name":"Natinoal Engineering Forum"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"106361","name":"Business and Economic Development"},{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["Nagel@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"345641":{"#nid":"345641","#data":{"type":"news","title":"NFL honors Georgia Tech-Emory team for brain injury detection system","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe National Football League (NFL), GE and UnderArmour have selected a team of physicians and engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University as winners in the Head Health Challenge II, a competition for new innovations intended to speed diagnosis and improve treatment for concussions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Atlanta-based team was awarded for development of \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3oalhVkd3bQ\u0022\u003EiDETECT\u003C\/a\u003E (integrated Display Enhanced TEsting for Cognitive Impairment and mTBI), a rapidly deployable, easily administered, comprehensive system designed to improve neurologic assessment following mild traumatic brain injury, such as concussion sustained in athletic events and military conflict.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA total of seven winners of Head Health Challenge II were announced November 13, 2014. The winning teams, selected from more than 500 submissions, will receive $500,000 each for development of new innovations and technologies intended to identify, measure and mitigate brain injury. The first round of winners will be eligible for an additional $1 million after a second phase of judging.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EiDETECT addresses feasibility and reliability drawbacks associated with current concussion screening tools. It is an easy-to-administer, portable, and immersive system that integrates multiple concussion tests within one platform. The next generation iDETECT system will be further tested in a clinical study comparing iDETECT outcomes against other traditional separate mTBI screening tools.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur team is excited and honored to be selected as a winner in the NFL-GE-UA Head Health Challenge II competition,\u201d says Tamara Espinoza, assistant professor of emergency medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and principal investigator of the Head Health Challenge award. \u201cA tremendous amount of research and effort has gone into the development of iDETECT, and we believe it may become an essential tool in assessing sports-related concussion.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOf the 1.7 million traumatic brain injuries in the United States each year, more than 750,000 are considered \u201cmild,\u201d and over 173,000 are related to recreational and sports activity. In the last decade, emergency department visits for mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) among highly vulnerable populations, such as children and developing youth, have increased by more than 60 percent.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAdequately assessing mTBI using individual, single-pathway screening methods is extremely difficult, given the complexities of neurologic injury,\u201d says Shean Phelps, principal research scientist at Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). \u201cWith this additional funding from the Head Health Challenge II, our team can more fully pursue the long-term vision of iDETECT as a multi-modal device that addresses sports-related, mild traumatic brain injury.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe DETECT project was the brainchild of David Wright, director of Emergency Neurosciences at Emory University School of Medicine and Michelle LaPlaca, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. In 2011, the project evolved from a single neurocognitive approach for detection of concussions to an extended, multi-modal platform when the partnership broadened to include the Georgia Tech Research Institute. GTRI added critical systems engineering, human factors and military medical operational expertise.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMild traumatic brain injuries in youth, college and professional sports have the potential for life-changing, long-term consequences,\u201d says Wright. \u201cThe iDETECT system integrates multiple concussion testing capabilities within one platform and allows rapid and reliable assessment at the location where the injury occurred.\u201d This comprehensive approach enhances the ability to validate the on-field assessment platform and more accurately screen for traumatic injury.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPhelps, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel adds, \u201cmTBI assessments in the military is an area that needs new approaches such as those provided by iDETECT.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPartner institutions forming the iDETECT team include Georgia Tech, Emory and the University of Rochester. The Department of Defense and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation provided financial support for development of iDETECT.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to Espinoza, Wright, LaPlaca and Phelps, team members include Brian Liu, Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) research engineer; Stephen Smith, research engineer, Russell Gore, sports neurologist; John Brumfield, biomedical engineer; Jeff Bazarian, associate professor of emergency medicine, University of Rochester; and Courtney Crooks, GTRI senior research scientist.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWritten by Emory University\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Team wins competition for new innovations intended to speed diagnosis and improve treatment for concussions"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe National Football League, GE and UnderArmour have selected a team of physicians and engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University as winners in the Head Health Challenge II, a competition for new innovations intended to speed diagnosis and improve treatment for concussions.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech-Emory team wins award from NFL for brain injury detection system."}],"uid":"27560","created_gmt":"2014-11-13 14:53:38","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:30","author":"Jason Maderer","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-13T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-13T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"345611":{"id":"345611","type":"image","title":"IDETECT","body":null,"created":"1449245670","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:30","changed":"1475895068","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:08","alt":"IDETECT","file":{"fid":"200908","name":"idetect.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/idetect_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/idetect_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2001104,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/idetect_0.jpg?itok=dc9ZrVT5"}},"345601":{"id":"345601","type":"image","title":"iDETECT in use","body":null,"created":"1449245654","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:14","changed":"1475895068","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:08","alt":"iDETECT in use","file":{"fid":"200907","name":"15c10302-p2-016.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/15c10302-p2-016_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/15c10302-p2-016_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":6977001,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/15c10302-p2-016_0.jpg?itok=SjSE9oUU"}},"345581":{"id":"345581","type":"image","title":"iDETECT team","body":null,"created":"1449245654","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:14","changed":"1475895068","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:08","alt":"iDETECT team","file":{"fid":"200906","name":"15c10302-p2-024.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/15c10302-p2-024_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/15c10302-p2-024_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":7820882,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/15c10302-p2-024_0.jpg?itok=K5fFLRd-"}}},"media_ids":["345611","345601","345581"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.headhealthchallenge.com\/","title":"Head Health Challenge"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3oalhVkd3bQ","title":"See the iDETECT video"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"1912","name":"brain"},{"id":"3190","name":"concussion"},{"id":"521","name":"injury"},{"id":"12525","name":"NFL"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003ENational Media Relations\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-385-2966\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["maderer@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"344891":{"#nid":"344891","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Request for Applications for Seed Grant Funding  for Annual Pediatric Device Innovation Competition","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EThe Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium (APDC) is pleased to announce its 4\u003Csup\u003Eth\u003C\/sup\u003E\u0026nbsp;annual Pediatric Device Innovation Competition. \u0026nbsp;This seed grant competition is an opportunity for the scientific and business community including entrepreneurs, clinicians, scientists, businesses, academic researchers and medical and engineering graduate and undergraduate students, to develop and commercialize a pediatric medical device.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EThe APDC is an FDA funded consortium based out of Georgia Tech (PI: David Ku), Emory University (co-PIs: Wilbur Lam, Kevin Maher), Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta, and Virginia Commonwealth University (co-PI: Barbara Boyan) that provides a national platform to translate medical device ideas from concept to commercialization.\u0026nbsp; APDC\u2019S mission is to enhance the lives of children through the development of novel pediatric medical devices, which are both save and effective.\u0026nbsp; The consortium provides an environment of creativity, where ideas are reviewed, tested, and developed. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EThe application for seed grant funding begins with a written proposal, submitted to the APDC Innovation Competition Review Committee. Proposals are due on January 5, 2015, and selected investigators will be notified by January 30, 2015,\u0026nbsp;of their selection for participation in the next round of the competition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EThe second round is an opportunity for selected investigators to make a 5 minute oral presentation of their proposed idea\/concept, to the review committee, an audience of peers, and the engineering and medical community in attendance. The investigators will be given advice on market size, product development, and regulatory submissions. \u0026nbsp;Proposal presentations will be held on the Georgia Tech campus on February 21, 2015.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/atlanticpediatricdeviceconsortium.org\/current-rfa\u0022\u003EClick here for more information and to Apply\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Application deadline January 5, 2015"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium (APDC) is pleased to announce its 4th annual Pediatric Device Innovation Competition - Application deadline - January 5, 2015\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium (APDC) is pleased to announce its 4th annual Pediatric Device Innovation Competition - Application deadline - January 5, 2015"}],"uid":"27349","created_gmt":"2014-11-12 15:15:13","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:30","author":"Floyd Wood","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-12T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-12T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"345051":{"id":"345051","type":"image","title":"Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium (APDC)","body":null,"created":"1449245654","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:14","changed":"1475895068","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:08","alt":"Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium (APDC)","file":{"fid":"200899","name":"square_apdc_logo_0.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/square_apdc_logo_0_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/square_apdc_logo_0_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":77480,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/square_apdc_logo_0_0.png?itok=K2r8npeC"}}},"media_ids":["345051"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/atlanticpediatricdeviceconsortium.org\/current-rfa","title":"Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium (APDC)"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:martha.willis@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EMartha Willis\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["martha.willis@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"342851":{"#nid":"342851","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Coulter Partnership","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIf you have a promising technological innovation to improve patient care, than you might want to be in the Suddath Seminar Room in the Parker H. Petit Biotech Building this Tuesday, November 11, from 11 to noon. That\u2019s when the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/bme.gatech.edu\/bme\/ctp\u0022\u003EEmory\/Georgia Tech Coulter Translational Partnership (CTP)\u003C\/a\u003E will lift off once again.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re re-launching the program and it\u2019s going to be a different model than it was before,\u201d says Rachael Hagan, director of the program, funded by the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.whcf.org\/\u0022\u003EWallace H. Coulter Foundation\u003C\/a\u003E, whose essential goal is to move promising technologies from the lab to commercial development and clinical practice.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re concentrating on funding research directed toward unmet medical needs and to get products to market,\u201d says Hagan. \u201cSo we fund partnerships between the clinician, who has the need, and the principal investigator who has a technical solution. This usually happens after they \u2018ve already done the basic research and they\u2019re in the proof-of-concept stage. We want to help them fill in the gap in funding that happens at that time, to move the technology from the bench to the bedside.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Emory\/GT CTP, based in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), is one of 15 CTPs at universities around the country, including the University of Washington-Seattle, where Hagan was the program director for eight years before coming to Atlanta to revive a program that had basically been on sabbatical for several years.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHagan says the BME (a collaborative effort between Emory and Georgia Tech) was the first recipient of the Coulter Translational Partnership Award back in 2000. Eight more universities were added to the partnership in 2005 (Boston University, Case Western, Drexel, Duke, Stanford, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin), and six more have been added since (Columbia, Johns Hopkins, University of Louisville, University of Missouri, University of Pittsburgh, University of Southern California).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe program has morphed and evolved and we\u2019ve developed best practices through the years,\u201d Hagan says. \u201cWe know what we\u2019ve got to do to get this program back up on its feet and make it a great success.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe journey begins with today\u2019s open house in Petit Institute Room 1128 (Suddath Seminar Room). Hagan will be on hand to reintroduce the program, discuss the application process and answer any questions about this funding program.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Translational funding program re-launches Tuesday"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETranslational funding program re-launches Tuesday\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Translational funding program re-launches Tuesday"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2014-11-07 11:43:25","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:26","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-07T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-07T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"342811":{"id":"342811","type":"image","title":"Rachael Hagan","body":null,"created":"1449245639","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:13:59","changed":"1475895062","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:02","alt":"Rachael Hagan","file":{"fid":"200820","name":"hagan.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/hagan_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/hagan_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2260044,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/hagan_0.jpg?itok=iUj-M-NH"}}},"media_ids":["342811"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.whcf.org\/partnership-award\/overview","title":"Coulter Translational Partnership"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"342771":{"#nid":"342771","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Candice Cheung: The Re-Americanization of a Third Culture Kid","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe pointy things that most of us try to avoid hold a strange attraction for Candice Cheung who isn\u2019t afraid of getting shots or giving blood. In fact, these experiences are almost like a field trip for the third-year student in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI\u2019ve always been super fascinated by that stuff,\u201d says Cheung, a third year student in the BME. \u201cReally, I\u2019m oddly fascinated with the interaction of devices with the body. Things like pacemakers blow my mind, the fact that there\u2019s a little machine controlling the electrical impulses in your heart, and that\u2019s keeping you alive. It\u2019s still amazing to me.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECheung hopes to turn her fascination into a career some day. After she\u2019s through at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and wherever she decides to go for grad school, she wants to work in industry, developing medical devices. But she\u2019s targeting a specific patient group.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI want to get into veterinary medical devices. I think there\u2019s a real need that isn\u2019t being met,\u201d says Cheung, 21, who was born in the U.S. but moved to Hong Kong when she was a month old. Growing up there, she had two dogs and a chinchilla. Now she lives with her older brother (Brian Cheung, who graduated with an electrical engineering degree from Tech in 2012), and they care for a dog, cat, tortoise, and tropical fish. In her spare time, Candice works in animal hospital in Alpharetta.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI\u2019ve always loved animals, so that definitely plays a part in my interest. And animals offer such a wide range of possibilities,\u201d says Cheung, who doesn\u2019t have the slightest trace of a Cantonese accent because she attended international schools in Hong Kong where most of her teachers were Americans or Australians. Also, her parents, both college professors, spent many years in the U.S. earning their degrees. \u201cSo they\u2019re very fluent in English, too. You know, it\u2019s quite a bit of pressure when both of your parents have doctorates.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECheung also is fluent in Cantonese, the dominant language in Hong Kong. Multi-lingual with U.S. citizenship, she learned quickly what it was like to be a third culture kid in a pulsing international city that made a historic transition from British to Chinese rule in 1997. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt was very interesting growing up there. Even though it\u2019s obvious that I\u2019m Chinese, and I lived there all my life, there was a real stigma attached to being an international student,\u201d Cheung says. \u201cOn the train, I\u2019d be speaking fluent English with a friend, and I could hear the people around me speaking in Cantonese, saying things like, \u2018hmmf, she\u2019s another one of those third culture kids.\u2019 Like, they treated me as if I wasn\u2019t in tune with their language or their culture.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESometimes, though, she\u2019d turn the tables on the gossip, saying something to the other riders in perfect Cantonese. \u201cThat would freak them out,\u201d says Cheung, who plans on keeping her American citizenship but worries over current events in Hong Kong, where student-led pro-Democracy demonstrations (the \u0027Umbrella Movement\u0027) have divided the region and her family.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0022I try hard not to get involved in politics with my family, because my family is huge,\u0022 she says. \u0022My cousins, the younger members of the family, are very enthusiastic about the demonstrations. But my older relatives, uncles and aunts and whatnot, don\u0027t like it.\u0022\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn spite of the long distance between her and her large family, Cheung says the transition from Hong Kong to Atlanta was a relatively painless one. \u201cThe biggest change is I can\u2019t get used to how huge the food portions are here.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EShe\u2019s well used to the pace, though. Cheung says she was always one of those kids who did everything in school: gymnastics, track and field, volleyball, national honor society, student council, volunteered at an animal clinic. At Georgia Tech, in addition to maintaining a busy course load and holding down her job at the animal clinic, she is part of the student leadership team that recently launched the BME Learning Commons.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe process for that started a year ago and culminated with the opening of the Learning Commons in September. Cheung is now the \u2018product owner\u2019 of the podcast studio, which basically means that she\u2019s the team leader for that quadrant of the BME Learning Commons universe, headquartered on the fourth floor of the U.A. Whitaker Bioengineering Building. As she formulates programming for BME podcasts, she\u2019s considering examples (and drawing inspiration) from her personal interests.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cEvery day, when my brother drives me to work we listen to a podcast on Magic: The Gathering, the card game. Yes,\u201d she says, momentarily interrupting her story, \u201cI am proud to be a game nerd. So, we listen to the guy who founded the company that created Magic: The Gathering. And it is so nerdy, but so fantastic, because the guy really knows his audience and it feels like he\u2019s reaching out to me personally. I think that\u2019s the secret to a good podcast \u2013 know your audience and speak directly to them. So that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to try and do for BME.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECandice Cheung\u0027s \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pub\/candice-cheung\/8a\/5ab\/505\/\u0022\u003ELinkedIn Page \u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"BME undergrad making easy transition from Hong Kong to Atlanta"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBME undergrad making easy transition from Hong Kong to Atlanta\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"BME undergrad making easy transition from Hong Kong to Atlanta"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2014-11-07 10:59:29","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:26","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-07T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-07T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"342761":{"id":"342761","type":"image","title":"Candice Cheung, BME undergrad, at the mic","body":null,"created":"1449245639","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:13:59","changed":"1475895062","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:02","alt":"Candice Cheung, BME undergrad, at the mic","file":{"fid":"200819","name":"candice_c.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/candice_c_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/candice_c_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1431615,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/candice_c_0.jpg?itok=a2_hPaCj"}}},"media_ids":["342761"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/bme.gatech.edu\/bme\/learning-commons-now-open","title":"BME Learning Commons"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"346841":{"#nid":"346841","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Research team scales DNA bricks to size of a speck of dust","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDNA bricks keep getting larger. In 2012, a team of researchers at Harvard described their ability to make self-assembling structures \u2013made completely out of DNA \u2014 that were about the size of viruses (80 nanometers across).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENow they\u2019re scaling up, making bricks that are 1000 times larger and getting close to a size that could be barely visible to the naked eye.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe advances were reported in \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nchem\/journal\/v6\/n11\/full\/nchem.2083.html\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003ENature Chemistry\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWho: A team of researchers at the Wyss Institute at Harvard led by Peng Yin, and including\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/bme.gatech.edu\/bme\/faculty\/Yonggang-Ke\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EYonggang Ke\u003C\/a\u003E, PhD, now an assistant professor in the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/bme.gatech.edu\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EWallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;at Georgia Tech and Emory University.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt Emory, Ke and his team are continuing to design 3D DNA machines, with\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0959440X14000827\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Epotential functions\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;such as fluorescent nanoantennae, drug delivery vehicles and synthetic membrane channels.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHow: The DNA brick method uses short, synthetic strands of DNA that work like interlocking Lego\u00ae bricks to build complex structures. Structures are first designed using a computer model of a molecular cube, which becomes a master canvas. Each brick is added or removed independently from the 3D master canvas to arrive at the desired shape. The DNA strands that would match up to achieve the desired structure are mixed together and self assemble \u2014 with the help of magnesium salts \u2014 to achieve the designed crystal structures.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cTherein lies the key distinguishing feature of our design strategy\u2013its modularity,\u201d Ke says. \u201cThe ability to simply add or remove pieces from the master canvas makes it easy to create virtually any design.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhat for: As part of this study the team demonstrated the ability to position gold nanoparticles less than two nanometers apart from each other along the crystal structure \u2014 a critical feature for future quantum computational devices and a significant technical advance for their scalable production.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:qeastma@emory.edu\u0022\u003EQuinn Eastman\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EScience Writer\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch Communications for Emory University\u0027s Woodruff Health Sciences Center\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Scaling up to a speck of dust"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EScaling up to a speck of dust\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Scaling up to a speck of dust"}],"uid":"27159","created_gmt":"2014-11-18 08:15:25","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:30","author":"Vickie Okrzesik","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-11-04T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-11-04T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"346851":{"id":"346851","type":"image","title":"Researchers have achieved 32 different\u2013shaped crystal structures using the DNA\u2013brick self\u2013assembly method. Credit: Harvard\u0027s Wyss Institute","body":null,"created":"1449245670","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:30","changed":"1475895071","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:11","alt":"Researchers have achieved 32 different\u2013shaped crystal structures using the DNA\u2013brick self\u2013assembly method. Credit: Harvard\u0027s Wyss Institute","file":{"fid":"200946","name":"dnabrickcrystals-250x263_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dnabrickcrystals-250x263_0_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/dnabrickcrystals-250x263_0_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":84879,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/dnabrickcrystals-250x263_0_0.jpg?itok=tYBytWZn"}},"346861":{"id":"346861","type":"image","title":"Yonggang Ke, PhD","body":null,"created":"1449245670","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:14:30","changed":"1475895071","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:11","alt":"Yonggang Ke, PhD","file":{"fid":"200947","name":"yonggangke.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/yonggangke_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/yonggangke_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":13841,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/yonggangke_0.jpg?itok=9qNJBpkc"}}},"media_ids":["346851","346861"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/news.emory.edu\/stories\/2014\/10\/hspub_blog_speck_of_dust\/campus.html","title":"Emory | news center"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.emoryhealthsciblog.com\/scaling-speck-dust\/","title":"Lab Land"},{"url":"http:\/\/wyss.harvard.edu\/viewpressrelease\/173\/crystallizing-the-dna-nanotechnology-dream","title":"Harvard\u0027s Wyss Institute"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"110161","name":"DNA brick"},{"id":"247","name":"Emory"},{"id":"3264","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"110131","name":"Yonggang Ke"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:qeastma@emory.edu\u0022\u003EQuinn Eastman\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EScience Writer\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch Communications for Emory University\u0027s Woodruff Health Sciences Center\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOffice: 404-727-7829\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["qeastma@emory.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"337851":{"#nid":"337851","#data":{"type":"news","title":"BRAIN Initiative","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELast year, when President Barack Obama announced the BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) at the White House, Bob Guldberg and Craig Forest were in attendance, representing the Georgia Institute of Technology. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EForest, associate professor of bioengineering in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and Bob Guldberg, executive director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, were with about 200 other neuroscientists and neuroengineers, to witness the launch of the president\u2019s ambitious new $300 million public-private program focused on understanding the human brain. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThat was a wonderful day, as the President led the invigorating charge for neuroscience research and the tools to enable it,\u201d says Forest, who is now very much in the game, playing a leading role in the new national initiative that aims to do for neuroscience what the Human Genome Project did for genomics. \u201cI can\u2019t think of anything more exciting to be part of, so I\u2019ve basically been 100 percent in from that day forward.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd last month, when the National Institutes of Health announced the first wave of BRAIN Initiative funding (totaling $46 million), Forest and his Georgia Tech colleague, Garrett Stanley (professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering), were awarded BRAIN Initiative funding from the NIH for a project entitled, \u201cIn-vivo circuit activity measurement at single cell, sub-threshold resolution.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThey are principal investigators in a plan to use a robot (developed by Forest and his collaborator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Edward Boyden) to measure precise changes in electrical activity from individual neurons that are connected over long distances across the brain, to understand how these connections change when our brains go into different states, such as sleeping and waking. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe are leveraging a technique called \u2018patch clamping,\u2019 and it\u2019s been around for decades, but up until now, it\u2019s been done manually,\u201d says Forest, whose robotic technique takes patch clamping \u2013 the gold standard technique for measuring electrical fluctuations in cells \u2013 from a manual skill performed typically in vitro to an automated procedure performed in vivo. The success and potential of the \u2018autopatching\u2019 robot over the past year or so is the reason Forest (and Boyden) was invited to the president\u2019s announcement last year. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cNo one has been able to record intracellularly from neurons that are connected to each other in a living brain, and that\u2019s what we hope to do,\u201d says Forest, who figures that if his team can measure fluctuations in a healthy brain, they can study the changes that occur with Alzheimer\u2019s, or depression, or epilepsy, or with different drugs and anesthesia. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re trying to understand the basic building blocks. It\u2019s amazing how little we know about the brain,\u201d says Forest, who is spending most of 2014 as a visiting scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cAs humans, we can identify galaxies light years away, we can study particles smaller than an atom,\u201d the president told his audience last year. \u201cBut we still haven\u2019t unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe human brain has about 86 billion neurons that make trillions of connections. But we don\u2019t know how many different cell types comprise these billions of neurons, and that leaves huge gaps in our understanding of that \u201cthree pounds of matter,\u201d a major reason why we\u2019re still unable to cure diseases like Alzheimer\u2019s, for example, or to fully reverse the effects of a stroke. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIf you\u2019re building an electrical circuit, you need a battery, capacitors, resistors \u2013 you need different components. In the brain, nobody knows how many different components there are, or how they are connected,\u201d says Forest, whose research team was awarded $1.5 million from the NIH. \u201cWe still don\u2019t know how the brain is wired, how memories are stored, how the brain develops, and performs computations. So right now, that\u2019s the major thrust of this BRAIN Initiative and neuroscience, to develop a basic understanding.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Georgia Tech researchers among part of first wave of NIH funding"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers among part of first wave of NIH funding\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech researchers among part of first wave of NIH funding"}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-10-29 08:06:20","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:23","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"337861":{"id":"337861","type":"image","title":"Craig Forest","body":null,"created":"1449245216","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:06:56","changed":"1475895051","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:51","alt":"Craig Forest","file":{"fid":"200563","name":"forest-square.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/forest-square_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/forest-square_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2929667,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/forest-square_0.jpg?itok=hgV5V_kN"}},"337871":{"id":"337871","type":"image","title":"Garrett Stanley","body":null,"created":"1449245216","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:06:56","changed":"1475895051","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:51","alt":"Garrett Stanley","file":{"fid":"200564","name":"stanleygarrett2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/stanleygarrett2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/stanleygarrett2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":94808,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/stanleygarrett2_0.jpg?itok=1q3tYaWP"}}},"media_ids":["337861","337871"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/pbl.gatech.edu\/","title":"Forest lab"},{"url":"https:\/\/stanley.gatech.edu\/","title":"Stanley laboratory"}],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"338071":{"#nid":"338071","#data":{"type":"news","title":"The BUZZ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EElephant toothpaste was overflowing on the bio quad lawn while flash-frozen flowers shattered in shards on the pavement outside the U.A. Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Building. Inside the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, children were eating astronaut ice cream, making silly putty and touching pigs\u2019 hearts and goats\u2019 eyeballs under the guidance of grad students, whose various and colorful demonstrations suggested this might be mad scientist training, when in fact it was the BUZZ on Biotechnology high school open house. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis was just part of the scene on Saturday, October 18th, at the annual BUZZ open house event, presented by the Petit Institute and run by the Bioengineering and Bioscience Unified Graduate Students, or BBUGS, the largest, most diverse graduate student group on the Georgia Institute of Technology campus.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u201cWe look forward to this day every year,\u201d says Kelli Schuyler, who teaches advanced placement chemistry in Forsyth Central High School\u2019s STEM Academy, which sent almost 50 students to Georgia Tech for BUZZ on Biotech. They were part of a crowd that approached 400 at what may have been the biggest BUZZ yet. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe started the STEM Academy three years ago, and as part of that we looked for opportunities for student enrichment,\u201d says Schuyler, while a pair of Georgia Tech bio students were demonstrating freezing flowers, bananas and ping pong balls in a vat of liquid nitrogen a few feet away. \u201cOur students love this. The lab tours, the seminars, making things blow up \u2013 liquid nitrogen, you can\u2019t go wrong with that!\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBUZZ on Biotechnology, presided over by the BBUGS\u2019 Education and Outreach committee, is the largest and most popular annual event organized by the group, for the ticket holders \u2013 the event is geared toward high school students \u2013 and the volunteers. In all, there were about 50 students volunteering. For grad student Ashley Allen, BUZZ has become a welcome routine. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI think this is my sixth year in a row. I wouldn\u2019t miss it,\u201d says Allen, who is nearing the end of her Ph.D. pursuit. She was overseeing the Egg Drop, the day\u2019s last event, which focuses on the prevention of head injuries by asking participants to design protective \u201chelmets\u201d for raw eggs, which are then dropped from the third floor of the Petit Institute\u2019s atrium. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI\u2019m really interested in going to Georgia Tech,\u201d says Grace Littlefield. \u201cI want to study biomedical engineering.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Dunwoody High School sophomore, who won the Egg Drop competition, attended BUZZ with her father, Jim Littlefield, who says, \u201cWe really enjoyed the opportunity to talk with some of the graduate students, not only about their experience here at Georgia Tech, but also some of their undergraduate experiences, how they got interested in biotechnology and some ideas of what Grace can being doing now in high school to be better prepared when she, hopefully, comes to Georgia Tech.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThough not intended to be a massive recruiting tool for Georgia Tech, the BUZZ on Biotech is \u201csome of the best public relations you can imagine for the university,\u201d according to Loren Williams, professor of chemistry and biochemistry who is director of the Center for Ribosomal Origins and Evolution (Ribo Evo) at the Petit Institute. \u201cIt\u2019s also a really good experience for our students.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWilliams never misses BUZZ, an event that puts Tech students, grads and undergrads, front and center. These students performed the demonstrations \u2013 there were about 20 of them, experiments for the participants to try. They conducted the lab tours and performed the seminars \u2013 usually there\u2019s one, focused on stem cells, but this year the BBUGS added another one, on biomaterials. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe seminars were particularly popular this year, I think total attendance was about 150 people,\u201d says Tom Bongiorno, part of the BBUGS Education and Outreach leadership team, with Kyle Blum, Jessie Butts and Jennifer Pentz. \u201cThe kids love the hands-on demonstrations and seeing some pretty cool science, the lab tours are always very popular. Basically, we can never have enough lab tours.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut somehow, they managed to squeeze 288 people into three hours of lab tours. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA group of students, all teens, many accompanied by parents, follows BBUGS member Torri Rinker on a tour of Johnna Temenoff\u2019s lab, one of six different lab tours during this year\u2019s BUZZ. Temenoff, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, works with polymeric biomaterials for orthopedic applications. Rinker works in the lab. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cHas anyone here ever torn an ACL, or know someone who has?\u201d Rinker asks. Several hands shoot up. \u201cDoes it heal quickly?\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe group shakes its collective head. \u201cNo,\u201d Rinker agrees. \u201cYou\u2019re looking at, potentially, a lifetime of pain and disability. The problem with these tissues is, they just don\u2019t naturally heal. If you break a bone, what happens?\u201d A chorus of kids: \u201cIt heals.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cYou got it,\u201d Rinker says. \u201cBut these tissues are different, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re so interested in working to regenerate them, using different tissue engineering and regenerative medicine techniques.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs Rinker patiently explains the work of the lab, talks about the synthetic and naturally derived biomaterials that are being used to heal degenerative tissues, the teens nod. They\u2019re making the connections. One of them, Jonah Cloer, a junior at St. Pius High School, accompanied by his mom, Carolyn Zimney, is inspecting a little hydrogel in his gloved hand. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThis is interesting, because these grad students are demonstrating to him how what he\u2019s learned in cell reproduction manifests itself in the real world, what can be done here in the labs, and what he might be doing after school,\u201d Zimney says. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EJonah is impressed though undecided about the direction he\u2019ll take in college. \u201cBut this,\u201d he says, removing the protective latex lab gloves, \u201cis giving me some really good ideas about what I\u2019d like to do.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd that is a big reason why the BUZZ on Biotechnology will be back again next fall.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Annual biotech open house draws 400 visitors"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAnnual biotech open house draws 400 visitors\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Annual biotech open house draws 400 visitors"}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-10-29 12:22:35","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:23","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"338101":{"id":"338101","type":"image","title":"BBUGS member Torri Rinker gives tour of a state-of-the-art lab for Buzz on Biotechnology guests","body":null,"created":"1449245216","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:06:56","changed":"1475895051","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:51","alt":"BBUGS member Torri Rinker gives tour of a state-of-the-art lab for Buzz on Biotechnology 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contest","file":{"fid":"200574","name":"ashleyalleneggdrop-square.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ashleyalleneggdrop-square_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ashleyalleneggdrop-square_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1763878,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ashleyalleneggdrop-square_0.jpg?itok=BGMmm0rr"}}},"media_ids":["338101","338061","338091","338081"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.bbugs.gatech.edu\/","title":"http:\/\/www.bbugs.gatech.edu\/"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.petitinstitute.gatech.edu\/","title":"Petit Institute website"},{"url":"http:\/\/petitinstitute.gatech.edu\/buzz-on-biotech","title":"Buzz on Biotechnology website"}],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"336241":{"#nid":"336241","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Biomaterials Day","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThere were moments when the first Biomaterials Day at the Georgia Institute of Technology resembled a Vaudeville comedy routine, like when three of the top scientists in the field morphed into the Three Stooges for a few seconds while mugging for a photo, reflecting the festive side of an event that was part celebration, part jaw-dropping science. And even though the mood light, the slapstick was kept to a minimum \u2013 no one got hit in the face with a pie or poked in the eye \u2013 and it was smart people and their world-changing research that held center stage. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMore than 160 students and faculty from more than 10 different universities descended on the Marcus Nanotechnology Building for last Friday\u2019s sold-out event (Oct. 10), taking part in an all-day conference with the subtitle, \u201cNext Generation Biomaterials,\u201d which is appropriate, since it was the next generation of biomaterials scientists \u2013 Georgia Tech students \u2013 who organized the event. The setting also was appropriate. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI honestly believe we are one of the strongest groups conducting biomaterials research, compared to anywhere in the world,\u201d says Ravi Bellamkonda, who holds the endowed professorial chair and is the departmental chair in the Georgia Tech\/Emory Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cAnd our strength isn\u2019t just in BME. It is wide-spread, including the Schools of Mechanical Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Biology, and Chemistry,\u201d Bellamkonda adds. \u201cI can\u2019t think of very many places with such depth and breadth researching materials and how they interact with biology and how they can be designed to make this an interaction that promotes healing and decreases scarring.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EJulia Babensee, associate professor of biomedical engineering in BME, who delivered the opening remarks, called the event, \u201ca culmination of all of our biomaterials efforts. And I think getting the students involved and having an opportunity to present their work and hear about other people\u2019s work in this area is really important. They represent the next generation of biomaterials experts.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe short history of Biomaterials Day at Georgia Tech begins more than a year ago, when a group of bio-community grad students and faculty applied for a $5,000 grant from the Society for Biomaterials (SFB) with the idea of hosting an event. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cOther schools have hosted Biomaterials Day and SFB had actually been pushing Georgia Tech to form a student chapter for the society, because they wanted us to host one,\u201d explains Olivia Burnsed, the grad student who served as the organizing chair for Biomaterials Day (with co-chair Travis Meyer). \u201cWe were granted the $5,000, but that definitely wasn\u2019t enough to cover this event, so we applied for internal grants here at Georgia Tech.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA combination of support from a variety of internal sources, such as the GT-FIRE (Fund for Transformative Research and Education) grant program, the College of Engineering, BME and the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, as well as industry sponsors (BioSpherix, BOSE and 3M) paved the way for a full-day of programming that included faculty and student research presentations, a huge poster competition (more than 70 were on display), plenary speakers who happen to be among the top researchers in the field (Pat Stayton from the University of Washington and Kevin Healy from the University of California-Berkeley, two of the aforementioned faux stooges), and a post-event celebration of Bellamkonda\u2019s winning of the Clemson Award, one of the most prestigious national honors in biomaterials research. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI am humbled when I look at the list of winners from past years,\u201d Bellamkonda says, \u201cand I think of my students and post-docs and research staff who work hard and help make projects that are mere ideas, a reality that can potentially impact lives.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStudents and faculty representing Georgia Tech, Clemson, Auburn, Mercer and Morehouse made live presentations on a wide range of topics. Three Georgia Tech professors \u2013 Bellamkonda, Andr\u00e9s Garc\u00eda and Todd McDevitt \u2013 spoke about the research happening in their labs. Stayton spoke on the challenges, discoveries and opportunities for the next generations of researchers in the area of biomaterials science (biomaterials being any matter, surface or construct that interacts with biological systems). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s been this incredible advancement in our understanding of disease from a fundamental biology standpoint, but somehow it hasn\u2019t been translated yet into clinical benefits for people who need new therapies,\u201d Stayton says. One of the main reasons for that, he explains, is because the workforce in the pharmaceutical world is mostly accustomed to working with small molecule drugs, or New Chemical Entities (NCEs), as opposed to biologics \u2013 modern biomolecular drugs derived through the processes of genetic engineering, manufactured in living systems. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cNewer categories of biologic drugs are important because they aren\u2019t mechanistically limited by the same problems that small molecules have,\u201d Stayton says. \u201cBut they require delivery in a way that small molecules don\u2019t, so I posed it to the graduate students and post docs that this is an area where we really do need engineered biomaterials, and where we really need creative new approaches to designing drug carriers that could allow you to exploit these biologics in a new way.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAt the end of a day of live presentations on broad topics such as \u2018rationally designed biomaterials\u2019 and \u2018biomaterials in industry\u2019 and \u2018biomaterials design for tissue repair\u2019 and \u2018stem cell-biomaterial interactions,\u2019 Healy explained why biomaterials science is critical for patient-specific medicine, focusing on the problem of how to efficiently develop drugs. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe want to make small, efficient micro-tissues, so the screening process can be economically robust and actually challenge the concept of expense that is currently being incurred in drug development,\u201d says Healy, referring to the $5 billion-plus, and 10 years (or so) it takes to typically develop a new drug. His work is centered in human microphysiological systems, which could provide models for predicting the efficacy of new drugs in clinical trials (and also for predicting drug toxicities early in the development process). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHealy also echoed something Stayton said his remarks: \u201cI think it\u2019s fantastic that this is a student-run conference.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPrevious Biomaterials Days have been held at Clemson University, which obviously has a long history of expertise in the area (there\u2019s the Clemson Award, after all). Clemson professor Bob Latour seemed impressed with Tech\u2019s version of the event. \u201cThis is an excellent event, particularly for students, who get to hear and discuss the state of the art of what\u2019s going in the biomaterials field, as well as hear from representatives from the biomaterials industry, and have a chance to show off their own work at the poster session,\u201d says Latour, as he stands among the rows of posters. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELatour was one of the judges of the poster competition, which was won by Georgia Christopher Johnson (a grad student in Garc\u00eda\u2019s lab), whose poster was titled, \u201cBacteriophage Therapy to Reduce Bacterial Burden in Infected Bone Regenerative Implants.\u201d Second place went to Marian Hettiaratchi (affiliated with the McDevitt lab and also the lab of Petit Institute Executive Director Bob Guldberg). Third place was shared by Amy Clark (also from Garc\u00eda\u2019s lab), and two Auburn grad students affiliated with Elizabeth Lipke\u2019s lab, Petra Kersher and Shantanu Pradhan. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cYou can never get enough of this kind of experience,\u201d Clark says. \u201cYou sit through a lot of diverse talks, stuff that\u2019s outside of your field, looking at what other researchers are doing. You always learn something new.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWith a new student chapter of SFB, and now the experience of having hosted some of the nation\u2019s thought leaders in biomaterials, Georgia Tech has taken another step forward not only in a growing field of research, but in the propagation of student leadership. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe other thing I like very much about Biomaterials Day is that it was organized in large part by our students,\u201d Bellamkonda says. \u201cI continued to be amazed at how articulate and independent they are, and how they so willingly give of their time to help build the wonderful community of scholars we have at Georgia Tech and Emory in this space.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Student and faculty researchers converge at Georgia Tech for first-time event"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EStudent and faculty researchers converge at Georgia Tech for first-time event.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Student and faculty researchers converge at Georgia Tech for first-time event."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-10-22 13:33:28","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:19","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"336251":{"id":"336251","type":"image","title":"Katy Lassahn, graduate student in the McDevitt lab at Georgia Tech","body":null,"created":"1449245201","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:06:41","changed":"1475895048","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:48","alt":"Katy Lassahn, graduate student in the McDevitt lab at Georgia Tech","file":{"fid":"200515","name":"katy2-square.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/katy2-square_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/katy2-square_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1608801,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/katy2-square_0.jpg?itok=q7r1ICKP"}}},"media_ids":["336251"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/biomaterials.gatech.edu\/","title":"Georgia Tech Biomaterials"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"},{"id":"140","name":"Cancer Research"},{"id":"141","name":"Chemistry and Chemical Engineering"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"335981":{"#nid":"335981","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Emily Evans: Where Biomedical Engineering Meets Medicine","body":[{"value":"\u003Ch1 dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EEmily Evans plans to join the Peace Corps, and perhaps go on to become an emergency room trauma surgeon. But first, she\u2019ll finish up her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech. Evans is in her third year as BME student and only recently declared herself as pre-med, but she\u2019s been drawn to medicine since she was a little girl.\u003C\/h1\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMy mom has a Ph.D. in neuropsychology and works at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, where I\u2019m from,\u201d Evans said. \u201cI learned from her early on that medicine comes with long hours and high stress levels, but it pays you back tenfold because it\u2019s so intensely rewarding.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEvans\u2019 mother works with patients who have experienced a traumatic brain injury, helping evaluate the condition of their brains and determining which skills they\u2019ll likely be able to recover. Evans, on the other hand, wants more of a hands-on role.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI want to be the doctor that sees the patient as soon as he\u2019s wheeled into the E.R.,\u201d Evans said. \u201cThose high-pressure, life-or-death situations are what drive me, because your actions lead to instant results.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat craving for immediate, tangible results has lead Evans to shy away from the research side of the field pursued by many of her peers. Scientists might spend years in the lab working on a single study, she says, only to make a small advancement.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAfter her freshman year at Tech, Evans completed a research internship at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. She analyzed cross-sections of brain tissue, working to understand the relationship between circadian rhythms and drug dependency. The technical skills she learned are useful, Evans says, but the experience helped her decide that long-term research isn\u2019t for her.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInstead of spending time in the lab, Evans has devoted the past year to volunteering in the emergency room at Grady Memorial Hospital in downtown Atlanta. She transports patients, changes sheets, and lends a hand wherever possible.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe doctors and nurses in a trauma setting can always use more help,\u201d Evans explains. \u201cIf I can take some of the workload off of them, it means they\u2019re able to see more patients and maybe even save another life. That\u2019s rewarding, and it makes a difference.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor Evans, serving others is a passion. She says it\u2019s sometimes difficult to find a balance, because preparing for the possibility of medical school requires investing the majority of her time in her own education.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s why, after graduation, she plans to take a hiatus from her studies.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI plan to serve in the Peace Corps for two years, hopefully working in some sort of medical setting in a developing country. Medical school will always be waiting for me when I get back.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat is, if she ultimately sticks to her pursuit of a medical degree. Evans also enjoys the research \u0026amp; development aspect of biomedical engineering, which she\u2019s been exposed to through her courses at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EIn 2015, she\u2019ll pursue an internship with a biomedical engineering company to test the waters.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI would love to intern with a company that produces medical devices, communicating with doctors to see what works and what could be improved,\u201d Evans said. \u201cIt\u2019s a job that melds two of my passions\u2013engineering and medicine\u2013so I\u2019m interested to see if it\u2019s something I enjoy.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEvans says finding what you love is all about trying new things.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENo stranger to adventure, she spent a semester studying abroad at Georgia Tech-Lorraine in France. The experience expanded her worldview, she says, and pushed her toward a vocation that will allow her to work globally.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith so many different career options, Evans says the advisors and faculty within the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering have been an enormous resource.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSally Gerrish is amazing,\u201d Evans said of the college\u2019s manager of student, alumni and industrial relations. \u201cShe\u2019s always there to share personal advice and connect you to helpful people. If she doesn\u2019t have an answer for your question, she\u2019ll find someone who does. She has an incredible network of contacts.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBetween networking, volunteering and\u2013oh yes\u2013studying, Evans feels confident she\u2019ll wind up in the right place.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u201cWhether it\u2019s in the E.R. of a local hospital or working on the ground in a third-world country, I know my career will be built on the foundation I\u2019ve received at Georgia Tech,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m ready to contribute something big to the world.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pub\/emily-evans\/a0\/111\/642\u0022 target=\u0022_self\u0022\u003EConnect with Emily Evans on LinkedIn\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Emily Evans plans to join the Peace Corps, and perhaps go on to become an emergency room trauma surgeon."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-10-21 15:39:50","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:19","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-21T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-21T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"335991":{"id":"335991","type":"image","title":"Emily Evans","body":null,"created":"1449245201","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:06:41","changed":"1475895048","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:48","alt":"Emily Evans","file":{"fid":"200507","name":"emily-12_2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/emily-12_2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/emily-12_2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":89243,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/emily-12_2_0.jpg?itok=Vcim23Yx"}}},"media_ids":["335991"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"166847","name":"students"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"334161":{"#nid":"334161","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Planting Brain Seeds","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ERobert Butera and Lena Ting were there at the beginning, when neuroengineering started becoming a serious thing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. They were part of what began as a loose affiliation of faculty from diverse disciplines who made it a thing, researchers and educators with a common interest in the myriad workings of the human brain. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWhat we started with over 10 years ago, the Laboratory for Neuroengineering (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/neurolab.gatech.edu\/\u0022 title=\u0022https:\/\/neurolab.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/neurolab.gatech.edu\/\u003C\/a\u003E), was a self-organized collection of faculty, and we sort of built a neuroengineering community,\u201d says Ting, professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering. \u201cWhen we started, there was really nothing else here. But over the last 10 years there\u2019s been a lot of growth and interest in the area, through different units across campus.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe fledgling Neural Engineering Center (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.neuro.gatech.edu\/neural-engineering-center\u0022 title=\u0022http:\/\/www.neuro.gatech.edu\/neural-engineering-center\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www.neuro.gatech.edu\/neural-engineering-center\u003C\/a\u003E) at the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience was established with a mission to develop novel science and technology for measuring, understanding, modifying, and stimulating neural activity. The aim is for both clinical and scientific applications. Bottom line, says Butera: \u201cmodulating nervous system function requires new tools and new science, and our goal is to facilitate both.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis new research center is the latest phase in a continuing Georgia Tech neuroscience evolution, which includes the aggregation and evaluation of all campus neuro-activities. \u201cWe noticed there were people all over campus doing neuroscience related research and helped launch a web site to try to identify who on campus was affiliated with neuroscience in general,\u201d Ting says. People from all over responded. They\u2019re from Applied Physiology, Biology, Physics, Psychology, and throughout the College of Engineering. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe neuro initiative is a big tent,\u201d says Butera, professor of Electrical and Computer engineering and jointly appointed in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, and co-director (with Ting) of the Neural Engineering Center (NEC). \u201cWith this center, we are narrowing our focus.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EInterest in the kind of mission the new center is pursuing has only ramped up since President Barack Obama announced his Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative in April 2013, promising more than $300 million in public and private funds to support groundbreaking research that can lead to a better understanding of human brain function and new treatments or cures for a wide range of neurological disorders. Georgia Tech researchers Craig Forest and Garrett Stanley recently won $1.5 million BRAIN Initiative award when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced its first wave of investments to support the program. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd it turns out, Ting says, \u201cAtlanta has one of the largest neuroscience communities of any city. I think Boston\u2019s chapter of the Society of Neuroscience might be the only one bigger than Atlanta\u2019s. Emory has a very large neuroscience program. So does Georgia State.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Neural Engineering Center collaborates with the Emory Neuromodulation Technology Innovation Center (ENTICe), founded by Emory researchers and clinicians who are leaders in a therapeutic procedure known as deep brain stimulation (DBS), which involves sending electrical impulses through implanted electrodes to specific parts of the brain, and treats a variety of disorders, such as Parkinson\u2019s disease, tremors, dystonia, and depression. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe clinical devices used older neural stimulation technology, and the doctors are directly facing scientific and engineering challenges in improving their procedures,\u201d Ting says. \u201cThrough engagement with ENTICe we decided that we should really start pulling people together to establish a research center at Georgia Tech, where we could focus on the science and engineering issues around how you stimulate and modify neural activity and brain activity.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Neural Engineering Center will announce its ceremonial launch on October 28, 2014 with a seminar speaker in the Whitaker Building. In collaboration with the Young Innovators in Biomedical Engineering Seminar Series, the NEC will present Sridevi V. Sarma from Johns Hopkins University (11 a.m. to noon in Whitaker 1103), whose presentation is entitled, \u201cOn the Therapeutic Mechanisms of Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson\u0027s Disease: Why High Frequency?\u201d The talk will be immediately followed by a reception in the Whitaker Atrium to celebrate the NEC\u2019s opening. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut the center already has begun fine-tuning its focus, which includes the support of smart people and early-phase research that will help the NEC accomplish its mission. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re going with a very different seed grant model,\u201d says Butera. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s kind of an experiment. We call it the rapid-fire seed grant,\u201d adds Ting. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe want people to move fast and fail quickly,\u201d Butera quips, the basic premise being to show some research progress sooner rather than later. And there\u2019s a backstory to the grants (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/neuro.gatech.edu\/neuro-seed-grant-call\u0022 title=\u0022http:\/\/neuro.gatech.edu\/neuro-seed-grant-call\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/neuro.gatech.edu\/neuro-seed-grant-call\u003C\/a\u003E). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe idea is for researchers to initiate projects and use that activity as a catalyst to reach for something bigger. The bulk of the center\u2019s initial funding supports the rapid-fire seed grant program. The grants are limited to $5,000-$10,000, covering short-term (three months) exploratory projects that are intended to test new ideas and generate preliminary data, with an emphasis on collaborative research. The deadline for applying is November 1, 2014. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat they\u2019d really like is to become a Science and Technology Center (STC, a National Science Foundation program). \u201cThe Neural Engineering Center is focused on a particular area in which we think we have a lot of strength. The idea is that we move forward with a coherent research program, and then we can seek large, externally funded grants,\u201d says Ting. That was the idea when they wrote a proposal to Steve Cross, Georgia Tech\u2019s executive vice president for research, outlining their goals and establishing NEC as a Petit Institute research center. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut, even before they were calling for rapid-fire proposals, Butera and Ting were taking the long view, planning to leverage what\u2019s been more than 10 years of concentrated growth in neurotechnology research at Georgia Tech. Over the summer they submitted a proposal for a National Science Foundation (NSF) National Research Training Grant which would fund graduate students at Georgia Tech and Emory in the development of neuromodulation technologies.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Neural Engineering Center becomes official, launches new seed grant program"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENeural Engineering Center becomes official, launches new seed grant program\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Neural Engineering Center becomes official, launches new seed grant program"}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-10-15 09:32:19","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:15","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-15T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-15T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"334121":{"id":"334121","type":"image","title":"Robert Butera - professor of Electrical and Computer engineering and jointly appointed in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, and co-director of the Neural Engineering Center (NEC)","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895046","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:46","alt":"Robert Butera - professor of Electrical and Computer engineering and jointly appointed in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, and co-director of the Neural Engineering Center (NEC)","file":{"fid":"200446","name":"butera2-square.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/butera2-square_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/butera2-square_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":753843,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/butera2-square_0.jpg?itok=3AjUDeTV"}},"334151":{"id":"334151","type":"image","title":"Lena Ting - professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering and co-director of Neural Engineering Center (NEC)","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895046","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:46","alt":"Lena Ting - professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering and co-director of Neural Engineering Center (NEC)","file":{"fid":"200447","name":"tinglena-headshot2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tinglena-headshot2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tinglena-headshot2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":41507,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tinglena-headshot2_0.jpg?itok=l6re-pfr"}}},"media_ids":["334121","334151"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.neuro.gatech.edu\/","title":"Neuro@Tech website"},{"url":"https:\/\/neurolab.gatech.edu\/labs\/ting","title":"Ting lab"},{"url":"https:\/\/neurolab.gatech.edu\/labs\/butera","title":"Butera lab website"},{"url":"http:\/\/petitinstitute.gatech.edu\/","title":"Petit Institute website"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/","title":"Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"}],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"126591","name":"go-NeuralEngineering"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"334041":{"#nid":"334041","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Researchers Discover New Tri-Molecular Complex","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA group of Georgia Tech researchers has discovered a new type of molecular interaction that could have important implications in preventing the spread of tumors and cancerous cells.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWorking within Georgia Tech\u2019s Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, the researchers found a unique trimolecular relationship between Thy-1, a lipid tether protein; \u03b15\u03b21, a transmembrane receptor; and Syn-4, another protein.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWhen Thy-1 bonds with \u03b15\u03b21, they form what\u2019s known as a slip bond, which is easily broken apart when force is applied. The same thing happens between Thy-1 and Syn-4,\u201d said Dr. Thomas Barker, one of the lead authors. \u201cBut what we observed is that when all three molecules come together, they form what we call a catch bond. Instead of breaking apart when force is applied, a catch bond becomes stronger, almost like a finger trap.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe findings from Barker, Vincent Fiore, Lining Ju, Yunfeng Chen, and Dr. Cheng Zhu appear in the journal Nature Communications.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe research that led to the findings began as a weekend project sparked by one graduate student\u2019s curiosity \u2014 a chance observation that turned into a full-scale research project.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cOne of my classmates and I set off to try to understand how integrin receptors bind Thy-1 on a cell\u2019s surface,\u201d said Fiore, student researcher in Barker\u2019s lab. \u201cWhat we observed was this new receptor of Thy-1, and a new type of interaction neither of us had seen before.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe group\u2019s findings have implications for stopping the spread of cancerous tumors and healing persistent wounds, Barker said. Thy-1is a so-called \u201crecruitment protein.\u201d From its position on the outside of a cell, Thy-1 can \u201ccapture\u201d other proteins that are flowing through the bloodstream. When a doctor removes a tumor, for example, the tumor itself is gone, but cancerous cells may still be present in the bloodstream. These findings demonstrate the potential to disrupt the interaction between an endothelial protein and the circulating tumor cell receptor that causes tumor metastasis.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThese findings could have implications for physicians treating unhealing wounds,\u201d Barker said. \u201cThis understanding could be used to engineer stem cells to actively home to the unhealing region by injecting stem cells into the blood stream.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETo read the full findings in Nature Communications, click \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.nature.com\/ncomms\/2014\/140912\/ncomms5886\/full\/ncomms5886.html\u0022\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A group of Georgia Tech researchers has discovered a new type of molecular interaction that could have important implications in preventing the spread of tumors and cancerous cells."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-10-14 15:50:49","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:15","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-14T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-14T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"334031":{"id":"334031","type":"image","title":"Tom Barker Lab image","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895046","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:46","alt":"Tom Barker Lab image","file":{"fid":"200444","name":"shapeimage_2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/shapeimage_2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/shapeimage_2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":43498,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/shapeimage_2_0.jpg?itok=_ko5wfxL"}}},"media_ids":["334031"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"365","name":"Research"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"333991":{"#nid":"333991","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Allison Kramer: Changing Lives for the Better Through Biomedical Engineering","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWith two parents in the medical field and an older brother who attended Georgia Tech, Allison Kramer\u2019s path toward becoming a biomedical engineer was forged early on. In true engineer fashion, when it came time to pick a university, Kramer created a cost-benefit analysis to help her decide which school she would attend.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI only applied to universities and colleges that would give me a foundation to grow and provide me a solid platform from which to enter the professional world,\u201d Kramer says. \u201cWhen I looked at the schools I was accepted to and compared them side by side based on their merits, Georgia Tech was the hands-down winner.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo stranger to moving, Kramer packed up her things and quickly settled into life in Atlanta. Growing up, she and her family moved from place to place following her dad\u2019s job in the biomedical device field.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt was her father\u2019s career that provided Kramer an inside glimpse of the many different sides of the industry.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cMy dad successfully engineered the business side of several companies, managing teams of people and helping struggling companies turn around their bottom lines,\u201d Kramer says. \u201cBut then I would watch him come home after work and help my brother with his calculus homework like it was no big deal. That showed me how multi-faceted a biomedical engineering education could be.\u0022\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENow in her fifth year as a Yellow Jacket, Kramer finds it\u2019s that versatility that keeps her engaged. An avid participant in on-campus activities, she constantly seeks out new opportunities in the academic, professional and social realm that will help her advance toward her desired career.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAfter graduation, Kramer hopes to secure a position in research \u0026amp; design, product development or quality control with a major biomedical engineering company.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cGraduate school is on my agenda, but my top priority is getting my feet wet in the industry workforce,\u201d Kramer explains. \u201cIdeally, I would like to pursue my graduate degree while also working full or part-time. That way, I\u2019m still continuing to build real-world experience in product engineering, problem solving, and working on a team.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EKramer thrives on teamwork. One of her favorite courses at Georgia Tech thus far has been Bio-Inspired Design, which calls upon teams of undergraduate and graduate students of varying majors to design a product motivated by nature or biology.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EKramer encouraged her team to pursue a product that would solve a problem. The problem on her mind? How to lower the number of women in developing nations who die during childbirth.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe main cause of death for these women is hemorrhaging due to loss of blood. These countries don\u2019t have the capabilities nor the supplies required to perform blood transfusions as easily as we can,\u201d Kramer says. \u201cI was inspired to come up with a product that could solve this problem.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDrawing upon the knowledge of the various members of the team, Kramer\u2019s group noted that changing the contact angle along a microfluidic chip can aid in separating unwanted particles from the fluid. It\u2019s the same natural phenomenon that allows butterflies and other insects to easily remove debris and water from their wings to enable flight.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWith this information in mind, Kramer and her team engineered a bio-inspired chip that can be used to passively separate plasma from whole blood without expending any energy.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThis technology could ultimately be used to collect blood in developing nations, so that a greater supply is available to women during childbirth,\u201d Kramer explains.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EKramer says the concept of solving problems and creating positive solutions is the most rewarding part of being an engineer. It\u2019s also what makes it a viable career choice.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThere are always going to be problems that need solving,\u201d Kramer says, \u201cand an engineer can find that solution. If there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve learned during my time at Georgia Tech, it\u2019s that no problem is too large. Maybe you need to take a different approach or look at things in a new light to find the solution. That\u2019s what engineering teaches you.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd it\u2019s not all about academics. Part of being successful in any field, Kramer says, is being able to step out of the lab and into the real world through networking events, office hours and face-to-face interactions.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs an independent thinker with a determined nature, Kramer says one of the most important lessons for her was learning how to ask for help.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cSometimes you have to swallow your pride and admit that you don\u2019t understand how to do something, whether that means asking one of your colleagues for help or scheduling an extra tutoring session with a professor,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s funny; once you accept that you might not have all the answers, that\u2019s when you\u2019re really able to open your mind to the new and innovative solutions you\u2019ve been looking for.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pub\/allison-kramer\/4b\/238\/53\u0022\u003EConnect with Allison on LinkedIn\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"With two parents in the medical field and an older brother who attended Georgia Tech, Allison Kramer\u2019s path toward becoming a biomedical engineer was forged early on."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-10-14 15:25:18","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:15","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-14T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-14T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"333971":{"id":"333971","type":"image","title":"Allison Kramer image","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895046","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:46","alt":"Allison Kramer image","file":{"fid":"200441","name":"allison1.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/allison1_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/allison1_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":347631,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/allison1_0.png?itok=dlnjw13S"}},"333981":{"id":"333981","type":"image","title":"Allison Kramer image 2","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895046","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:46","alt":"Allison Kramer image 2","file":{"fid":"200442","name":"allison2.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/allison2_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/allison2_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":848294,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/allison2_0.png?itok=1pBogrdf"}}},"media_ids":["333971","333981"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"3918","name":"profile"},{"id":"167058","name":"Student"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"333781":{"#nid":"333781","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Researchers Publish Findings of Significant Cardiovascular Study","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA group of Georgia Tech researchers has demonstrated for the first time that improving how efficiently they re-route blood in patients born with complex heart abnormalities also improves how well those patients can exercise. And that could reduce the long-term complications in a patient population that\u2019s getting older.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the procedure, surgeons typically bypass one of heart\u2019s right ventricle, the lower chamber that pumps blood out to the lungs to be re-oxygenated. This is called a total cavopulmonary connection (TCPC), or Fontan procedure. The research shows improving the design of that connection has real benefits for patients.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis has been previously hypothesized with computer simulations, but until now had never been demonstrated with solid research,\u201d said Dr. Ajit Yoganathan, one of the paper\u2019s authors. \u201cThe results have real-world implications for patients who have had this heart procedure in the past. The more we can reduce their complications, the better off they\u2019ll be.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study focused on 30 patients with only one functioning ventricle in their heart. The patients exercised by riding a bike for several minutes while their blood flow was measured with MRI. Researchers observed that patients with a more energy-efficient TCPC had a higher tolerance for exercise.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe findings were recently published in Heart, an international peer-reviewed journal for health professionals and researchers in all areas of cardiology. Yoganathan and eight other researchers from Georgia Tech\u2019s Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering contributed to the study.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese findings are important for patients who have had a Fontan procedure because the TCPC design can be surgically modified,\u201d said Maria Restrepo, a Ph.D. candidate who co-authored the study. \u201cThis means we can take a proactive approach to reducing their complications, lessening the burden on the nation\u2019s healthcare system and improving their quality of life.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research was a collaboration between Georgia Tech and the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia with support from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo read the full findings in \u003Cem\u003EHeart\u003C\/em\u003E, \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/heart.bmj.com\/content\/early\/2014\/09\/02\/heartjnl-2014-306337.short\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Eclick here.\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo view a related video, \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.myfoxatlanta.com\/story\/26561057\/childrens-heart-surgeons-use-3-d-heart-mapping-to-plan-complicated-surgeries\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Eclick here.\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A group of Georgia Tech researchers has demonstrated a tangible connection between exercise performance and energy efficiency in a patient\u2019s total cavopulmonary connection (TCPC)."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-10-14 11:22:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:15","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-14T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-14T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"333771":{"id":"333771","type":"image","title":"Dr. Ajit P. Yoganathan","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895044","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:44","alt":"Dr. Ajit P. Yoganathan","file":{"fid":"200436","name":"ajit-2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ajit-2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ajit-2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":23084,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ajit-2_0.jpg?itok=PkgyAgEC"}},"333931":{"id":"333931","type":"image","title":"Ajit P. Yoganathan image 2","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895046","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:46","alt":"Ajit P. Yoganathan image 2","file":{"fid":"200438","name":"ajit-1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ajit-1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ajit-1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":19970,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ajit-1_0.jpg?itok=5qmP37CH"}}},"media_ids":["333771","333931"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/groups.bme.gatech.edu\/groups\/cfmg\/group\/home.htm","title":"Yoganathan lab"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"365","name":"Research"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"332541":{"#nid":"332541","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Paying it Forward","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s taken a healthy dose of enlightened self-interest for Giuliana Salazar-Noratto to succeed as a mentor in the Petit Undergraduate Research Scholar program. She\u2019s helping to guide a next generation scientist while becoming a better scientist in the process. Then again, this notion of ultimately serving your own self-interest by advancing the interest of others is kind of the job description. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI needed help with my project, and I\u2019ve always liked being a mentor, encouraging people to get into the sciences \u2013 even to switch majors,\u201d says Salazar-Noratto, a National Science Foundation doctoral fellow in the Walter H. Coulter Biomedical Engineering Department (BME), pursuing a joint Ph.D. in the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI enjoy showing someone how cool biomedical engineering is, and how cool it is to do something that can ultimately save lives. When I was an undergrad, I worked with a postdoc on research and she guided me through the learning process, helped me develop a deep love of science, and gave the things we were doing more meaning, so I wasn\u2019t just mindlessly doing experiments,\u201d says Salazar-Noratto, who gets a talented and eager lab partner, Petit Scholar Destiny Cobb, in the process. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Petit Scholars program brings a scholar together with a mentor for one year of research, and they\u2019re typically paired based on mutual research interests. Salazar-Noratto and Cobb are working to develop animal models to better study osteochondritis dissecans, a rare joint disorder that predominately affects the knees of adolescents and young adults, in the lab of Robert Guldberg (executive director of the Parker H. Petit institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe great benefit to me is I have someone helping me with the project, which definitely needs multiple hands, and also, a different point of view helps,\u201d Salazar-Noratto says. \u201cBringing in a teammate means bringing in a different point of view, so maybe she\u2019ll catch something that I don\u2019t catch. One of the greatest lessons I\u2019ve learned in how to be a mentor has been learning to realize that people work differently from each other, like, maybe I\u2019m more efficient in the morning and she\u2019s more efficient in the afternoon. One of the great challenges \u2013 and it doesn\u2019t just apply to being a mentor, but just being a leader \u2013 is learning how your teammates work. So this has been a great learning experience for me.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMentors tend to take a pragmatic point of view at the start, according to Tom Barker, a Petit Faculty Fellow and associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), who recently began his first year as faculty advisor to the Petit Scholars program. In other words, the road to becoming a mentor begins with the easiest, most practical of reasons. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI decided to apply to become a Petit Scholar mentor because I had a good project in mind that I couldn\u2019t dedicate enough time to,\u201d says Maria Restrepo, who is mentoring Jake Sebring in the lab of Ajit Yoganathan (associate chair for research, Regents\u2019 professor and the BME\u2019s Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished faculty chair in Biomedical Engineering). Their research is focused on using surgical planning tools developed there in Yoganathan\u2019s lab to help clinicians find the best options in treating children with complex congenital heart defects. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI wanted a good undergrad that could take care of it, and was very lucky to get Jake, because he\u2019s a hard-working student and has exceeded my expectations,\u201d says Restrepo, who will finish her Ph.D. in December and will begin her career in industry as a software engineer for Gaumard (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gaumard.com\u0022 title=\u0022www.gaumard.com\u0022\u003Ewww.gaumard.com\u003C\/a\u003E), a company in Miami that makes medical simulators to train clinicians. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESalazar-Noratto isn\u2019t certain yet where her path will lead, beyond a laboratory. She may be a professor, or she may enter industry, but says that either way she\u2019ll be a research scientist working in translational medicine. The mentoring experience, Barker says, can only help figure out which direction Salazar-Noratto and her fellow lab-dwelling grad students will follow, or whether they\u2019re on the right career path to begin with. Along the way, though, there\u2019s the opportunity to help develop a new generation of scientists and biotech leaders. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIn my opinion, the most important role that mentors play in the Petit Scholars program is grooming the next group of great grad students, who might become the next group of great scientists,\u201d Barker says. \u201cWe\u2019d love for our Georgia Tech undergrads to become the most highly functioning graduate students wherever they go from here. We want faculty at other universities to look at Georgia Tech as a hotbed of great student recruits. If we can accomplish that, we get more high quality applications for the scholarship, we get more high-quality mentors that want to be part of it. And there\u2019s a level of prestige in being a great mentor to a future great scientist.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Petit Scholar mentors help develop next generation scientists"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPetit Scholar mentors help develop next generation scientists\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Petit Scholar mentors help develop next generation scientists"}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-10-09 09:37:47","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:15","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"332521":{"id":"332521","type":"image","title":"2014 Petit Mentor Giuliana Salazar-Noratto with Petit Scholar Destiny Cobb","body":null,"created":"1449245114","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:14","changed":"1475895044","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:44","alt":"2014 Petit Mentor Giuliana Salazar-Noratto with Petit Scholar Destiny Cobb","file":{"fid":"200394","name":"salazarnorattogiuliana-cobbdestiny-square.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/salazarnorattogiuliana-cobbdestiny-square_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/salazarnorattogiuliana-cobbdestiny-square_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":4313362,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/salazarnorattogiuliana-cobbdestiny-square_0.jpg?itok=newESEEp"}},"332531":{"id":"332531","type":"image","title":"2014 Petit Mentor Maria Restrepo with Petit Scholar Jake Sebring","body":null,"created":"1449245114","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:14","changed":"1475895044","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:44","alt":"2014 Petit Mentor Maria Restrepo with Petit Scholar Jake Sebring","file":{"fid":"200395","name":"restrepomariasebrinajake-square.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/restrepomariasebrinajake-square_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/restrepomariasebrinajake-square_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":4838482,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/restrepomariasebrinajake-square_0.jpg?itok=qlzc_1Z2"}}},"media_ids":["332521","332531"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/petitinstitute.gatech.edu\/become-petit-mentor","title":"Petit Mentor program"},{"url":"http:\/\/petitinstitute.gatech.edu\/","title":"Petit Institute website"},{"url":"http:\/\/guldberglab.gatech.edu\/","title":"Guldberg Musculoskeletal Research Lab"},{"url":"http:\/\/groups.bme.gatech.edu\/groups\/cfmg\/group\/home.htm","title":"Yoganathan lab"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"140","name":"Cancer Research"},{"id":"141","name":"Chemistry and Chemical Engineering"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"149","name":"Nanotechnology and Nanoscience"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"332681":{"#nid":"332681","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Learning Commons Now Open","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s Tuesday afternoon and the fourth floor of the U.A. Whitaker Biomedical Building is filled with the silent hum of young brains working alone and in small groups, biomedical engineering students surrounded by their ideas, which are literally written on the walls around them, and Joe Le Doux is smiling.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI guess the Learning Commons idea is taking off,\u201d says Le Doux, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), where he is executive director for learning and student experience, a new position that places him in the role of chief facilitator for the recently opened, student-directed BME Learning Commons. \u201cThis is exactly what we want to see. It\u2019s a start.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA work in progress, the BME Learning Commons isn\u2019t just a physical space \u2013 the ongoing renovation of what was a fourth-floor faculty\/staff lounge into a social learning environment for BME students (an ongoing process. \u201cIt\u2019s actually more of a movement,\u201d Le Doux says. \u201cAnd the goal is for students to take ownership of their BME experience.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELe Doux defines his role as, \u201ca representative of the department there to empower the students. That\u2019s the objective. It\u2019s very important that this is student owned and student led.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo help that happen, Le Doux organized a brainstorming session last November. Fourteen people (including eight undergraduate students) participated in the \u2018fast and furious charrette,\u2019 to conceptualize the BME Learning Commons. From that meeting, five undergrads (Candice Cheung, Abhinav Mehra, Yuna Oh, Malvika Sanghvi and Yitian Xiao) volunteered to work with Le Doux on designing the program, along with faculty and staff advisors (Raja Schaar, Barbara Fasse, Kim Paige, Chris Calleri and Alisha Waller). The student leadership team has grown to include Veena Ganapathy, Grace Ha, Lizzie Marr, Bharat Sanders, Durazi Savasir, Dhara Patel, Alexa Siu, Abhinaya Uthayakumar and Catherine Wallace. During the spring, students interviewed classmates about the idea, and some of the early feedback wasn\u2019t very encouraging according to Cheung, a third-year student.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSome of the BMEs I talked to were really skeptical and actually a little condescending about what the department is trying to do with this program. Others were hesitant,\u201d says Cheung. \u201cAnd then some were excited. I would say that the general attitude towards the Learning Commons has taken a 180. I think part of it is because now we have a running program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe\u2019s talking about the mentorship program, a popular response to what was identified as one of the highest priorities in those early days of planning last winter and spring.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe goal was to have every single freshman who comes to BME have an upperclassman mentor, and for every upperclassman mentor to have an alumni mentor,\u201d Le Doux explains. \u201cWe get roughly 400 freshmen a year, and I figured that if we could have one upperclassman per five freshman, we would need to recruit 80 upperclassman mentors, which I thought would be difficult to achieve.\u0026nbsp; Instead, more than 130 upperclassmen volunteered to serve as mentors, which is amazing.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAll told, there are about 540 participants throughout the BME Learning Commons Mentorship Program now, and Le Doux expects that figure to reach 650, once the upperclassmen are matched with their alumni mentors\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe mentorship program was the first thing to grow out of the Learning Commons, but the space itself is evolving,\u201d says Le Doux, looking at some of the comments and ideas, which are written in marker ink on walls that are actually huge white boards.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere are several different requests for coffee makers and refrigerators, one for hammocks outside on the patio, one for Legos, one for a telescope and one that says, \u201cTwo words \u2026 wet bar.\u201d Le Doux and Cheung chuckle at one particularly vivid suggestion for heating control, accompanied by two cartoons. One depicts a wilting man on all fours saying, \u201cIts too hot.\u201d The other depicts a shivering man saying, \u201cIts too cold.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re encouraging students to think of this as an experimental space right now,\u201d says Le Doux. \u201cWe haven\u2019t plunked down a lot of money on renovating the space yet, so student feedback and comments will generate what ultimately happens to the space.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Le Doux, this sense of student empowerment is key to the success so far, and the promise, of the BME Learning Commons. \u201cOut of all this, a new student organization has emerged to harness all of this energy,\u201d he says, referring to the \u2018product owners\u2019 who have taken on leadership roles in \u2018scrum teams,\u2019 part of the \u2018agile management\u2019 methodology (prevalent in the software industry, adapted by the Learning Commons folks), a management style that fits well with rapidly changing needs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSo, we have about a dozen product owners so far who are in the process of forming teams, and we have literally just started having weekly Learning Commons leadership team meetings,\u201d Le Doux says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECheung is the product owner for what may be the Learning Commons\u2019 next up-and-running program, the podcast studio. \u201cI\u2019m thinking that the first podcast will be an introduction to the Learning Commons as a whole,\u201d she says, adding, \u201cNow that people are seeing that we are very serious about creating a change in BME, they\u2019re more willing to use the services that we offer and will be offering.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith 1,400 students in BME, that leaves plenty of opportunities for a wide variety of podcasts, which means lots of stories and human experiences, which Le Doux believes will only enhance the learning experience in the Coulter Department. \u201cStorytelling is a fundamental human trait,\u201d he says. \u201cWe all create narratives to explain how things work. Sharing stories is a natural, effective way to learn. Research shows that when experts solve problems, the first thing they do is talk to somebody else who solved a problem similar to theirs. It\u2019s essentially story collection, and we see that as one way to provide more interaction with alumni or faculty or experts in the field.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere is a definitive StoryCorps vibe to the podcast idea, and that isn\u2019t an accident. StoryCorps is a nonprofit organization that is producing one of the largest oral history projects ever conceived. Since 2003, the organization has collected and archived more than 50,000 interviews, including weekly broadcasts on National Public Radio.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cStoryCorps certainly has influenced our thinking,\u201d says Le Doux, who employed a similar program in a course he taught, BMED 1000, as a way of connecting students with alumni, with experts in biomedical engineering, and essentially, with their potential futures.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt was a way of building community, because our students don\u2019t necessarily know what everybody with a BME degree is up to.\u201d Le Doux says. \u201cIn fact, there is some angst and uncertainty about what to do with a BME degree. So our students worked in teams, went out and interviewed biomedical engineers, and asked them deep, open-ended questions.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThey gathered more than 80 stories, which Le Doux, with the help of Alexa Siu and her BME Stories scrum team, plans to post online soon. Cheung is looking forward to assembling a team of students to gather even more stories, with the help of the podcast studio. The idea is to build a catalog of stories from experts, alumni, faculty, and students. \u201cI imagine it as something students can open up and find what they need in the experiences of others, find something that resonates with them, something they can learn from,\u201d Le Doux says. \u201cKind of like a box of wisdom.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Jerry Grillo\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"It\u2019s more than a just a physical space \u2013 it\u2019s a movement..."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-10-09 12:43:34","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:15","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"332671":{"id":"332671","type":"image","title":"Candice and Joe poscast","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895044","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:44","alt":"Candice and Joe poscast","file":{"fid":"200404","name":"candice_and_joe_podcast.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/candice_and_joe_podcast_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/candice_and_joe_podcast_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1462703,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/candice_and_joe_podcast_0.jpg?itok=griOfn0R"}},"332661":{"id":"332661","type":"image","title":"Candice and Joe","body":null,"created":"1449245133","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:33","changed":"1475895044","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:44","alt":"Candice and Joe","file":{"fid":"200403","name":"candice_and_joe.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/candice_and_joe_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/candice_and_joe_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2371754,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/candice_and_joe_0.jpg?itok=LkYV7mcp"}}},"media_ids":["332671","332661"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"105971","name":"Learning Commons"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"329711":{"#nid":"329711","#data":{"type":"news","title":"BME Hosts Tenth Annual Career Fair","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMore than 500 Georgia Tech students turned out for the opportunity to meet with executives from industry-leading companies at the 10th annual Biotechnology Career Fair. The fair was held at the MS\u0026amp;E building on September 11, and was attended by representatives from more than two dozen companies including Procter \u0026amp; Gamble, Medtronic and Johnson \u0026amp; Johnson.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis year\u2019s fair was the largest we\u2019ve had since we began offering it a decade ago,\u201d said event organizer Sally Gerrish, who manages student, alumni and industrial relations at Georgia Tech. \u201cIt\u2019s a much-needed opportunity for both our undergrad and graduate students to get valuable face time with some of the top players in the field. We\u2019re very pleased with the success of this year\u2019s event.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe event was open to all students, regardless of major, who have an interest in the field of biomedical engineering. Many of the companies with representatives at the fair were there to meet with potential interns, full-time job candidates, or both.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI was incredibly impressed with the students I met at the career fair, not only because of their intelligence but because of how dedicated they were to investing in their futures,\u201d said Ken Zielmanski, Director of Quality Assurance for T3, a pre-clinical testing and training provider. \u201cI met with about 50 students and my colleague met with another 50, and we wished we had positions to offer all of them.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EZielmanski explains that with so many capable candidates, his company believes it\u2019s important that applicants are able to excel not only as an individual, but as part of a team.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cKnowledge and intelligence are important, of course, but candidates for jobs and internships with our company have to be able to work successfully with an entire group of people,\u201d Zielmanski said. \u201cA \u2018team-player\u2019 mentality is key to succeeding in any career in biotechnology.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor participating students, the career fair was a chance to make connections, ask questions, and personally deliver their resumes to some of the most knowledgeable professionals in the biotechnology industry.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019m in my fifth year at Georgia Tech, and I\u2019ve come to realize that networking is one of the most important skills you can develop, regardless of your area of study,\u201d said undergraduate BME student Allison Kramer. \u201cI try to attend as many events like the career fair as possible, and make notes about who I met and what we talked about. That personal connection may one day be what sets your resume apart from all of the other applications in the pile.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKramer hopes to secure a full-time job after graduation and study for her graduate degree while working.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAdvancing in my career is my number one priority,\u201d said Kramer. \u201cMy dream would be to get a job at one of the amazing companies that took part in the career fair, and pursue a higher degree while also building up my work experience.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor the university, events like the career fair play a pivotal role in strengthening relationships with industry powerhouses. They\u2019re relationships that prove beneficial to all parties\u2014the company, the university and the students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBy working directly with top companies in the biotech industry, we\u2019re able to give our students advance notice of job openings and offer important connections that aid them during their job search,\u201d said Gerrish. \u201cThe companies benefit from accessing our talented pool of candidates for internships and full-time jobs, and many times those students go on to climb the ranks to upper-level positions. That means our alumni base grows even stronger.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the weeks leading up to the career fair, the college hosted panel discussions with Georgia Tech alumni, corporate information sessions, and professional development seminars for both undergraduate and graduate students. Students who attended were able to submit their resume to a Student Resume Database, which was accessible exclusively to the companies that registered for the fair.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGerrish hopes to continue to grow the size and scale of the career fair in years to come.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"More than 500 Georgia Tech students turned out for the opportunity to meet with executives from industry-leading companies at the 10th annual Biotechnology Career Fair."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-09-29 22:48:37","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:11","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"329691":{"id":"329691","type":"image","title":"BME Career Fair 2014","body":null,"created":"1449245090","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:04:50","changed":"1475895041","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:41","alt":"BME Career Fair 2014","file":{"fid":"200318","name":"img_5802.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img_5802_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img_5802_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":6320895,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/img_5802_0.jpg?itok=IZ0FJF1M"}},"329701":{"id":"329701","type":"image","title":"BME Career Fair 2014 #2","body":null,"created":"1449245090","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:04:50","changed":"1475895041","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:41","alt":"BME Career Fair 2014 #2","file":{"fid":"200319","name":"img_5774.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img_5774_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/img_5774_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":7355102,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/img_5774_0.jpg?itok=ATqy5C9d"}}},"media_ids":["329691","329701"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"133","name":"Special Events and Guest Speakers"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"4354","name":"career fair"},{"id":"4012","name":"jobs"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003EWallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003EAtlanta, GA 30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003EPhone: 404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"329731":{"#nid":"329731","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Mohamad Ali Najia: Choosing Internships for Future Success","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAccording to his 160-character bio on Twitter, undergraduate researcher Mohamad Ali Najia dreams of one day becoming the director of the National Institutes of Health. As an Amgen Scholar at UC Berkeley, Najia\u2019s trek along what he describes as his \u201cnon-linear path\u201d to achieving his goal is well underway. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENajia is set to graduate from Georgia Tech\u2019s Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering this December, which will put the finishing touch on a long resume of successful research ventures in his undergraduate career. Since he was a freshman, Najia has been working in Dr. Todd McDevitt\u2019s Engineering Stem Cell Technologies Lab to learn more about engineering the microenvironment in which stem cells live.\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThis research has real-world implications in developing stem cell-based therapeutics,\u201d Najia explains. \u201cStem cells, like any other raw material, must be processed in order to realize their potential. My job is to investigate and design the platforms necessary to manufacture these stem cells on a large scale.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn the summer of 2013, Najia worked with Dr. Alexander Gimelbrant at Harvard Medical School to investigate how cells become functionally distinct, and the epigenetic mechanisms that govern embryonic development. In October of that year, his work was published in the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis past summer Najia continued on his quest to further understand embryonic development, albeit on the other side of the country.\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI spent the summer working in Dr. Michael Eisen\u2019s lab at UC Berkeley, investigating the fundamental biological mechanisms that dictate the cadence of embryogenesis,\u201d Najia said. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cAfter graduation, I hope to continue to pursue this field of research in graduate school to earn my Ph.D. in biomedical engineering.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003EFrom his early school years growing up on the North Shore of Massachusetts, Najia has been interested in engineering\u2013though not the kind that currently fills his days.\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI dreamed of becoming a civil engineer, because I loved to build things with Legos and wood,\u201d Najia remembers. \u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003EIt wasn\u2019t until his sophomore year of high school that he began to take an interest in biomedical engineering and its implications. Najia studied Nobel prize-winning scientist Shinya Yamanaka and his revolutionary work reprogramming human skin cells to stem cells.\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt was truly fascinating to me, and the more I learned about the subject, the more my hunger for knowledge grew,\u201d Najia said. \u201cThe teachers, professors and mentors I\u2019ve had in the years since then have helped guide and shape my interest in a career in biomedical research.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003ENajia credits his time spent as a teaching assistant at Georgia Tech with helping him fine-tune his career goals. For the past three years he\u2019s guided other students through the notoriously difficult Computing for Engineers, which has proved a rewarding opportunity to see his field in a new light. \u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI think I may have learned more as a teaching assistant than as a student, because teaching forces you to think creatively and fundamentally about the subject matter,\u201d Najia said. \u201cThe ability to play a role in a student\u2019s exploration of a subject and see their growth firsthand is extremely satisfying.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003EIt\u2019s why\u2013in addition to goal of becoming the principal investigator in his own laboratory\u2013Najia aspires to continue teaching. \u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003ENajia maintains a prominent leadership role on campus, as editor-in-chief of the Tower undergraduate research journal. He says it\u2019s a challenging but important task to translate science findings into a format the general public can understand, and believes all scientists should place a larger emphasis on communicating their findings and shaping science policy in the U.S. Hence, his mission to work at the NIH. \u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe responsibility falls on all of us in the sciences to effectively explain our research, and not just in technical journals,\u201d Najia said. \u201cIt\u2019s up to us to convey why our research matters and inspire the next generation of scientists who will advance on the building blocks we leave for them.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003ENajia may be a young researcher himself, but he already possesses valuable wisdom to impart to newer BME students. Exploring as many interests as possible, he says, is the best way to not only nail down your career goals but to keep your mind sharp. \u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cEven if you have an idea of what it is you want to do, experiencing new things and meeting as many supportive mentors as possible will help you along your unique path to success,\u201d he said. \u201cMy various research internships along with the talented faculty and staff at Georgia Tech have helped me immensely, and have no doubt pointed me in a direction to achieve my goals.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/mnajia3\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EConnect with Mohamad Ali Najia on LinkedIn\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/twitter.com\/MohamadNajia\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EFollow Mohamad Ali Najia on Twitter\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;Written by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"According to his 160-character bio on Twitter, undergraduate researcher Mohamad Ali Najia dreams of one day becoming the director of the National Institutes of Health."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-09-29 22:59:27","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:11","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"329721":{"id":"329721","type":"image","title":"Mohamad Ali Najia","body":null,"created":"1449245090","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:04:50","changed":"1475895041","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:41","alt":"Mohamad Ali Najia","file":{"fid":"200320","name":"mohamad.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mohamad_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mohamad_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":6186424,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/mohamad_1.jpg?itok=Klvh0ZcL"}}},"media_ids":["329721"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"365","name":"Research"},{"id":"167058","name":"Student"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003EWallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003EAtlanta, GA 30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003EPhone: 404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"329221":{"#nid":"329221","#data":{"type":"news","title":"2015 Startup Competition Starts Now: Tech Graduate Students Can Form Teams, Register","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAre you an aspiring entrepreneur at Georgia Tech? Do you want to learn how to launch a startup by doing instead of just talking? If so, then the 2015 \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/startup.gatech.edu\/startup_competition\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech Startup Competition\u003C\/a\u003E could be your golden ticket.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDon\u2019t have an idea or a team? No problem. Competition organizers at Georgia Tech\u2019s VentureLab say a passion for entrepreneurship is all that is required to succeed in the competition, which is open to all current Georgia Tech graduate students and 2014 master\u2019s\/doctoral graduates.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYou can learn more and find potential teammates through workshops\/mixers being held in Room 300 of Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business on September 29 and October 6 from 7:45 p.m.-9 p.m. The September 29 workshop is on \u201cCustomer Segments and Value Propositions,\u201d while the October 6 event covers \u201cCustomer Discovery\u201d and provides an overview of the competition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team application deadline is October 13. Mentoring is available to teams throughout the academic year in preparation for the semifinals on March 2 and finals on March 9 at Scheller College of Business, the competition\u2019s sponsor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECash Prizes\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETeams, which can include 2 to 6 people, are competing for $40,000 in prizes: $15,000 for first prize, $5,000 for second, and $3,000 for third (plus two additional $1,000 prizes). Starting with the 2015 competition, the first prize team will also win the prestigious Edison Prize (a $15,000 convertible note).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKnown as the Business Plan Competition from 2001 to 2013, the Startup Competition now focuses on discovering a market opportunity and creating an innovative business model to address it. No written business plan, financial projections, or investor pitch is required. Instead, teams work together to define a compelling startup.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EStartup Approach\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMost technology startups fail because they start executing before they have a proven business model, note the competition organizers. The Startup Competition helps positions teams for success by requiring them to talk regularly to potential customers to ensure that they\u2019re developing a product or service that people want.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESixteen teams will be selected by VentureLab to present at the semifinals, and then judges will decide which eight teams advance to the final round\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETeams may not enter with an existing business, because the goal of the Startup Competition is to discover new business opportunities. The only exception to the requirement of being a Georgia Tech graduate student\/2014 graduate is for Emory law students who are teamed with Tech students through the Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results (TI:GER) Program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor more information, visit\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/startup.gatech.edu\/startup_competition\u0022\u003Estartup.gatech.edu\/startup_competition\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAre you an aspiring entrepreneur at Georgia Tech? Do you want to learn how to launch a startup by doing instead of just talking? If so, then the 2015 Georgia Tech Startup Competition could be your golden ticket.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Are you an aspiring entrepreneur at Georgia Tech? Do you want to learn how to launch a startup by doing instead of just talking? If so, then the 2015 Georgia Tech Startup Competition could be your golden ticket."}],"uid":"27271","created_gmt":"2014-09-26 15:21:55","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:11","author":"Brad Dixon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-26T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-26T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"329211":{"id":"329211","type":"image","title":"Startup Competition Edison Prize","body":null,"created":"1449245090","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:04:50","changed":"1475895041","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:41","alt":"Startup Competition Edison Prize","file":{"fid":"200310","name":"edison_prize_banner4.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/edison_prize_banner4_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/edison_prize_banner4_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":43635,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/edison_prize_banner4_0.jpg?itok=5cRJayfh"}}},"media_ids":["329211"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/startup.gatech.edu\/startup_competition\/","title":"Additional Information"}],"groups":[{"id":"1274","name":"Scheller College of Business"}],"categories":[{"id":"133","name":"Special Events and Guest Speakers"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"3472","name":"entrepreneurship"},{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"},{"id":"167971","name":"startup competition"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrad Dixon, Scheller College of Business\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-894-3943\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:braddixon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebraddixon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["braddixon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"327601":{"#nid":"327601","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Platelets modulate clotting behavior by \u201cfeeling\u201d their surroundings","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPlatelets, the tiny cell fragments whose job it is to stop bleeding, are very simple. They don\u2019t have a cell nucleus. But they can \u201cfeel\u201d the physical environment around them, researchers at Emory University and Georgia Tech have discovered.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPlatelets respond to surfaces with greater stiffness by increasing their stickiness, the degree to which they \u201cturn on\u201d other platelets and other components of the clotting system, the researchers found.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cPlatelets are smarter than we give them credit for, in that they are able to sense the physical characteristics of their environment and respond in a graduated way,\u201d said Wilbur Lam, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine and in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe results are published in the journal \u003Cem\u003EProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences\u003C\/em\u003E. The first author of the paper is research associate Yongzhi Qiu. Lam is also a physician in the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers\u2019 findings could influence the design of medical devices, because when platelets grab onto the surfaces of catheters and medical implants, they tend to form clots, a major problem for patient care.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EModifying the stiffness of materials used in these devices could reduce clot formation, the authors suggest. The results could also guide the refinement of blood thinning drugs, which are prescribed to millions to reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team was able to separate physical and biochemical effects on platelet behavior by forming polymer gels with different degrees of stiffness, and then overlaying them each with the same coating of fibrinogen, a sticky protein critical for blood clotting. Fibrinogen is the precursor for fibrin, which forms a mesh of insoluble strands in a blood clot.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith stiffer gels, platelets spread out more and become more activated. This behavior is most pronounced when the concentration of fibrinogen is relatively low, the researchers found.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis variability helps to explain platelet behavior in the 3D context of a clot in the body, which can be quite heterogenous in makeup,\u201d Lam said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EQiu and colleagues were also able to dissect platelet biochemistry by allowing the platelets to adhere and then spread on the various gels under the influence of drugs that interfere with different biochemical steps.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProteins called integrins, which engage the fibrinogen, and the protein Rac1 are involved in the initial mechanical sensing during adhesion, while myosin and actin, components of the cytoskeleton, are responsible for platelet spreading.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe found that the initial adhesion and later spreading are separable, because different biochemical pathways are involved in each step,\u201d Lam said. \u201cOur data show that mechanosensing can occur and plays important roles even when the cellular structural building blocks are fairly basic, even when the nucleus is absent.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the American Heart Association, the National Heart Lung \u0026amp; Blood Institute (U54HL112309, R01HL121264) and the National Eye Institute (PN2EY018244).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: Emory University: Quinn Eastman (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:qeastma@emory.edu\u0022\u003Eqeastma@emory.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-727-7829) or Georgia Tech: John Toon (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-894-6986).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Quinn Eastman\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPlatelets, the tiny cell fragments whose job it is to stop bleeding, are very simple. They don\u2019t have a cell nucleus. But they can \u201cfeel\u201d the physical environment around them, researchers at Emory University and Georgia Tech have discovered.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Blood platelets can \u0022feel\u0022 the physical environment around them, researchers have learned."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2014-09-22 14:52:06","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:07","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"327581":{"id":"327581","type":"image","title":"Platelet clotting behavior","body":null,"created":"1449245064","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:04:24","changed":"1475895039","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:39","alt":"Platelet clotting behavior","file":{"fid":"200257","name":"platelets-lam-qui.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/platelets-lam-qui_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/platelets-lam-qui_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1120441,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/platelets-lam-qui_0.jpg?itok=KLkh4JeU"}},"327591":{"id":"327591","type":"image","title":"Platelet spreading","body":null,"created":"1449245064","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:04:24","changed":"1475895039","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:39","alt":"Platelet spreading","file":{"fid":"200258","name":"plateletsspread.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/plateletsspread_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/plateletsspread_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":149607,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/plateletsspread_0.png?itok=yNks7LoS"}}},"media_ids":["327581","327591"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1440","name":"blood"},{"id":"102021","name":"clotting"},{"id":"36131","name":"platelets"},{"id":"171368","name":"surface"},{"id":"3264","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"14681","name":"Wilbur Lam"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"327141":{"#nid":"327141","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Sense of Direction","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EScientific research isn\u2019t easy. It\u2019s not supposed to be. For bright, confident undergrads with high expectations, scientific research can be particularly daunting because it means they have to dip their brains into the murky unknown to find answers no one else has discovered yet \u2013 answers that may elude them in experiment after experiment, which can be really disappointing for the scholar who is used to acing tests and finishing near the top of the class. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo it helps to have a guide, someone who remembers the disappointment, who isn\u2019t intimidated by the trial-and-error nature of research and experimentation, and who has come through on the other side, after swinging and missing, to finally connect with a significant discovery or answer \u2013 someone like Ashley Brown. As a mentor in the Petit Undergraduate Research Scholar program, it\u2019s her job to help one of the undergrad scholars, Kaitlin Ahlstedt, find that connection. In a sense, this is Brown\u2019s way of paying it forward. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cOne of the main reasons I was interested in being a mentor is, I had the experience of working with a mentor when I was an undergrad, and it was instilled in me how important this kind of mentoring program can be,\u201d says Brown, a research scientist who has served a joint postdoctoral fellowship, in the labs of Tom Barker (associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering) and Andrew Lyon (former professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, now dean of the Schmid College of Science and Technology at Chapman University in California). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhile pursuing her Bachelor of Science in Biosystems Engineering at Clemson (she graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2006), Brown got involved in an undergraduate research program at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Even though that research focused on microelectronics \u2013 definitely not her cup of chi \u2013 she was hooked on the idea of coming to Georgia Tech. The biomedical engineering Ph.D. program\u2019s No. 2 ranking nationally, she says, made her decision a no-brainer. \u201cGeorgia Tech was always my top choice,\u201d says Brown, who earned her Ph.D. in 2011. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESince coming to Tech, she has mentored nine undergraduate students in different capacities, so she\u2019s seen the transformation over and over, and that experience by itself, she says, \u201cis so rewarding. You work with excited undergrads, many of them getting their hands dirty in a lab for the first time, getting excited about the science, making discoveries and really contributing to serious research. It\u2019s a mutually beneficial experience.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBarker, who has worked with Brown in his lab for years, says, \u201cshe epitomizes, for me, what a good mentor really is. She provides really good, clear directions, has a strong focus in what she wants to accomplish, and understands that new students who have not been exposed to this kind of environment, or even some who have, require a breaking-in period. Because it can be an uncomfortable place for a lot of young students who are accustomed to being lectured to, given information, memorizing it, and then regurgitating it on the exam. Learning through failure is foreign to many of them.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat concept, \u201clearning through failure,\u201d gets right back to the heart of what might be most challenging to undergrads like the Petit Scholars. Barker even has an essay on the subject taped to his office door. When his graduate students want to know his philosophy, he often tells them to read the essay, published six years ago in the Journal of Cell Science and written by former University of Virginia professor Martin Schwartz (now at Yale). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEntitled, \u003Cem\u003EThe importance of stupidity in scientific research\u003C\/em\u003E, the essay is important because, as Barker summarizes it, \u201cin science, if you know all of the answers already then you\u2019re in the wrong place. We\u2019re supposed to be at the cutting edge, defining the new definitions. The article sums up nicely, I think, the challenge for a good mentor.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe challenge is in knowing when to push, when to support, or even when to pull back and, as Barker puts it, \u201clet them drive the car \u2013 at least in the driveway. If we are trying to groom these undergraduate students to become the best graduate students in America, or across the world, we need to push them intellectually, outside their comfort zone. But there also are times when a mentor has to be a cheerleader. We all hit some really low lows \u2013 experiments that don\u2019t work, or don\u2019t give you the results you expected.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA good mentor, in other words, inspires in his or her mentee an ability to remain persistent, with blinders, so that they will become numb to failure \u2013 because some failure is inevitable if you\u2019re working on the cutting edge. It takes a self-assured guide, someone with a deft touch and a good sense of direction to go along with the big science brain. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Petit Scholars program brings one scholar together with one mentor for a year of research. Scholars typically choose a mentor based on their interest a mentor\u2019s research. Brown and Ahlstedt (who is one of five Petit Scholars in the 2014 class supported by funds from Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta) are working in Barker\u2019s lab, focusing on clotting dysfunction in neonatal patients who have undergone surgery for congenital heart defects. Working with Dr. Nina Guzzetta, an anesthesiologist with Children\u2019s Healthcare and Emory Pediatrics, their long-term goal is to find better treatment options for these very young and fragile patients. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cKaitlin and I hit it off and have similar research interests. Her main focus is to understand how neonatal clot structural and mechanical properties differ from that of adult clots,\u201d says Brown, who sees the Petit Scholar program as mutually beneficial. \u201cThat\u2019s the whole point. The hope is that all of the scholars will end up on a publication, or presenting at a conference. So it\u2019s important, on my part, to cultivate a good working relationship, to serve as a guide, but also to establish expectations.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAhlstedt is meeting, or exceeding those expectations \u2013 she\u2019ll be presenting her work at the National Biomedical Engineering Society Conference in San Antonio in October. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBarker expects that Brown will be a highly sought-after faculty candidate this year, her last as a postdoc, with a career in academia just ahead, she hopes. Brown isn\u2019t sure where she\u2019ll wind up, but wants her next role as a mentor to be part of her job as a faculty member somewhere.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI\u2019m not sure where that will be, but I\u2019m applying now with the goal of starting a new position next fall,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m casting a wide net.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Brown epitomizing the mentor role in Petit Scholar program."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrown epitomizing the mentor role in Petit Scholar program.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Brown epitomizing the mentor role in Petit Scholar program."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-09-19 13:07:32","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:07","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-19T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-19T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"327161":{"id":"327161","type":"image","title":"2014 Petit Undergraduate Research Scholar Kaitlin Ahlstedt with her mentor, Ashley Brown","body":null,"created":"1449245064","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:04:24","changed":"1475895039","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:39","alt":"2014 Petit Undergraduate Research Scholar Kaitlin Ahlstedt with her mentor, Ashley Brown","file":{"fid":"200247","name":"gatech_108-3034734132-o.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gatech_108-3034734132-o_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gatech_108-3034734132-o_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1690054,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/gatech_108-3034734132-o_0.jpg?itok=Iv93NUfT"}},"327151":{"id":"327151","type":"image","title":"Ashley Brown, PhD, 2014 Petit Mentor, with advisor, Tom Barker, PhD","body":null,"created":"1449245064","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:04:24","changed":"1475895039","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:39","alt":"Ashley Brown, PhD, 2014 Petit Mentor, with advisor, Tom Barker, PhD","file":{"fid":"200246","name":"tbarker_artificial-plateletssm_0_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tbarker_artificial-plateletssm_0_0_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tbarker_artificial-plateletssm_0_0_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":334210,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tbarker_artificial-plateletssm_0_0_0.jpg?itok=sVppQbzV"}}},"media_ids":["327161","327151"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/petitinstitute.gatech.edu\/become-petit-mentor","title":"Petit Mentor program"},{"url":"http:\/\/barker.bme.gatech.edu\/MBEL_website\/the_lab.html","title":"Barker lab"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"324711":{"#nid":"324711","#data":{"type":"news","title":"BME PROFESSOR LEADS CLINICAL TRIAL FOR CANCER-DETECTING TOOL","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA BME professor recently discovered how to use tiny glowing particles to detect malignant cancer cells. And he\u0027s turning his groundbreaking cancer-detection technology into a commercial venture.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOne of the biggest challenges with surgeries to remove tumors is that there are residual cancer cells left behind. They account for about 40 percent of cancer recurrence,\u201d said Shuming Nie, Ph.D., a Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair and director of the Emory-Georgia Tech Cancer Nanotechnology Center. \u201cOur technology uses tiny luminescent particles that bond to these cancerous cells to show doctors where the malignant cells remain so they can be removed.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENie hopes to commercialize the technology by early 2015, likely starting in Europe where the regulatory process moves faster. Nie will work in tandem with the biomedical technology company Spectropath, a spinoff founded by one of his former students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESpectropath was started in 2009 to further develop and commercializing image-guided cancer surgery.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe venture recently received a boost from the National Institutes of Health, which awarded Nie and his team a five-year, $6.9 million transformative research award.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis award supports projects that are high-risk, high-payoff,\u201d Nie said. \u201cIn other words, we may face major challenges, but we also have the potential to make an enormous impact on the field of medicine. This technology will literally save lives.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe technology has a host of practical applications where it may prove useful. It could allow for minimally invasive pathology via fiber optics, as opposed to the generally random sampling currently used in biopsies. Scientists are already researching how it might help combat cardiovascular disease, using the same ultra-small glowing particles to target plaque in the arteries. It may have implications for cell-based therapy and regenerative medicine as well.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBiomedical engineering is a field that allows you to turn your personal interests and curiosities into practical applications for human health,\u201d Nie said. \u0022It\u2019s a most satisfying field.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EClinical trials on the new technology are expected to begin in Europe early next year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ERelated Links:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/facultystaff\/faculty_record.php?id=40\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EShuming Nie\u2019s Profile\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=8_C-MpAAAAAJ\u0026amp;hl=en\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EGoogle Scholar\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.emoryhealthsciblog.com\/pilot-human-trial-image-guided-cancer-surgery-tool\/#more-8562\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EEmory Press Release\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.vet.upenn.edu\/about\/news-and-events\/press-releases\/article\/penn-team-makes-cancer-glow-to-improve-surgical-outcomes\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EUPenn News Release\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.atlantamagazine.com\/health\/healthcare-champions\u0022 target=\u0022_self\u0022\u003EAtlanta Magazine Article\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A BME professor recently discovered how to use tiny glowing particles to detect malignant cancer cells."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-09-15 06:27:26","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:04","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-15T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-15T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"324681":{"id":"324681","type":"image","title":"Shuming Nie 1","body":null,"created":"1449245025","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:45","changed":"1475895034","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:34","alt":"Shuming Nie 1","file":{"fid":"200190","name":"screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.22.56_am.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.22.56_am_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.22.56_am_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":800324,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.22.56_am_0.png?itok=xFDv25Kv"}},"324691":{"id":"324691","type":"image","title":"Shuming Nie 2","body":null,"created":"1449245025","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:45","changed":"1475895034","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:34","alt":"Shuming Nie 2","file":{"fid":"200191","name":"screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.24.18_am.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.24.18_am_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.24.18_am_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":761809,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.24.18_am_0.png?itok=-bs8JJPA"}},"324701":{"id":"324701","type":"image","title":"Shuming Nie 3","body":null,"created":"1449245025","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:45","changed":"1475895034","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:34","alt":"Shuming Nie 3","file":{"fid":"200192","name":"screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.24.39_am.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.24.39_am_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.24.39_am_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":736034,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/screen_shot_2014-09-15_at_6.24.39_am_0.png?itok=DMrNGPja"}}},"media_ids":["324681","324691","324701"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"139","name":"Business"},{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"},{"id":"140","name":"Cancer Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"1072","name":"Business"},{"id":"385","name":"cancer"},{"id":"364","name":"Funding"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["chris.calleri@bme.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"324661":{"#nid":"324661","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Petit Scholar Balancing Act","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETwo things you rarely see in the same sentence are \u201ccheerleader\u201d and \u201cresearch scientist.\u201d But right now, Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz is equally comfortable being both of those things, balancing these two demanding roles at the Georgia Institute of Technology with the grace of a gymnast, which would only make sense, considering she\u2019s worn that mantle, too.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA former member of the Puerto Rican national gymnastics team, it was an easy transition to \u201ccheerleader\u201d at Georgia Tech for D\u00edaz Ortiz, who works football and basketball home games and engages in cheerleading team competition, which involves a lot of tumbling, flipping and throwing people in the air.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI like to stay grounded, so fortunately, I\u2019m not one of the people who gets thrown into the air,\u201d says Diaz Ortiz, a 2014 Petit Scholar, who has found that her athletic endeavors help fuel the rest of her busy life at Tech. \u201cOh, it definitely keeps me in shape, keeps me healthy, which is pretty important with my high-pace schedule. But I like keeping a busy schedule. It helps make me more structured. And I love cheerleading because there is a real sense of community and bonding. I\u2019ve got great teammates.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ED\u00edaz Ortiz, a senior in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, sees a clear correlation between cheerleading and her work with mentor Chris Johnson in Andr\u00e9s Garc\u00eda\u2019s lab at the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience. Her independent research project is entitled, \u0022A Critical Bone Defect Infection Model Utilizing an Engineered Bioluminescent Clinical Strain of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI definitely do see a parallel between cheerleading and my courses in biomedical engineering and work in the lab at the Petit Institute. You get to collaborate with people with diverse backgrounds and ideas,\u201d she says. \u201cJust within the lab, for example, are people who have biotech backgrounds working with mechanical engineers. You\u2019ve got people with different strengths, working together on the same project. Same thing in cheerleading. You\u2019ve got people who are stronger at tumbling, people who are stronger at putting other people up in the air. It\u2019s interesting to see how people from so many different backgrounds can work so well together.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen D\u00edaz Ortiz arrived at Tech, she brought an interest in science, and liked the idea of doing research, but didn\u2019t know if she wanted to be a research scientist or not. Then she interviewed with Garc\u00eda for an opening in his lab for an undergraduate research assistant, and really dug it, and became interested in applying to the Petit Scholarship program \u2013 and the program wanted her. She was first invited to become a Petit Scholar for 2013, but at the same time, she was offered an internship with Abbott Laboratories and decided to defer her acceptance into the Petit Scholars program for a year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI really wanted to get a feeling for what industry was like,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d gotten the research experience, but didn\u2019t have a feel for industry. It turned out to be a good learning experience for me, because it wasn\u2019t quite what I expected, and honestly, it helped me cross out that idea.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPlanning to graduate in the spring, D\u00edaz Ortiz is in the process of applying to M.D.-Ph.D. programs \u2013 ultimately, she wants to do clinical research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI haven\u2019t decided where I want to go yet, but I\u2019d prefer to stay near a city that is a hub of biomedical research,\u201d she says. Her top three choices would be somewhere in Boston, California, or right here at the Tech\/Emory joint biomedical engineering program. \u201cWhere ever I wind up, I feel like the Petit Scholarship experience has been good preparation for grad school. It\u2019s definitely given me a feeling for what independent research is like.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz stays busy on the sidelines and in the laboratory"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPetit Scholar Balancing Act - Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz stays busy on the sidelines and in the laboratory.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz stays busy on the sidelines and in the laboratory."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-09-14 22:19:44","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:04","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-15T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-15T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"324671":{"id":"324671","type":"image","title":"Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz - 2014 Petit Scholar","body":null,"created":"1449245025","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:45","changed":"1475895034","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:34","alt":"Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz - 2014 Petit Scholar","file":{"fid":"200189","name":"diazortizmaria-cropped_square.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/diazortizmaria-cropped_square_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/diazortizmaria-cropped_square_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":418896,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/diazortizmaria-cropped_square_0.jpg?itok=fJTc2nNb"}},"330971":{"id":"330971","type":"image","title":"Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz","body":null,"created":"1449245114","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:14","changed":"1475895041","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:41","alt":"Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz","file":{"fid":"200359","name":"basketball_action_shot.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/basketball_action_shot_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/basketball_action_shot_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":256963,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/basketball_action_shot_0.jpg?itok=VLL07EG1"}},"330961":{"id":"330961","type":"image","title":"Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz","body":null,"created":"1449245114","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:14","changed":"1475895041","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:41","alt":"Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz","file":{"fid":"200358","name":"wreck_picture.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/wreck_picture_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/wreck_picture_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":177582,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/wreck_picture_0.jpg?itok=wuFgFRcL"}},"330941":{"id":"330941","type":"image","title":"Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz","body":null,"created":"1449245114","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:05:14","changed":"1475895041","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:41","alt":"Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz Ortiz","file":{"fid":"200357","name":"yellow_jacket_alley.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/yellow_jacket_alley_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/yellow_jacket_alley_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":152574,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/yellow_jacket_alley_0.jpg?itok=Ojvj0nCK"}}},"media_ids":["324671","330971","330961","330941"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.petitinstitute.gatech.edu\/petit-scholars","title":"Petit Scholars website"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.garcialab.gatech.edu\/","title":"Garcia lab website"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1625","name":"athletics"},{"id":"249","name":"Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"8707","name":"Petit Scholar"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"324121":{"#nid":"324121","#data":{"type":"news","title":"One-minute point-of-care anemia test shows promise in new study","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA simple point-of-care testing device for anemia could provide more rapid diagnosis of the common blood disorder and allow inexpensive at-home self-monitoring of persons with chronic forms of the disease.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe disposable self-testing device analyzes a single droplet of blood using a chemical reagent that produces visible color changes corresponding to different levels of anemia. The basic test produces results in about 60 seconds and requires no electrical power. A companion smartphone application can automatically correlate the visual results to specific blood hemoglobin levels.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBy allowing rapid diagnosis and more convenient monitoring of patients with chronic anemia, the device could help patients receive treatment before the disease becomes severe, potentially heading off emergency room visits and hospitalizations. Anemia, which affects two billion people worldwide, is now diagnosed and monitored using blood tests done with costly test equipment maintained in hospitals, clinics or commercial laboratories.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBecause of its simplicity and ability to deliver results without electricity, the device could also be used in resource-poor nations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA paper describing the device and comparing its sensitivity to gold-standard anemia testing was published August 30, 2014, in \u003Cem\u003EThe Journal of Clinical Investigation\u003C\/em\u003E. Development of the test has been supported by the FDA-funded Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium, the Georgia Research Alliance, Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta, the Georgia Center of Innovation for Manufacturing and the Global Center for Medical Innovation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur goal is to get this device into patients\u2019 hands so they can diagnose and monitor anemia themselves,\u201d said Dr. Wilbur Lam, senior author of the paper and a physician in the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta and the Department of Pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine. \u201cPatients could use this device in a way that\u2019s very similar to how diabetics use glucose-monitoring devices, but this will be even simpler because this is a visual-based test that doesn\u2019t require an additional electrical device to analyze the results.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe test device was developed in a collaboration of Emory University, Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta and the Georgia Institute of Technology \u2013 all based in Atlanta. It grew out of a 2011 undergraduate senior design project in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. In 2013, it was among the winners of Georgia Tech\u2019s InVenture Prize, an innovation competition for undergraduate students, and won first place in the Ideas to SERVE Competition in Georgia Tech\u2019s Scheller College of Business.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUsing a two-piece prototype device, the test works this way: A patient sticks a finger with a lance similar to those used by diabetics to produce a droplet of blood. The device\u2019s cap, a small vial, is then touched to the droplet, drawing in a precise amount of blood using capillary action. The cap containing the blood sample is then placed onto the body of the clear plastic test kit, which contains the chemical reagent. After the cap is closed, the device is briefly shaken to mix the blood and reagent.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen the capillary is filled, we have a very precise volume of blood, about five microliters, which is less than a droplet \u2013 much less than what is required by other anemia tests,\u201d explained Erika Tyburski, the paper\u2019s first author and leader of the undergraduate team that developed the device.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBlood hemoglobin then serves as a catalyst for a reduction-oxidation (redox) reaction that takes place in the device. After about 45 seconds, the reaction is complete and the patient sees a color ranging from green-blue to red, indicating the degree of anemia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe colors are produced by a redox-sensitive dye that complements the color arising from the hemoglobin, explained L. Andrew Lyon, who supported the work while he was chair of Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Chemistry \u0026amp; Biochemistry. \u201cIt is the breadth of color space covered by the reaction that really enables the assay to be so reliable when read out by the naked eye,\u201d said Lyon, who is now dean of the Schmid College of Science and Technology at Chapman University in California.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA label on the device helps with interpretation of the color, or the device could be photographed with a smartphone running an application written by Georgia Tech undergraduate student Alex Weiss and graduate student William Stoy. The app automatically correlates the color to a specific hemoglobin level, and could one day be used to report the data to a physician.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo evaluate sensitivity and specificity of the device, Tyburski studied blood taken from 238 patients, some of them children at Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta and the others adults at Emory University\u2019s Winship Cancer Institute. Each blood sample was tested four times using the device, and the results were compared to reports provided by conventional hematology analyzers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe work showed that the results of the one-minute test were consistent with those of the conventional analysis. The smartphone app produced the best results for measuring severe anemia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe test doesn\u2019t require a skilled technician or a draw of venous blood and you see the results immediately,\u201d said Lam, who is also an assistant professor in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. \u201cWe think this is an empowering system, both for the general public and for our patients.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETyburski and Lam have teamed up with two other partners and worked with Emory\u2019s Office of Technology Transfer to launch a startup company, Sanguina, to commercialize the test, which will be known as AnemoCheck\u2122. The test ultimately will require approval from the FDA. The team also plans to study how the test may be applied to specific diseases, such as sickle cell anemia \u2013 which is common in Georgia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe device could be on pharmacy shelves sometime in 2016, where it might help people like Tyburski, who has suffered mild anemia most of her life. \u201cIf I\u2019d had this when I was kid, I could have avoided some trips to the emergency room when I passed out in gym class,\u201d she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAbout a third of the population is at risk for anemia, which can cause neurocognitive deficits in children, organ failure and less serious effects such as chronic fatigue. Women, children, the elderly and those with chronic conditions such as kidney disease are more likely to suffer from anemia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u0026nbsp; USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Assistance\u003C\/strong\u003E: Georgia Tech -- John Toon (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-894-6986) or Brett Israel (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-385-1933) or Emory University -- Holly Korschun (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:hkorsch@emory.edu\u0022\u003Ehkorsch@emory.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-727-3990).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA simple point-of-care testing device for anemia could provide more rapid diagnosis of the common blood disorder and allow inexpensive at-home self-monitoring of persons with chronic forms of the disease.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A simple point-of-care testing device for anemia could provide more rapid diagnosis of the common blood disorder."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2014-09-11 11:11:22","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:04","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-11T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-11T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"324081":{"id":"324081","type":"image","title":"Prototype anemia test","body":null,"created":"1449245025","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:45","changed":"1475895034","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:34","alt":"Prototype anemia test","file":{"fid":"200176","name":"anemia-test168.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/anemia-test168_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/anemia-test168_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1024995,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/anemia-test168_0.jpg?itok=JQTEWrYN"}},"324101":{"id":"324101","type":"image","title":"Prototype anemia test3","body":null,"created":"1449245025","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:45","changed":"1475895034","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:34","alt":"Prototype anemia test3","file":{"fid":"200178","name":"anemai-test183.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/anemai-test183_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/anemai-test183_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":967076,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/anemai-test183_0.jpg?itok=Jg2xK9zM"}},"324091":{"id":"324091","type":"image","title":"Prototype anemia test2","body":null,"created":"1449245025","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:45","changed":"1475895034","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:34","alt":"Prototype anemia test2","file":{"fid":"200177","name":"anemia-test196.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/anemia-test196_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/anemia-test196_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":912782,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/anemia-test196_0.jpg?itok=sPZEnZEI"}},"324071":{"id":"324071","type":"image","title":"Erika Tyburski","body":null,"created":"1449245025","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:45","changed":"1475895034","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:34","alt":"Erika Tyburski","file":{"fid":"200175","name":"anemia-test19.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/anemia-test19_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/anemia-test19_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1289098,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/anemia-test19_0.jpg?itok=WDZfWJ8C"}}},"media_ids":["324081","324101","324091","324071"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"63841","name":"anemia"},{"id":"102931","name":"anemia monitoring"},{"id":"102911","name":"anemia testing"},{"id":"102941","name":"Erika Tyburski"},{"id":"7764","name":"InVenture Prize"},{"id":"3264","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"14681","name":"Wilbur Lam"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"106361","name":"Business and Economic Development"},{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"322231":{"#nid":"322231","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Platelet-like particles augment natural blood clotting for treating trauma","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA new class of synthetic platelet-like particles could augment natural blood clotting for the emergency treatment of traumatic injuries \u2013 and potentially offer doctors a new option for curbing surgical bleeding and addressing certain blood clotting disorders without the need for transfusions of natural platelets.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe clotting particles, which are based on soft and deformable hydrogel materials, are triggered by the same factor that initiates the body\u2019s own clotting processes. Testing done in animal models and in a simulated circulatory system suggest that the particles are effective at slowing bleeding and can safely circulate in the bloodstream. The particles have been tested with human blood, but have not undergone clinical trials in humans.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESupported by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the American Heart Association, the research was reported September 7, 2014, in the journal \u003Cem\u003ENature Materials\u003C\/em\u003E. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta and Arizona State University collaborated on the research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen used by emergency medical technicians in the civilian world or by medics in the military, we expect this technology could reduce the number of deaths from excessive bleeding,\u201d said Ashley Brown, a research scientist in the Georgia Tech \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.chemistry.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Chemistry and Biochemistry\u003C\/a\u003E and first author of the paper. \u201cIf EMTs and medics had particles like these that could be injected and then go specifically to the site of a serious injury, they could help decrease the number of deaths associated with serious injuries.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe bloodstream contains proteins known as fibrinogen that are the precursors for fibrin, the polymer that provides the basic structure for natural blood clots. When they receive the right signals from a protein known as thrombin, these precursors polymerize at the site of the bleeding. The synthetic platelet-like particles use the same trigger, and so are activated only when the body\u2019s natural clotting process is initiated.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo create that trigger, the researchers followed a process known as molecular evolution to develop an antibody that could be attached to the hydrogel particles to change their form when they encounter thrombin-activated fibrin. The resulting antibody has a high affinity for the polymerized form of fibrin and a low affinity for the precursor material.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFibrin production is on the back end of the clotting process, so we feel that it is a safer place to try to interact with it,\u201d said Tom Barker, an associate professor in the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EWallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and one of the paper\u2019s co-corresponding authors. \u201cThe specificity of this material provides a very important advantage in triggering clotting at just the right time.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe effectiveness of the platelet-like particles has been tested in an animal model and in a microfluidic chamber designed to simulate conditions within the body\u2019s circulatory system. In the chamber, tubes about the thickness of a human hair were lined with endothelial cells as in natural blood vessels.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe chamber was used to study normal human blood, as well as human blood that had been depleted of its natural platelets. In platelet-rich blood, clots formed as expected, and blood without platelets did not form clots. When the platelet-like particles were added to the platelet-depleted blood, it was able to clot.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers also tested blood from infants that had undergone open heart surgery, which requires that their blood be diluted, reducing its clotting ability. When platelet-like particles were added to the dilute neonate blood, it was able to form clots.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFinally, safety testing was done on blood from hemophiliac patients. Because that blood lacks the triggers needed to cause fibrin formation, the particles had no effect.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore they can be used in humans, the particles will have to undergo human trials and receive clearance from the U.S. Food \u0026amp; Drug Administration (FDA).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAbout one micron in diameter, the particles were originally developed to be used on the battlefield by wounded soldiers, who might self-administer them using a device about the size of a smartphone. But the researchers believe the particles could also reduce the need for platelet transfusions in patients undergoing chemotherapy or bypass surgery, and in those with certain blood disorders.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFor a patient with insufficient platelets due to bleeding or an inherited disorder, physicians often have to resort to platelet transfusions, which can be difficult to obtain,\u201d said Dr. Wilbur Lam, another of the paper\u2019s co-authors and a physician in the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.choa.org\/childrens-hospital-services\/cancer-and-blood-disorders\u0022\u003EAflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center\u003C\/a\u003E at Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta and the Department of Pediatrics at the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/med.emory.edu\/\u0022\u003EEmory University School of Medicine\u003C\/a\u003E. \u201cThese particles could potentially be a way to obviate the need for a transfusion. Though they don\u2019t have all the assets of natural platelets, a number of intriguing experiments have shown that the particles help augment the clotting process.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to providing new treatment options, the particles could also cut costs by reducing costly natural transfusions, said Lam, who is also an assistant professor in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhat ultimately happens to the hydrogel particles circulating in the bloodstream will be the topic of future research, noted Brown. Particles of similar size and composition are normally eliminated from the body.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile the platelet-like particles lack many features of natural platelets, the researchers were surprised to find one property in common. Clots formed by natural platelets begin to contract over a period of hours, starting the body\u2019s repair process. Clots formed from the synthetic particles also contract, but over a longer period of time, Brown noted.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to those already mentioned, co-authors of the paper included Andrew Lyon, co-corresponding author and dean of the College of Science and Technology at Chapman University; Sarah Stabenfeldt, co-first author and now an assistant professor at Arizona State University; Byungwook Ahn, Riley Hannan and Victoria Stefanelli, from the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering; Kabir Dhada and Emily Herman from the Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Dr. Nina Guzzetta from the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University School of Medicine; and Alexander Alexeev from the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: Ashley Brown, et al., \u201cUltrasoft microgels displaying emergent platelet-like behaviours,\u201d Nature Materials, 2014.\u003Ca href=\u0022\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/nmat4066\u0022\u003E http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/nmat4066\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research was supported by the National Institutes of Health under awards HHSN268201000043C, R21EB013743 and R01EB011566; the John and Mary Brock Discovery Research Fund; the Department of Defense under award W81XWH1110306, and an American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship. The opinions expressed in this news release are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the sponsoring agencies.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u0026nbsp; USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or Brett Israel (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA new class of synthetic platelet-like particles could augment natural blood clotting for the emergency treatment of traumatic injuries \u2013 and potentially offer doctors a new option for curbing surgical bleeding and addressing certain blood clotting disorders without the need for transfusions of natural platelets.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A new class of synthetic platelet-like particles could augment natural blood clotting for the treatment of traumatic injuries."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2014-09-07 14:35:56","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:04","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-07T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-07T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"322181":{"id":"322181","type":"image","title":"Antibodies in particles","body":null,"created":"1449245011","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:31","changed":"1475895032","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:32","alt":"Antibodies in particles","file":{"fid":"200135","name":"platelet-like145.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/platelet-like145_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/platelet-like145_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1071409,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/platelet-like145_0.jpg?itok=lysahRgH"}},"322191":{"id":"322191","type":"image","title":"Antibodies in particles2","body":null,"created":"1449245011","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:31","changed":"1475895032","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:32","alt":"Antibodies in particles2","file":{"fid":"200136","name":"platelet-like94.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/platelet-like94_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/platelet-like94_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1180415,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/platelet-like94_0.jpg?itok=kk6oWoZb"}},"322211":{"id":"322211","type":"image","title":"Platelet activation steps","body":null,"created":"1449245011","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:31","changed":"1475895032","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:32","alt":"Platelet activation steps","file":{"fid":"200138","name":"clotting-steps.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/clotting-steps_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/clotting-steps_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":240047,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/clotting-steps_0.jpg?itok=0iQftgQb"}},"322221":{"id":"322221","type":"image","title":"Anatomy of platelet-like particle","body":null,"created":"1449245011","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:31","changed":"1475895032","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:32","alt":"Anatomy of platelet-like particle","file":{"fid":"200139","name":"platelet-like.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/platelet-like_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/platelet-like_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":150256,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/platelet-like_0.jpg?itok=z97ELT4t"}},"322201":{"id":"322201","type":"image","title":"Antibodies in particles3","body":null,"created":"1449245011","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:31","changed":"1475895032","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:32","alt":"Antibodies in particles3","file":{"fid":"200137","name":"platelet-like171.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/platelet-like171_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/platelet-like171_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1195688,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/platelet-like171_0.jpg?itok=XnMHnhn7"}}},"media_ids":["322181","322191","322211","322221","322201"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"102041","name":"bleeding"},{"id":"1440","name":"blood"},{"id":"23731","name":"blood clotting"},{"id":"14219","name":"Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"102051","name":"platelet-like particles"},{"id":"36131","name":"platelets"},{"id":"14575","name":"Tom Barker"},{"id":"526","name":"trauma"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39471","name":"Materials"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"320691":{"#nid":"320691","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Jessilyn Dunn: Pushing Boundaries in Biomedical Engineering and Beyond","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EAt just 11 years old, Jessilyn Dunn was determined to learn more about the heart. After being by her grandmother\u2019s side for her second heart valve replacement surgery, Dunn became frustrated at the lack of a permanent fix for her grandmother\u2019s condition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EShe began to study vascular aging, and found a passion that would chart the course for her entire academic career. Dunn obtained her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and today is a 5th year Ph.D. student at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. She\u2019s working to better understand cardiovascular disease\u2013the same condition that affects her grandmother.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u201cCardiovascular disease continues to be the number one cause of death in the developed world, despite major advancements in medicine,\u201d said Dunn. \u201cI study how blood flow affects gene expression, which will either prevent or accelerate harmful plaque buildup that leads to heart disease.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EDunn\u2019s know-how in the lab is rivaled only by her exceptional skills as a multi-tasker. She spent time this past summer interning at the CDC through the strategy and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, and now continues working as a graduate research fellow in the Jo Lab of Vascular Mechanobiology and Disease. It\u2019s here that her abilities as a researcher shine. Dunn\u2019s thesis centers around a genome-wide analysis of gene expression and DNA methylation in cardiovascular disease.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u201cPut simply,\u201d Dunn explained, \u201cthe genome is like a puzzle where the pieces are constantly changing. When one piece changes, the surrounding pieces must alter their behavior in response. I find it fascinating to learn why and how this happens.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EHer fascination is what drives her, and gets results. Dunn\u2019s thesis culminated in a May 2014 publication in the Journal of Clinical Investigation\u2013one of five published studies Dunn has under her belt.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EBut Dunn\u2019s success hasn\u2019t come without its fair share of challenges. Early on, she faced gender bias in a field that\u2019s still predominantly ruled by men. She found solace in supportive groups like MIT\u2019s Women\u2019s Technology Program and the Society of Women Engineers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u201cThese groups taught me about reducing gender discrimination that still persists in the field, and how to be a role model for young women in science,\u201d Dunn said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EIt\u2019s a role Dunn doesn\u2019t take lightly. While on the BBUGS Education and Outreach Committee, she helped organize a program to introduce biomedical engineering to 8th grade girls from the Bronx Preparatory Middle School in New York. The girls took basic biology lessons learned in the classroom and applied them to form hypotheses about sets of research. Dunn hopes programs like this will inspire and encourage young girls to pursue STEM fields\u2013science, technology, engineering and mathematics.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u201cThese young women truly represent the next generation of researchers in biomedical engineering,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cIn several years, one of these girls could be working right here in this lab\u2013with even more advanced technology and equipment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EDunn credits Georgia Tech\u2019s Biomedical Engineering Department with helping her achieve her research goals, providing the computational infrastructure to perform large-scale analyses of data sets. Down the road, she hopes to pursue a career converting and translating biomedical \u201cbig data\u201d into real and impactful conclusions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u201cGeorgia Tech has introduced me to a wide variety of research fields that I otherwise would have known nothing about,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cThe faculty have helped me take the interest that I had when I was younger and turn it into a real, concrete career path doing something that I believe in.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EListening to Dunn describe her ambitious goals in the biomedical engineering arena, you might not guess that she pursues another passion: ballet dancing. Not only does she find the time to practice ballet regularly, but she also founded the Johns Hopkins University Ballet Company during her time as an undergrad there. The Company holds free classes and performances for the Baltimore community and teaches ballet at public elementary schools.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003EIt\u2019s all part of Dunn\u2019s larger mission to instill young girls with a clear and strong message: you can succeed at whatever you put your mind to, and you can excel at many different things if you simply take the chance to try.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u201cIn biomedical engineering, in dance and in life, your strongest proponent is yourself,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cIt can be difficult to challenge longstanding beliefs or do something that has never been done before, but it\u2019s only through doing this that you achieve enormous success.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOf that, Dunn is living proof.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pub\/jessilyn-dunn\/38\/34\/828\u0022 target=\u0022_self\u0022\u003EConnect with Jessilyn Dunn on LinkedIn\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=O2nUrQIAAAAJ\u0026amp;hl=en\u0022 target=\u0022_self\u0022\u003EFollow Jessilyn Dunn on Google Scholar\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"At just 11 years old, Jessilyn Dunn was determined to learn more about the heart. After being by her grandmother\u2019s side for her second heart valve replacement surgery, Dunn became frustrated at the lack of a permanent fix for her grandmother\u2019s condit"}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-09-02 15:46:09","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:59","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-02T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-02T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"320681":{"id":"320681","type":"image","title":"Jessilyn Dunn","body":null,"created":"1449244997","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:17","changed":"1475895029","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:29","alt":"Jessilyn Dunn","file":{"fid":"200086","name":"jess-dunn2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/jess-dunn2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/jess-dunn2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":53262,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/jess-dunn2_0.jpg?itok=L_0J9V02"}}},"media_ids":["320681"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"29531","name":"Jessilyn Dunn"},{"id":"365","name":"Research"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"320341":{"#nid":"320341","#data":{"type":"news","title":"BME Launches an Innovative Learning Commons Initiative","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering has announced plans for an exciting new student program headquartered on the fourth floor of the Whitaker building. Known as the BME Learning Commons, the program has three central features. The first is the renovation of the building\u2019s current faculty and staff lounge into a flexible, social learning environment for BME students. The second is the creation of a range of student-run programs to drive collaboration and advance learning. The third and final piece of the program is that students will turn this vision into a reality by working in \u201cscrum teams\u201d, adopting a modified version of the agile management methodology, which was first developed in the software development industry. \u0026nbsp;The scrum methodology is being adopted more widely in other industries these days, and it is particularly well suited for managing projects with rapidly changing or highly emergent needs, such as the Learning Commons.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe traditional idea of a \u2018commons\u2019 is a place where people go to meet their neighbors and hold gatherings, and we plan to apply this concept to the BME student experience,\u201d said Joe Le Doux Ph.D., The Executive Director of Learning and Student Experience, who is spearheading the program. \u201cThis will be a place where BMEs of all ages, levels, skills, and interests can meet, talk, share ideas, and work together on common projects.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe $750,000 renovation will completely transform the space based on the day-to-day needs of BME students. The walls will be painted with \u201cIDEA paint\u201d, turning them into giant whiteboards, while rolling whiteboards will enable quick partitioning of the space to support team work. Multiple terminals will be available that connect to high speed campus servers, and collaborative spaces will provide abundant opportunities for students to engage and share their digital information with each other quickly and seamlessly.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe design of physical spaces for learning is critical because, if done well, they can motivate students to be agents for change, to overcome challenges, and to create innovative solutions. The Learning Commons space will be supportive, creative, bold and inspiring, which are all characteristics of a great engineer, by the way.\u201d \u0026nbsp;The first phase of minor modifications is currently underway and is expected to be completed by mid-September, at which time the commons will open for student use. The full renovation, which will include a student meeting room, a problem-based learning room, and a recording studio, is projected to be completed before the beginning of the fall semester next year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe space itself will be truly remarkable, but the Learning Commons Initiative is about much more than just bricks, mortar, electronics, and white boards,\u201d said Le Doux. \u0026nbsp;Several new student-led programs will be created to accompany the renovation, including programs that will help students connect with each other and with faculty and alumni, such as the all-new BME Mentorship Program, which already boasts more than 500 participants; programs that will help students learn, including a range peer tutoring services and the creation of a library of student-created peer-instructional videos; and programs that will help students reach their maximum potential, including the creation of, and participation in, activities that stimulate their creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, such as case competitions and healthcare hackathons, as well as a student-led initiatives to capture and catalog the stories of working BME professionals.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor more information on the Learning Commons Initiative and how to become involved, please email\u0026nbsp;learningcommons@bme.gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering has announced plans for an exciting new student program headquartered on the fourth floor of the Whitaker building. Known as the BME Learning Commons, the program has three central features."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-09-02 08:49:06","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:59","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-02T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-02T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"320621":{"id":"320621","type":"image","title":"Joe Le Doux","body":null,"created":"1449244997","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:17","changed":"1475895029","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:29","alt":"Joe Le Doux","file":{"fid":"200085","name":"joe-ledoux2.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/joe-ledoux2_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/joe-ledoux2_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":280833,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/joe-ledoux2_0.png?itok=ZTLLpSj0"}}},"media_ids":["320621"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"8685","name":"commons"},{"id":"101511","name":"Joe Le Doux"},{"id":"3823","name":"learning"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"319741":{"#nid":"319741","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Temenoff Heading GTBioMAT","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;Johnna Temenoff was recently named principal investigator (PI), for the Georgia Tech Training Program for Rationally Designed, Integrative Biomaterials (GTBioMAT), and her predecessor, Ravi Bellamkonda, offers a very good reason why. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cJohnna literally wrote the book on the subject,\u201d says Bellamkonda, referring to \u003Cem\u003EBiomaterials: The Intersection of Biology and Materials Science\u003C\/em\u003E, the award-winning undergraduate textbook Temenoff that co-authored (with her mentor at Rice University, A.G. Mikos). Published in 2008, the book has been adopted by more than 40 universities in the U.S. and has been published in three international editions. In 2010, it won the Meriam-Wiley Award for Best New Engineering Textbook by the American Society for Engineering Education. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut Temenoff, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and faculty member of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, not only has written the story \u2013 she is immersed in it, playing a leading role in the growing body of biomaterials research and study, while ardently supporting the work of Georgia Tech\u2019s biotech graduate students. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cJohnna has been an integral part of the Graduate Leadership Program, and has a strong commitment to graduate education. She is also emerging in the field nationally. \u0022I look forward to our training program attaining greater heights under her leadership,\u201d says Bellamkonda, who chairs the Coulter Department (a collaborative between Tech and Emory). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGTBioMAT, sponsored through a grant from the NIH\u2019s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, offers advanced training for pre-doctoral students in the rational design, synthesis, and application of the next generation of integrative biomaterials. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStudents receive comprehensive and integrated training, which includes fundamental and interdisciplinary courses (such as the training program\u2019s capstone Rational Design of Biomaterials course and lab), two laboratory rotations (one is a \u2018materials synthesis\u2019 and the other is an \u2018application\/clinical\u2019 experience), and informal interactions with clinicians to gain more insight into the clinical setting. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd GTBioMAT, which also helps trainees develop in other areas (such as leadership, values, and personal development through participation in the aforementioned Graduate Leadership Program), is growing \u2013 the NIH added an additional two student slots per year, which Temenoff says, \u201cmakes this an exciting time to become the PI. As a co-director for the past three years, I now more fully understand how this grant contributes to building the biomaterials community at Georgia Tech and Emory. Through this new position, I look forward to creating even more opportunities for faculty and students to interact within our already vibrant research environment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Former co-director becomes PI of integrative training program"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;Former co-director becomes PI of integrative training program\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Former co-director becomes PI of integrative training program"}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-08-28 12:48:22","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:59","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-08-28T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-08-28T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"319751":{"id":"319751","type":"image","title":"Johnna Temenoff, PhD - Director of GTBioMAT program, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering","body":null,"created":"1449244997","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:17","changed":"1475895029","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:29","alt":"Johnna Temenoff, PhD - Director of GTBioMAT program, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering","file":{"fid":"200068","name":"johnnatemenoff2014.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/johnnatemenoff2014_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/johnnatemenoff2014_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1229257,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/johnnatemenoff2014_0.jpg?itok=sQu8f4Eg"}}},"media_ids":["319751"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/temenoff.gatech.edu\/","title":"Temenoff Lab website"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.gtbiomat.gatech.edu\/","title":"GTBioMAT website"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"318941":{"#nid":"318941","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Professor May Wang Elected to Elite National Committee","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA faculty member with the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME)\u0026nbsp;is joining one of the world\u2019s most elite societies for biomedical engineers. Associate\u0026nbsp;Professor May Dongmei Wang, Ph.D., was recently elected as an Administrative Committee Officer (AdCom) representing North America in the international IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS).\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019m honored and humbled to receive a committee position within this globally-recognized organization,\u201d Wang said. \u0026nbsp;\u201cHealth Informatics is identified as one of the 14 Grand Challenges in the 21st Century by the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.engineeringchallenges.org\/\u0022\u003ENational Academy of Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E. I have been devoted to biomedical and health informatics (BHI) research for personalized and predictive medicine since I joined Georgia Tech-Emory BME as a faculty member. This new recognition will allow me to help grow BHI within the IEEE and BME communities to tackle this Grand Challenge.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to her new\u0026nbsp;position, Wang has been serving as the Biomedical and Health Informatics Technical Committee Chair and will present at the EMBC 2014 Frontiers in Biomedical Engineering Symposium.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWang\u2019s research centers around\u0026nbsp;translating huge amounts of\u0026nbsp;multi-modality and multi-scale biomedical data acquired by \u2013omic\u0026nbsp;technologies, tissue and histopathological imaging, bedside monitors, and wearable sensors into knowledge that helps\u0026nbsp;physicians make\u0026nbsp;health decisions\u0026nbsp;for each individual, including:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Col\u003E\u003Cli\u003EIdentifying biomarkers from tera-bytes (TBs) of next generation sequencing data for\u0026nbsp;personalized\u0026nbsp;diagnosis and treatment of cancer and cardiac patients.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EIdentifying cellular and tissue imaging markers from TBs of pathological H\u0026amp;E, multiplex Quantum-Dots\u0026nbsp;IHC imaging, or imaging mass spectrometry\u0026nbsp;data\u0026nbsp;for clinical decision support.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EAnalyzing bedside continuous monitoring data and point-of-care data for real-time critical care in ERs and ICUs\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EDeveloping mobile health and\u0026nbsp;educational intervention solutions\u0026nbsp;for Sickle Cell Disease\u0026nbsp;(SCD)\u0026nbsp;kids to report pain and medication adherence. A small clinical trial for SCD kids has been finished in Children\u2019s Health of Atlanta, and the\u0026nbsp;approach\u0026nbsp;will be extended to other chronic conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, and pain management.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ol\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThrough my new position with EMBS, I will have the opportunity to work with biomedical engineers around the world to continually innovate in the field of BHI research for discovery, development, and delivery. The ultimate goal is to use novel technologies to improve human health outcomes and reduce costs at every level.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society is the world\u0027s largest international society of biomedical engineers. The organization is made up of 9,100 members in some 97 countries. EMBS provides its members with access to the people, practices, information, ideas and opinions that are shaping one of the fastest growing fields in science.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERelated Links:\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/facultystaff\/faculty_record.php?id=41\u0022\u003EWang\u2019s Profile\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.bio-miblab.org\/\u0022\u003EWang\u0027s Lab\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWritten by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"May Dongmei Wang, Ph.D. Representing North America in The International IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS)."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-08-25 13:33:52","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:59","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-08-25T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-08-25T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"318931":{"id":"318931","type":"image","title":"Image of May Wang","body":null,"created":"1449244997","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:03:17","changed":"1475895029","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:29","alt":"Image of May Wang","file":{"fid":"200048","name":"maywang1_hires.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/maywang1_hires_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/maywang1_hires_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1408641,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/maywang1_hires_1.jpg?itok=mfLMXLgl"}}},"media_ids":["318931"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"101061","name":"AdCom"},{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"101071","name":"EMBS"},{"id":"5426","name":"May Wang"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["chris.calleri@bme.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"318261":{"#nid":"318261","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Petit Scholar","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor 15 years the Petit Undergraduate Research Scholars program has been like a gift that keeps on giving for talented young researchers, creating valuable opportunities for the next generation of leaders in bioengineering and bioscience. Take Mohamad Ali Najia, for example. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENajia, a Georgia Institute of Technology senior, was selected as a Petit Scholar in January 2012. Since then, he\u2019s spent two successive summers in different corners of the United States at two of the world\u2019s leading research institutions, he\u2019s earned a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship (the most prestigious undergraduate award given in the sciences) and been named an Amgen Scholar. That last one, the Amgen honor, is the reason he spent this past summer at the University of California in Berkeley. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI\u2019m applying to grad schools, trying to figure out where I\u2019d like to be, but after spending the summer at Berkeley, I think I caught the California bug. It was one of the best summers of my life,\u201d says Najia, who expects to graduate in December. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo he may or may not wind up in California. Last summer, 2013, he was selected to participate in the MIT-Harvard Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics (BIG) Summer Fellowship Program. So he spent that summer in his hometown of Boston. The California summer, he says, was much more fun. Every morning at 6 a.m. he ran up the hill to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, getting into the California groove, so maybe he will run west. Or not. He\u2019s got plenty of options, and has plenty of useful experience behind him, and he says the Petit Scholar program is the major reason for that. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt made me more competitive for the Goldwater Scholarship, and having the Petit Scholar experience behind me, I think, really set me apart in becoming an Amgen Scholar at Berkeley,\u201d he says. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut then, this is the kind of thing you might expect to hear from one of these Petit Scholars, according to program coordinator Colly Mitchell. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cSince completing the Petit Scholars program, Mohamad\u2019s journey is a prime example of the doors that open for these highly motivated young researchers after a year of focused and purposeful research,\u201d Mitchell says. \u201cThe connections he made put him on his path to a number of top-notch fellowship programs which will now allow him to choose from the best graduate programs in the country.\u0022 \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe program, which is open to all Atlanta area university students (i.e., not just Georgia Tech), provides a comprehensive research experience for a full year. Undergraduates can conduct independent research in the state-of-the-art laboratories of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience. \u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003ESince its inception in 2000, the program has supported over 200 scholars from Georgia Tech, Morehouse College, Spelman College, Georgia State University, Emory University, Agnes Scott College and Georgia Gwinnett College. These are elite undergraduate researchers who have gone on to distinguished careers in research, medicine and industry. Originally, it was a just summer program a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant awarded to the Georgia Tech\/Emory Center for Tissue Engineering. But the program was expanded to a full year research opportunity that has grown from funding eight to 10 scholars per year to 19 scholars in 2014.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003ENajia spent his program year working in Todd McDevitt\u2019s lab, designing and working with biomanufacturing techniques to process and scale up production of stem cells for potential potential therapies. It\u2019s an endeavor he was working on before becoming a Petit Scholar, and one he continues with.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u201cWe want to make stem cells viable for medical therapy,\u201d says Najia, who plans on pursuing a PhD in bioengineering. \u201cRegarding longer term goals, I see myself as a principal investigator in some capacity. I stray back and forth between academia, industry and government, but that leaves plenty of room for exploration.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Competitive research program launches opportunity for Mohamad Ali Najia."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ECompetitive research program launches opportunity for Mohamad Ali Najia.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Competitive research program launches opportunity for Mohamad Ali Najia."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-08-22 12:05:15","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:56","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-08-25T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-08-25T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"318251":{"id":"318251","type":"image","title":"Mohamad Ali Najia - 2012 Petit Scholar and 2014 Goldwater Scholar","body":null,"created":"1449244974","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:02:54","changed":"1475895027","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:27","alt":"Mohamad Ali Najia - 2012 Petit Scholar and 2014 Goldwater Scholar","file":{"fid":"199999","name":"najiamohamad2014-square.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/najiamohamad2014-square_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/najiamohamad2014-square_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":4104732,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/najiamohamad2014-square_0.jpg?itok=yde11upk"}}},"media_ids":["318251"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.petitinstitute.gatech.edu\/petit-scholars","title":"Petit Scholars website"},{"url":"http:\/\/mcdevitt.gatech.edu\/profile\/mohamad-ali-najia","title":"McDevitt lab - Najia profile"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"317951":{"#nid":"317951","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Startup Summer","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ERachel Ford has an entrepreneur\u2019s heart. It was evident when she was a Girl Scout in Powder Springs, Georgia, organizing her troop\u2019s \u2018Operation: Cookie Drop,\u2019 in which cookie buyers were encouraged to buy a box to send to American fighting men and women overseas. And it was evident last week at the graduation for the inaugural Georgia Institute of Technology Startup Summer, when two enterprises that she co-founded were in the mix of eight undergraduate student teams pitching their products and services to a group of faculty, mentors, fellow students and potential investors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhat makes Ford\u2019s accomplishment so remarkable is that 79 student teams applied to be part of the final eight that qualified for the Startup Summer program. So, the odds weren\u2019t in her favor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI was just thrilled that I managed to get into the program, but to have both of my teams get in is an amazing accomplishment. But it\u2019s a testament to the teams, not one person,\u201d says Ford, a senior majoring in biomedical engineering with a minor in finance. \u201cI was blessed to have two good teams to be part of. It was luck and serendipity, and a lot of hard work.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe graduation (August 15 at the Technology Square Research Building, or TSRB) showcased the results of all that hard work, the culmination of a 12-week summer program. Eight companies with working prototypes, gave startup presentations in the TSRB auditorium, real-world training that may net real-world results for these teams, all of them made up of undergraduate students \u2013 recently graduated seniors, mostly. It was a day of celebration for a new program that might be heralding a change in the undergraduate educational experience at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI think we are at a point in time where this eventually will become the norm in all universities, and I\u2019m thrilled that Georgia Tech is taking a bold step in terms of leading this kind of movement,\u201d says program coordinator Raghupathy \u2018Siva\u2019 Sivakumar, a successful entrepreneur who has started two venture-backed companies, and is a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), which supported the pilot Startup Summer effort, along with the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Startup program is, \u201cpart of a larger initiative to have \u0027entrepreneurial confidence\u0027 be a signature feature of a large number of Georgia Tech undergraduate\u0026nbsp;students of all majors,\u201d explains Ravi Bellamkonda, the professor who chairs the Coulter Department. \u201cThe idea started with the realization that students increasingly want to work for their own startups and businesses. \u0026nbsp;Also, larger companies value employees who are creative and entrepreneurial and take initiative. \u0026nbsp;These two aspects combined to create a burning question in my mind. What if Georgia Tech designed a set of experiences where students create their own jobs as a part of their experience at Georgia Tech?\u2019\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe answer to that question led to a fruitful collaboration and partnership across many university departments, spearheaded by the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the Executive Vice President for Research\u2019s office. They needed someone with entrepreneurial experience to help lead the program, and Sivakumar was glad to step in.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs an entrepreneur myself, I\u2019m passionate about this program, which provides a platform for students that are interested in entrepreneurship,\u201d Sivakumar says. \u201cOur broader vision, going forward, is to create a bouquet of programs for undergraduate entrepreneurs, from the first day a student lands at Georgia Tech until they leave, giving them the knowledge, skills and experiences to pursue their own opportunities when they go out into the world. Startup Summer is one key aspect of that, and only the beginning.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESivakumar offered a class for sophomores and juniors, \u2018Startup Lab,\u2019 in the spring that he\u2019ll bring back next spring. His co-leader in Startup Summer, Ray Vito (professor emeritus in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering) offers a freshman\/sophomore level class, \u2018Your Idea, Your Invention.\u2019 \u201cThese are just examples,\u201d Sivakumar says. \u201cOur vision is really to have 20 such programs, all through the education process of an undergraduate student.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESivakumar, having already created venture-capital supported companies (including, most recently, StarMobile and Asankya) was a logical choice to lead the program, with an instructional team that included Vito, Keith McGreggor (director of VentureLab at Georgia Tech), and Tech alum and entrepreneur Sanjay Parekh. These guys were tasked with choosing from among the 79 applicant teams.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe biggest challenge going forward will be keeping up with the demand,\u201d Vito says. \u201cThere is a lot of student interest. We looked at 79 teams, interviewed about 30 of them, and there were at least five or 10 teams in addition to the final eight that could easily have benefited from this experience. It took a fair amount of work on the part of the teams. A lot of it was in developing the technologies, and taking what they learned and essentially putting it to good use. The presentations went great today, and they seemed to all come together at the last minute. But then, the Tech culture is a last-minute culture.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESivakumar envisions a time in the not too distant future when the Startup suite of programs is helping to create up to 100 student-led companies a year, with a longer-range goal of 300. But creating little enterprises is not the only aim of the program. It\u2019s more like a targeted bonus.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIts not just about starting companies, which only a small percentage of our students might do,\u201d says ECE professor and chair Steve McLaughlin, who partnered with Bellamkonda in helping to launch the program (and provide a major chunk of support). \u201cIts about creating leaders and equipping our students with a life skill over and above the superior education they get as engineers, scientists, and business graduates.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the summer program, eight teams went through 12 weeks of entrepreneurial training, most of that time spent on identifying potential customers and market needs. It took a lot of intent. One team (Filitic, an apparel analytics company) flew across country to meet with different clothing companies. Another team, Unmanned United, a drone technology company that spent a lot of time working outdoors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThey practically went and lived with farmers in South Georgia,\u201d Sivakumar says. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to hypothesize the problem, but another thing to actually be embedded with the customer and understand what their problems are.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe other teams were Sucette (which makes a pacifier that changes colors when the baby is running a temperature, or it gets too hot outside for safety); Narvaro (which offers revolutionary, 3D telepresence for hyper-real virtual experiences); Gimme (which makes software that vastly increases efficiency for small to medium vending machine owners); Cloudpin (which offers an easier way to wirelessly share content with people nearby, opening up new avenues for location-based digital marketing); SonoFAST (which incorporates an innovative polymer pad for medical ultrasound procedures, replacing the need for messy liquid ultrasound); and FIXD (which has developed a plug-in sensor and an app that helps you understand your vehicle by translating your check engine light).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat does this light really mean? In reality, this light can mean over 7,000 things,\u201d says John Gattuso, FIXD co-founder, who gave his company\u2019s presentation. \u201cSo a few months ago I get a call from my mom. She says, \u2018John, I\u2019m driving home from work and my \u2018check engine\u2019 light came on. What does it mean? Can you help me?\u2019 Me being 500 miles away, I wasn\u2019t much use. I told her to go home, go to a mechanic and they\u2019d be able to figure out. It turns out the problem was a malfunction in the airbag system. My mother\u2019s life was in danger, but because this light is so vague, she was none the wiser. Her car was talking to her but she was not able to listen.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEach of the companies set up a table with information and demonstrations, and all were busy fielding questions, showing off their product or service, or explaining the technology behind it. The multi-talented Ford spread her time out among the two companies she helped start\u2013 Sucette (where she has utilized her biomedical engineering education and product development skills developed at DuPont, where she worked under a co-op arrangement), and FIXD (where she is putting her finance education to work in more of a business development capacity).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019m trying to bridge the gap between science and business,\u201d says Ford, who dreams of being a CEO and a soccer mom \u2013 she wants to have it all. \u201cWhen I worked in industry, at DuPont, I found that you really need backgrounds in both.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Startup Summer teams were generally comprised of two to five students. Each team had a mentor that worked with them along the early stage startup path. For Chris Klaus, the former Georgia Tech student who launched the multi-million dollar ISS (Internet Security Systems), then founded (and still leads) Kaneva (a 3D virtual world that supports 2D web browsing, social networking and shared media), this meant answering a lot of one on one business questions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat\u2019s a startup? How do we reach customers? How do we set up a set up a web site? That kind of stuff,\u201d Klaus says. \u201cI acted as a sort of advisor, or coach, for Narvaro. It\u2019s a 3D telepresence concept that has never really been explored before. It\u2019s been done in science fiction, but now we have the technology, and it\u2019s about to explode, within the next 12 months. So I saw this as a unique opportunity to jump in and provide some guidance, offer any lessons that I stubbed my toes on along the way.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe difference between the Startup program philosophy and a typical business school approach, Klaus says, \u201cis like the difference between researching how to drive a car and actually driving the car. You\u2019re going to make mistakes, everyone does, but you\u2019re going to learn much quicker if you get in the car and drive.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd the program is exactly what it implies it is \u2013 a start, not the end all, but a first step toward starting a viable business.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt sort of accelerates the learning curve for student entrepreneurs,\u201d observes Lee Herron, vice president of commercialization for the Georgia Research Alliance, who has spent most of his career starting bioscience companies and helping others do the same. \u201cI\u2019m not saying it makes them entrepreneurs, but it accelerates the learning curve. These were some very polished, well-coached, well rehearsed pitches, and some unique ideas.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHerron wonders if this does mark the beginning of a change in undergraduate education, a new element to the experience. Bellamkonda and McLaughlin both believe it very well could be that, and more.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe believe that Startup Lab and Startup Summer are just the beginning of something big, not only for engineering students, but all Georgia Tech students,\u201d McLaughlin says. \u201cThe idea that we are giving students the exposure, experience, and confidence to create their own jobs is exciting to students and increasingly important for their careers and lives in general.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBellamkonda also sees the potential for economic benefits rippling throughout the Atlanta region.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOne very likely outcome of this initiative is going to be a large number of student led startups that can vitalize the Atlanta economy further,\u201d he says. Still, he maintains that the primary aim goes beyond the rapid creation and rise of fledgling companies. He wants to help create a new entrepreneurial mindset. \u201cI honestly believe that this entrepreneurial confidence in Georgia Tech undergrads is going to be transformative in terms of their ability to be successful leaders, no matter what they pursue after they graduate.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;Written by Jerry Grillo\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Undergrad entrepreneurs graduate inaugural business-building program"}],"field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Rachel Ford has an entrepreneur\u2019s heart."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-08-21 14:31:16","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:56","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-08-21T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-08-21T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"318061":{"id":"318061","type":"image","title":"Frederick Grimm and Rachel Ford.jpg","body":null,"created":"1449244974","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:02:54","changed":"1475895027","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:27","alt":"Frederick Grimm and Rachel Ford.jpg","file":{"fid":"199992","name":"sucette.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sucette_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sucette_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":3743691,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/sucette_0.jpg?itok=K1BR8WDP"}}},"media_ids":["318061"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"2301","name":"entrepreneur"},{"id":"100771","name":"Rachel Ford"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"316601":{"#nid":"316601","#data":{"type":"news","title":"BME Students Gain Knowledge \u0026 Opportunity this Summer in Ireland","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA group of talented students from the Georgia Institute of Technology took part in a first-of-its-kind program on the Emerald Isle this summer. Students and faculty from the Wallace H. Coulter Biomedical Engineering Department and School of Aerospace Engineering traveled to Ireland for a new study abroad partnership with Ireland\u2019s University of Limerick.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBefore now, there was no international program specifically for Biomedical Engineering students,\u201d says Dr. Paul Bankeser, Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. \u201cIf they wanted to study abroad, they would only be able to complete one or two courses. That\u2019s not a great payoff for such a substantial investment. This program allowed them to take a full BME course load abroad for the first time.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EForty-nine BME students took part in the ten-week program, which wrapped up on August 2nd 2014. They were able to choose from more than a dozen core BME and AE courses, each of which were taught by Georgia Tech faculty. To complement their studies in the beautiful international setting, the participants also had an invaluable opportunity to connect with industry powerhouses in the Limerick area.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIreland is a hotbed for global leaders in the biomedical device industry,\u201d said Sally Gerrish, Manager of Student, Alumni and Industrial Relations. \u201cMedtronics, Boston Scientific, Abbott Laboratories, Cook Medical, the list goes on. All of these were a short walk or bus ride away, and the students were able to tour these facilities, meet with the staff, and gain valuable insight into the real-world applications of their degree.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECy Wilcox and Laticia Khalif took on large responsibilities for making industry connections and played an instrumental role in setting up these industry visits. BME undergraduate student Sara Khalek participated in the program as a teacher assistant and helped arrange tours. \u201cOrganizing the tours helped me understand how to communicate and work with personnel in the BME field,\u201d Khalek said. \u201cIt was an excellent networking opportunity for me, and provided me with great experience executing a plan within a real-world setting.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to their coursework and industry visits, the students received an introduction and tour of the National University of Ireland, Galway, which will be useful in opening doors for future research opportunities or graduate school. Aside from the educational and practical applications of the program, perhaps the greatest takeaway for participants was the chance to broaden their horizons on a personal level.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe AE\/BME Limerick Study Abroad program offered me an opportunity to live in a foreign country, to travel all over the EU, to study and teach within my major, to strengthen my friendships, and finally, to develop who I am and who I want to be,\u201d Khalek said. \u201cThere are few opportunities that offer all these riches in one experience.\u201d The Universities are already working on plans to continue the partnership again next year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERelated Links: \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/acad.bme.gatech.edu\/undergraduate\/programs-study-abroad-Limerick-Ireland.php\u0022 target=\u0022_self\u0022\u003ESummer Program Information\u003C\/a\u003E ,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.ul.ie\/\u0022\u003EUniversity of Limerick\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Chris Calleri\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Study Abroad Summer 2014"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA group of talented students from the Georgia Institute of Technology took part in a first-of-its-kind program on the Emerald Isle this summer. Students and faculty from the Wallace H. Coulter Biomedical Engineering Department and School of Aerospace Engineering traveled to Ireland for a new study abroad partnership with Ireland\u2019s University of Limerick.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A group of talented students from the BME took part in a first-of-its-kind program on the Emerald Isle this summer."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-08-18 14:59:37","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:56","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-08-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-08-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"316611":{"id":"316611","type":"image","title":"Group Photo in Ireland","body":null,"created":"1449244947","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:02:27","changed":"1475895024","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:24","alt":"Group Photo in Ireland","file":{"fid":"199955","name":"group-photo-ireland_0.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/group-photo-ireland_0_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/group-photo-ireland_0_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":1087294,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/group-photo-ireland_0_0.png?itok=cTo6wx-f"}}},"media_ids":["316611"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"}],"keywords":[{"id":"6317","name":"AE"},{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"1432","name":"education"},{"id":"504","name":"Ireland"},{"id":"171354","name":"Summer Abroad"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003Cbr \/\u003E Phone: \u0026nbsp;404.385.2416\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"316731":{"#nid":"316731","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Healtcare Champions: Visionaries Who Are Making Atlanta a Healthier Place To Live","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EShuming Nie\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis Atlanta professor uses tiny glow-in-the-dark particles to root out cancer\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe only sure way to beat cancer is to remove it completely, with surgery. But the tumor margin\u2014where cancerous cells merge into healthy tissue\u2014is notoriously difficult to clear. Thanks to some Atlanta researchers, those gray areas are now a little less murky.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShuming Nie, a biomedical engineering professor at Emory University and Georgia Tech and director of the Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology, is heading up a clinical trial for breast and pancreatic cancer, testing a new method of ensuring that every last tumor cell gets detected. Nie\u2019s team injects patients with luminescent nanoparticles, which spread to the site of the tumor and bind with cancerous cells. When surgeons shine a specialized light on the area, tumor cells glow like stars in the night sky while healthy tissue remains dark. During one surgery for pancreatic cancer last year, this process revealed otherwise undetected malignant cells, which the doctors were then able to remove. \u201cWe believe we\u2019ve already saved a few lives,\u201d Nie says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENie\u2019s background is in chemistry, but he found the dry academic output of that field unsatisfying. \u201cI wanted to tackle big problems,\u201d he says. Cancer was that big problem. Nie has focused on nanoscale engineering since coming to Atlanta from Indiana University in 2002. Here he joined an extensive community of nanomedicine researchers, including Georgia Tech professor Gang Bao, who leads two national centers. Nie\u2019s team works at the state-of-the-art \u201cclean room\u201d lab at Marcus Nanotechnology Building on Tech\u2019s campus.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOver the past decade, Nie has published almost 100 papers, filed twenty patents, and received too many awards to list. But for all his accomplishments, he is understated, working out of a small, neat office in the new Health Sciences Research Building on the east side of Emory\u2019s campus.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHe\u2019s definitely a relaxed person. He puts a lot of trust in the people who work with him and allows them the freedom to explore novel concepts or designs,\u201d says Nie\u2019s colleague Brad Kairdolf, an assistant professor and researcher. The team is also developing cancer-fighting drugs that could be sent straight to a tumor, though that technology is likely a decade away. Similar research could be used to fight cardiovascular disease, using nanoparticles to target plaque inside arteries.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 2011 Atlanta-based Spectropath spun out of Nie\u2019s research to commercialize the detection tool; it\u2019s planned for an early 2015 launch in Europe, where the regulatory process takes less time. Spectropath CEO Ralph Gaskins, whose father died of colon cancer after an initial surgery failed to completely remove the tumor, became interested in the work after hearing a presentation by Nie in 2009. \u201cMy first thought was that this technology would have saved [my father\u2019s] life,\u201d says Gaskins.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.atlantamagazine.com\/health\/healthcare-champions\/\u0022 target=\u0022_self\u0022\u003ERead Original Article\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOriginally posted by\u0026nbsp;Christine Van Dusen,\u0026nbsp;Mary Jo DiLonardo,\u0026nbsp;Van Jensen, and\u0026nbsp;Carolyn Crist.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EShuming Nie, a biomedical engineering professor at Emory University and Georgia Tech and director of the Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology, is heading up a clinical trial for breast and pancreatic cancer, testing a new method of ensuring that every last tumor cell gets detected.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Shuming Nie testing a new method of ensuring that every last tumor cell gets detected."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-08-18 16:13:20","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:56","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-08-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-08-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"316741":{"id":"316741","type":"image","title":"Shuming Nie","body":null,"created":"1449244947","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:02:27","changed":"1475895024","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:24","alt":"Shuming Nie","file":{"fid":"199956","name":"gilstrap_atl_mag_dr_nie_114.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gilstrap_atl_mag_dr_nie_114_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gilstrap_atl_mag_dr_nie_114_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":52898,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/gilstrap_atl_mag_dr_nie_114_0.jpg?itok=g-qYdhwl"}}},"media_ids":["316741"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"385","name":"cancer"},{"id":"168899","name":"Shuming Nie"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"316751":{"#nid":"316751","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Inspire BME Engineers of Tomorrow","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJOIN the conversation to SHARE your enthusiasm about engineering and INSPIRE others to Be An Engineer. \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEngineers are critical to our world\u2026 and, we need more engineers, and more kinds of engineers \u2013 \u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cem\u003Eyoung minds just like you\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E \u2013 who will take on the challenges facing the 21\u003Csup\u003Est\u003C\/sup\u003E century and create the next amazing innovations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJoin ExxonMobil and our thousands of engineers in a new initiative to show students across the country the amazing opportunities for engineers and get them excited about learning science, technology, engineering and math so they can follow your lead in being future innovators.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EClick \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/reasons.beanengineer.com\/students\/\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/reasons.beanengineer.com\/students\/\u003C\/a\u003E for more on why we want to hear from you. Share with us why engineering is such a cool career path\u0026nbsp;\u2013 send your stories, ideas, quotes, pictures, videos and personal anecdotes to \u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:Reasons@BeAnEngineer.com\u0022\u003EReasons@BeAnEngineer.com\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere are no wrong answers. We want all kinds of answers:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003Efrom the rational and factual\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003Eto the not-so-serious\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003Eto the very personal\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003Eand the fantastical\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELet\u2019s work together to create an on-going list of all the amazing reasons to Be An Engineer that we\u2019ll share on social media to keep the dialogue going. Help us change the conversation about engineering and inspire dreams on other young minds.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThanks for joining our Be An Engineer initiative!\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESubmission Terms and Conditions: \u003C\/strong\u003EWhen you submit content to the email address \u201c\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:Reasons@BeAnEngineer.com\u0022\u003EReasons@BeAnEngineer.com\u003C\/a\u003E\u201d, you agree to the Submission Terms and Conditions detailed here \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/TermsAndConditions.BeAnEngineer.com\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/TermsAndConditions.BeAnEngineer.com\u003C\/a\u003E and grant ExxonMobil permission to use and post your user content in accordance with these Terms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Invitation to participate in ExxonMobil\u0027s Be An Engineer Campaign."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-08-18 16:33:13","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:56","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-08-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-08-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"316761":{"id":"316761","type":"image","title":"Image - Inspire the Engineers","body":null,"created":"1449244947","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:02:27","changed":"1475895024","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:24","alt":"Image - Inspire the Engineers","file":{"fid":"199957","name":"bae_primary_rgb.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/bae_primary_rgb_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/bae_primary_rgb_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":30184,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/bae_primary_rgb_0.png?itok=kgvbkfZk"}}},"media_ids":["316761"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"822","name":"contest"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Calleri\u003Cbr \/\u003E Communications Manager\u003Cbr \/\u003E Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology \u0026amp; Emory School of Medicine\u003Cbr \/\u003E 313 Ferst Drive, Suite 2120\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, GA \u0026nbsp;30332-0535\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"313581":{"#nid":"313581","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Biomedical Engineering Students Take on Teaching","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EKrissy Jeffares, Erika Loupee, and Emilee Roberts are not new to the world of problem-based learning \u2014 or \u201cPBL\u201d as they call it casually. In fact, this teaching model is standard operating procedure in their Georgia Tech classes. This summer, though, the three biomedical engineering students found themselves in a PBL puzzle as part of both the problem and the solution. Interning at Centennial Academy, they were brought in to run a test class with nine rising sixth-graders that used PBL in place of a more traditional teaching format.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe school, which this year began the process of transitioning from Centennial Place Elementary to a K-8 charter school, is leaving behind some of the restrictions of public school operation and hoping to incorporate elements of problem-based learning into its pedagogy in all grade levels.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe wanted to see what we could learn from the kids and bring to the teachers,\u201d said Roberts, a fourth-year student from Tifton. \u201cIt also helped the students learn about PBL and how it works. They\u2019ll be kind of like ambassadors to the other students this year.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe three enthusiastic women \u2014 all former Tech cheerleaders \u2014 were considered action researchers by Centennial, giving them both internship and research experience as part of their undergraduate curriculum. They spent the first half of the summer teaching the subject of earth science and used the remaining weeks to gather and analyze data, then put together presentations and recommendations for Centennial\u2019s faculty.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThey also were able to compare what they learned as teachers and researchers to their own experience as students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cYou have to do a little more traditional teaching with PBL with younger students, as opposed to how you would in a college class,\u201d Roberts said, pointing out that critical thinking skills aren\u2019t fully developed until around sixth grade. \u201cThe kids adapted much easier than we anticipated, though. Their progress in only 12 days of instruction was astounding.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore their experience at Centennial Academy, all three women had some prior interest or experience in working with children, but they hadn\u2019t necessarily considered education as a career. Now, they\u2019re considering how they can use their engineering background and skills to improve the education system.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen you think about it from an engineering standpoint, education is a process that needs to be optimized,\u201d Loupee said. After working at Centennial and teaching test prep classes for Princeton Review, she knows what it\u2019s like to be in the classroom but also knows there are areas beyond the classroom that need an engineer\u2019s mind.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s possible there are other places we could be more beneficial to the system,\u201d she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJeffares is now planning to work pre-teaching classes into her coursework at Tech. Loupee is taking two pre-teaching classes this fall and has already completed Tech\u2019s contemporary education course.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe education classes at Tech are great,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re not just about grades K-12\u0026nbsp;\u2014\u0026nbsp;you get an inside view of your own education.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELoupee graduates in December, but Jeffares and Roberts have more time to figure out their path. Jeffares could see herself working in a school\u2019s math, science or engineering lab, all of which exist at Centennial Academy. Roberts hopes to use her background to recruit more women into STEM, and perhaps education, by showing you can find balance as a female in these fields \u2014 particularly at Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe can be girly girls but still love engineering,\u201d she said. \u201cYou get that at Tech, but I don\u2019t know that it\u2019s something you get nationwide.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAll three encourage other Tech students of any major to venture across the street to gain work experience at Centennial Academy. Past pre-teaching interns have also come from the College of Sciences and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s a huge benefit to have both schools right here,\u201d Loupee said. \u201cYou can get experience while also fulfilling the needs of Centennial. There are so many opportunities here for Tech students.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe pre-teaching program also offers internships at Grady High School. More information on pre-teaching opportunities is available at \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/preteaching.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Epreteaching.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Three Tech students bring problem-based learning to K-12 classrooms"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThree young women spent the summer as interns at Centennial Academy helping the school transition to a teaching model of problem-based learning.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Three young women spent the summer as interns at Centennial Academy helping the school transition to a teaching model of problem-based learning."}],"uid":"27469","created_gmt":"2014-08-12 09:51:50","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:52","author":"Kristen Bailey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-08-12T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-08-12T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"314821":{"id":"314821","type":"image","title":"Emilee Roberts and Krissy Jeffares with Centennial Academy students","body":null,"created":"1449244947","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:02:27","changed":"1475895022","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:22","alt":"Emilee Roberts and Krissy Jeffares with Centennial Academy students","file":{"fid":"199913","name":"picture.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/picture_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/picture_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":83185,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/picture_0.jpg?itok=EC0DuXkm"}},"314831":{"id":"314831","type":"image","title":"Tech students with Centennial Academy students","body":null,"created":"1449244947","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:02:27","changed":"1475895022","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:22","alt":"Tech students with Centennial Academy students","file":{"fid":"199914","name":"pngbase64f0da84725763bd32.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/pngbase64f0da84725763bd32_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/pngbase64f0da84725763bd32_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":570068,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/pngbase64f0da84725763bd32_0.png?itok=JL-Kzy9d"}}},"media_ids":["314821","314831"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/preteaching.gatech.edu\/","title":"Pre-teaching at Georgia Tech"},{"url":"http:\/\/preteaching.gatech.edu\/coursesandcollaboration","title":"Pre-Teaching Courses"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1432","name":"education"},{"id":"1648","name":"Internships"},{"id":"4551","name":"k12"},{"id":"47381","name":"preteaching"},{"id":"167258","name":"STEM"},{"id":"167141","name":"Student Life"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:susan.belmonte@cetl.gatech.edu\u0022\u003ESusan Belmonte\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003EPre-Teaching\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:kristen.bailey@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EKristen Bailey\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EInstitute Communications\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"314331":{"#nid":"314331","#data":{"type":"news","title":"One Step Closer","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESantangelo part of $5.5 million NIH research grant aimed at curing HIV.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis could be the one, the project that Philip Santangelo will be talking about when he\u2019s 80 and retired and rocking on the front porch, in some distant future \u2013 a promising future for mankind because, well, this could be the one. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESantangelo, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is helping lead a research team that was recently awarded a $5.5 million grant from the NIH\/NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) for their role in a national, multi-pronged effort to once and for all cure HIV\/AIDS. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThis is like the Holy Grail for a molecular imaging person who\u2019s interested in infectious disease. From my point of view, this is it, this is huge,\u201d says Santangelo, who is partnering with Emory\u2019s Francois Villinger as principal investigators on the research, supported by the aforementioned R01 (which is the original and historically oldest grant mechanism used by the National Institutes of Health, or NIH). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe prospect of eliminating HIV from infected patients may be achievable with novel anti-retroviral therapies, but it would require new tools with greater sensitivity than what is now available. So the research aims to create and improve imaging technology, to better monitor HIV reservoirs. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThis was an RFA [Request for Application]. It was a response to an RFA regarding delivering therapeutics to active viral reservoirs,\u201d Santangelo explains. \u201cAt NIH right now, especially at NIAID, they have a huge emphasis on trying to cure HIV.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut here\u2019s the dilemma Santangelo, et al, are looking at: A person who\u2019s infected with the HIV virus is treated with anti-retroviral therapies. It appears to work. Within a month, the virus is undetectable in the blood stream. It\u2019s been suppressed. But if you take the patient off the therapy, the virus comes back. It rebounds. \u201cThe drugs work but they are not sufficient to clear the virus. And really, we don\u2019t know why that is yet,\u201d Santangelo says. \u201cWhere is the virus? Where are the active reservoirs during suppression?\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe prospect of eliminating HIV from infected patients may be close at hand, but such a lofty goal will require new tools with greater sensitivity than currently available to monitor the progress of novel anti-retroviral therapies \u2013 not only in blood but also in organs that harbor such reservoirs and sites of residual viral replication \u003Cem\u003Ein vivo\u003C\/em\u003E. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re not necessarily in this project, quote, \u0027creating the cure.\u0027 But we\u2019re creating a tool that\u2019s going to give us a lot more information about how you might go about doing that,\u201d Santangelo says. \u201cOtherwise, it\u2019s a shot in the dark, you\u2019re just trying different approaches. It\u2019s trial and error. In the drug development world, trial and error is useful, but not ideal, and certainly not efficient.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis research and resulting improvements in imaging technology, he says, will eventually give drug developers more information than they\u2019ve had before, about how drugs are affecting very specific parts of the body. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s about giving them much more powerful information about what\u2019s happening, as opposed to downstream information,\u201d says Santangelo, whose research areas include molecular imaging, nano-biophotonics, and optical microscopy. The long-term aim is to cure HIV, he adds, \u201cand we\u2019re working on a tool to help facilitate that.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd that, he adds, is the reason the research got its funding \u2013 the NIH wants this tool in its toolbox. The grant covers five years, but it\u2019s been a seven-year journey to this point. It began with a discussion between Santangelo and Emory professor Eric Hunter, whose research is focused on the molecular biology of HIV and other retroviruses. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe were sitting around a table and Eric basically said, \u2018one thing we\u2019d like to know is, where is the virus? Is there a way to image this?\u2019 I said, \u2018I have no idea, but let\u2019s see if we can figure that out.\u2019 So I went back to the drawing board and thought about ways to approach the problem,\u201d Santangelo says. \u201cBut that\u2019s how it started \u2013 a group of people sitting around the table, asking, \u2018how do we address this?\u2019 and me being crazy enough to say, \u2018I\u2019ll try this,\u2019 because I don\u2019t say no to anything.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHunter introduced Santangelo to researcher\/pathologist Villinger. They went after and received a $30,000 boost from the Woodruff Foundation, then got $100,000 from the Georgia Research Alliance, \u201cand these were so important in pushing the momentum forward,\u201d Santangelo says. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThen they received $450,000 from the NIH in the form of an Exploratory\/Developmental Research Grant Award (R21) and now, $5.5 million, to support the work of an all-star team of researchers, including (among others) principal investigators Santangelo and Villinger, as well as Ray Schinazi, who directs the Laboratory of Biochemical Pharmacology at Emory, and is a co-investigator. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe overall goal, according to Santangelo, is to create or improve an imaging tool that will determine how the virus is being affected by a new drug strategy, and also to help promote new drugs that Schinazi is working on \u2013 \u201cto clear HIV, and also to make current drugs more effective,\u201d says Santangelo, who believes that by enhancing current imaging technology, particularly CT (computed tomography, or CAT scanning) and PET (positron emission tomography), he can track the reservoirs, including active viral reservoirs. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIf you can figure out where the reservoirs are, if you can figure out how long they are being affected by the drugs, and how the drugs are actually changing the reservoirs, we might be able to clear them,\u201d says Santangelo, whose eyes light up at the prospect, giving him the look of a kid contemplating a super toy that hasn\u2019t been invented yet. \u201cAnd if you can clear these reservoirs, you could cure AIDS, and if you can cure AIDS, well, that would be pretty awesome.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Santangelo part of $5.5 million NIH research grant aimed at curing HIV."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESantangelo part of $5.5 million NIH research grant aimed at curing HIV.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Santangelo part of $5.5 million NIH research grant aimed at curing HIV."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-08-11 08:12:33","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:52","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-08-11T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-08-11T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"314341":{"id":"314341","type":"image","title":"Phil Santangelo","body":null,"created":"1449244929","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:02:09","changed":"1522182247","gmt_changed":"2018-03-27 20:24:07","alt":"","file":{"fid":"199905","name":"santangelophil-square.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/santangelophil-square_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/santangelophil-square_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1699892,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/santangelophil-square_0.jpg?itok=uu48US_f"}}},"media_ids":["314341"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/facultystaff\/faculty_record.php?id=105","title":"Philip Santangelo"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"311191":{"#nid":"311191","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Altered States - New Study Sheds Light on Sickle Cell Disease and Offers New Hope for Patients","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEd Botchwey\u0027s research takes sharp turn as they explore possible new causes for the disease.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003EEd Botchwey is not a hematologist. He\u2019s very clear about that. Botchwey runs a tissue-engineering lab at the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, with a focus on regenerative medicine. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat\u2019s been his professional history \u2013 tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. But there\u2019s a piece of personal history that carries a bit more influence, and that, perhaps more than anything else, is what led Botchwey and his research team to publish in the journal Blood, the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field of hematology. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETheir research and paper, with the running title, \u201cSphingolipid Metabolism in Sickle Cell Disease,\u201d represents a sharp turn for Botchwey and his colleagues, who shed new light on causes for some of the disease\u2019s pervasive and devastating symptoms, while offering new hope for patients who struggle with the disease, people like his sister. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cAs it turns out, my sister has sickle cell disease, and I have a student, the first author of this paper, Anthony Awojoodu \u2013 his sister has it. So this is something we felt very passionate about,\u201d says Botchwey, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (Coulter Department), who didn\u2019t set out to research sickle cell disease (SCD). It just sort of happened. He was just following a logical trail of research. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019d been looking at certain classes of signaling lipids and how they regulate inflammation. Part of our goal was, and still is, exploiting certain inflammatory responses to help in tissue regeneration,\u201d Botchwey says. \u201cBut along the way, we recognized that some of the enzymes that are central components in the metabolism and production of these signaling lipids were responsive to stresses in cell membranes.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELike, for example, the stresses that cause the telltale geometric distortion of red blood cell (RBC) membranes in sickle cell disease (SCD). It occurred to Botchwey that SCD would make a great model system in which to observe the relationship between membrane stresses, inflammation and the metabolism of these sphingolipids. Turns out, there\u2019s a very close relationship. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETheir findings reveal for the first time that sphingolipid metabolism is indeed dysregulated, or altered in SCD. Membrane stresses associated with SCD activate sphingomyelinase (SMase), an enzyme that contributes to progression of the disease (SMase has been implicated in vascular inflammation). SMase, in concert with other enzymes, also causes elevated production of microparticles, which contribute to what Botchwey calls, \u201cthis chronic inflammatory state that underlies so much of the pathology of sickle cell disease.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat encourages Botchwey is the research also illuminates potential new strategies to regulate inflammation through modulating sphingolipid metabolism \u2013 results that may also be applicable to other red blood cell disorders, not just SCD. What\u2019s more, a promising therapeutic solution is already close at hand \u2013 the antidepressant, amitriptyline. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe wanted to know, can you pharmacologically inhibit SMase in order to reduce these pro-inflammatory microparticles. And we found that, in fact, we can, and we\u2019re excited about it. If you can cut off one of the primary means whereby sickled red blood cells are perpetuating a chronic inflammatory state in the patient, then you may be cutting off a wide range of the disease consequences associated with SCD,\u201d says Botchwey. \u201cAmytriptyline happened to factor quite highly in our survey of potential inhibitors of SMase. You can find certain papers that will make an indirect association to what we\u2019ve shown.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESure enough, there are 30-plus year-old research papers that explore the inhibitive effects of tricyclic antidepressants on SMase in various contexts, and Botchwey\u2019s team connected the complicated dots. But there has been next to no research on the role of SMase and sphingolipid dysregulation in SCD (a disease that affects millions worldwide), and that surprises Botchwey. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s a mystery to me.\u201d says Botchwey. \u201cWhen you think about a disease as prevalent as this one, as well understood as it is, in terms of what the underlying genetic mutation is, and you consider all the tools we have at our disposal for correcting such mutations, you would think this would be a curable disease. I\u2019ve lamented the fact that it\u2019s not cured, but never considered that I might be part of the research that might lead to a cure.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBotchwey, whose work is supported by the NIH and NSF, as well as the Petit Institute and Coulter Department, led a research team that included Awojoodu, a native Nigerian who was responsible for recruiting Petit Scholar, Alicia Lane, to the team. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThey struck up a very productive working and mentoring relationship, and this paper is partly the culmination of that,\u201d says Botchwey, whose collaborators in the study also include Phillip Keegan, Yuying Zhang, Kevin Lynch from the University of Virginia, and BME assistant professor Manu Platt. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBotchwey, not a blood guy, says this research represents a new direction for him, one he might not have taken if he didn\u2019t make the move several years ago from the University of Virginia to the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Petit Institute. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cLike I said, I\u2019m not a hematology researcher, but the opportunity to take risks resonated with me. It\u2019s a risk to go in new directions, and Georgia Tech enabled me to take that risk,\u201d he says. \u201cThe multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary environment here is one in which I felt comfortable asking what I perceived to be a frontier question that impacted a disease I felt passionately about. I don\u2019t know if that would have happened if I\u2019d stayed where I was.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis study was supported in part by NIH Grants 1R01DE019935-01, 1R01AR056445-01A2 and R01GM067958, and 1DP2OD007433-01 and NSF Grant NSF#0933643.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Ed Botchwey\u0027s research takes sharp turn as they explore possible new causes for the disease."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEd Botchwey\u0027s research takes sharp turn as they explore possible new causes for the disease.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Ed Botchwey\u0027s research takes sharp turn as they explore possible new causes for the disease."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-07-28 13:57:53","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:48","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-07-28T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-07-28T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"311171":{"id":"311171","type":"image","title":"Ed Botchwey, PhD - Associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering","body":null,"created":"1449244726","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:58:46","changed":"1475895020","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:20","alt":"Ed Botchwey, PhD - Associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering","file":{"fid":"199854","name":"botchwey_ed_-_july_2014.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/botchwey_ed_-_july_2014_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/botchwey_ed_-_july_2014_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":661178,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/botchwey_ed_-_july_2014_0.jpg?itok=cL-RZQKj"}},"311181":{"id":"311181","type":"image","title":"Sickle cell disease is a group of disorders that affects hemoglobin, the molecule in red blood cells that delivers oxygen to cells throughout the body.","body":null,"created":"1449244726","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:58:46","changed":"1475895020","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:20","alt":"Sickle cell disease is a group of disorders that affects hemoglobin, the molecule in red blood cells that delivers oxygen to cells throughout the body.","file":{"fid":"199855","name":"sickle_cell.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sickle_cell_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sickle_cell_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":270785,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/sickle_cell_0.jpg?itok=XLVzSGQr"}}},"media_ids":["311171","311181"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/botchweylab.gatech.edu\/","title":"Botchwey lab website"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.ibb.gatech.edu\/","title":"Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"310651":{"#nid":"310651","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Defending Champion BME Nosed Out in Buzz Award Competition","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe old Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team used to have a saying. They\u2019d dust it off and wave it nearly every fall, after almost, but not quite, winning the World Series: \u201cWait until next year.\u201d Well, the Georgia Institute of Technology is a long way from Brooklyn, but this year, the hard-working, dedicated staff at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) can understand the Dodgers\u2019 angst.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBME was nosed out last week in the annual College of Engineering competition for the Buzz Award for Staff Appreciation. So, BME had to hand the trophy off to this year\u2019s champion, the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aeronautical Engineering (AE).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEvery year, the staffs of Tech\u2019s various schools and departments compete for recognition, but the means of competition changes each time. Last year, BME took home the trophy in a t-shirt contest, with a winning design from student Marisa Casola, a Petit Scholar in Melissa Kemp\u2019s lab (and a layout editor for the \u003Cem\u003EPioneer\u003C\/em\u003E). Her artistic rendering of a profiled head with a multitude of diverse ideas popping out of it, surrounded the winning message, \u201cGreat Minds Don\u2019t Think Alike,\u201d reflecting the interdisciplinary approach that has become inextricably linked with Tech\u2019s bio community philosophy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut this year, the competition was in poster design, and AE won the trophy with a design that featured a bunch of staff photos overlaid with a shot of the AE building, and the message: \u201cThey are our bricks. They are our mortar. They are the key to our success.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe decision was based on a vote of the associate deans and myself,\u201d explains Gary May, dean of Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Engineering. \u201cAE stood out because of the collage of all the staff images integrated with the image of the AE building. It was very impressive and must have taken quite a bit of time to complete.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJust like Lord Stanley\u2019s Cup, which goes to the National Hockey League champion, or the World Series Trophy in baseball, the glass Buzz Trophy exchanges hands when a new champion is crowned. BME\u2019s victory last year ended a two-year run by the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cNo one should be disappointed \u2013 there can only be one winner,\u201d May assures. \u201cAll of the posters were good, and I am grateful to all who participated. We look forward to another spirited competition next year.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Aerospace Engineering ends Biomedical Engineering\u0027s winning streak for annual staff award."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAerospace Engineering ends Biomedical Engineering\u0027s winning streak for annual staff award.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Aerospace Engineering ends Biomedical Engineering\u0027s winning streak for annual staff award."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-07-25 11:21:43","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:48","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-07-25T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-07-25T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"136","name":"Aerospace"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"309011":{"#nid":"309011","#data":{"type":"news","title":"The Engineer\u0027s Mind","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EStudy Abroad course explores the engineering thought process.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E You know this one: \u201cThe optimist sees the glass as half-full and the pessimist sees the glass as half-empty, but the engineer sees a glass that\u2019s twice as big as it needs to be.\u201d It\u2019s an old joke that demonstrates, anecdotally, how engineers think, which is something that Joe LeDoux, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), has been very interested in. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut, rather than ruin an old joke by explaining the punch line, LeDoux took a more empirical approach to understanding the engineering mind. He designed and taught a course on the subject, then wrote about it. And last month, LeDoux and a group of Georgia Institute of Technology students presented a paper to the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) that asks, what is it that makes someone an engineer, and what distinguishes engineers from other professionals? \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe paper, written by LeDoux, BME research scientist Alisha Waller, and a trio of undergraduates who actually took the class \u2013 Jacquelyn Borinski, Kimberly Height and Elaine McCormick \u2013 shares the co-authors\u2019 experience in the course, called \u201cHabits of the Engineering Mind,\u201d taught last year by LeDoux at Oxford University as part of Georgia Tech\u2019s study abroad program. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cTaken with a sense of adventure, I decided to teach a course on a topic that I had been thinking about for some time,\u201d LeDoux writes in the paper, presented last month in Indianapolis at the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition. \u201cThe idea was to explore the possibility that engineers have a characteristic way of thinking.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut there was no textbook, no syllabus, and LeDoux had to basically develop the course from scratch, without the aid of pre-existing conceptions (except, perhaps for a few old jokes about engineers) or guidelines for how to teach it. \u201cAs a result, I was a true \u2018co-learner\u2019 with my students,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was such a powerful and rewarding experience that three of my students and I decided to write a paper about it, to share our experiences with the broader academic engineering community.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo he developed a set of five long-term learning objectives to help guide the way. A year or more after having taken the course, students will (1) have an understanding of the fundamental ways of engineering thinking, as evidenced by their ability to estimate unknown quantities, represent complex problems diagrammatically, engage in model-based reasoning, and employ multiple engineering habits of the mind as a set of lenses through which to view and think about real-world problems and systems; (2) be able to critically read, analyze, and discuss what philosophers of engineering have written about engineering ways of thinking, and be able to formulate and defend their own arguments about what they think are engineering ways of thinking; (3) see the value of, and be adept at, seeing opportunities for employing engineering habits of the mind as thinking tools in every day, non-engineering contexts; (4) have established a connection between the engineering habits of the mind that were identified and explored in class to their own personal interests and experiences; and (5) recognize that a person\u2019s ways of thinking are influenced by their profession, culture, upbringing, and context, and that a much richer understanding of a problem or system is developed by employing multiple ways of thinking. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe course was dense with reading material, and writing assignments, and discussions, and much of the content was philosophical, rather than technical in nature, so this was definitely outside the norm for a traditional engineering professor and his students. Nonetheless, LeDoux reflects, \u201cthe course exceeded my expectations,\u201d and he wonders if success in the Study Abroad program means the course could become a permanent offering on the Georgia Tech campus. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAccording to LeDoux, the students \u201clearned a great deal about what it means to be an engineer by reading and reflecting on philosophical writings about engineering, and by learning and applying engineering ways of thinking to make meaning of systems that they encounter in their everyday lives. I believe these students are now more aware of their own thinking processes and those of other engineers, and are more sensitive to how these thinking processes affect the work they do and the designs they create, which will, in the end, make them more effective engineers and problem solvers.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Study Abroad course explores the engineering thought process."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EStudy Abroad course explores the engineering thought process.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Study Abroad course explores the engineering thought process."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-07-16 10:58:59","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:45","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-07-17T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-07-17T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"309021":{"id":"309021","type":"image","title":"Joe LeDoux with undergraduates Jacquelyn Borinski, Kimberly Haight, Elaine McCormick","body":null,"created":"1449244726","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:58:46","changed":"1475895017","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:17","alt":"Joe LeDoux with undergraduates Jacquelyn Borinski, Kimberly Haight, Elaine McCormick","file":{"fid":"199814","name":"enter-the-engineers-mind-2014-cropped.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/enter-the-engineers-mind-2014-cropped_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/enter-the-engineers-mind-2014-cropped_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":6623720,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/enter-the-engineers-mind-2014-cropped_0.jpg?itok=FZW7uVJ5"}}},"media_ids":["309021"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/","title":"Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"},{"url":"http:\/\/groups.bme.gatech.edu\/groups\/ledoux\/","title":"LeDoux lab"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"303911":{"#nid":"303911","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Family Affair","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFirst \u2018Bring Your Child\/Grandchild to Work Day\u2019 a Hit with BME Community.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003EBrains and hearts and eyes \u2013 these are among the gooey, essential elements that helped make the first \u2018Bring Your Child to Work Day\u2019 (Friday, June 13) at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) a success. Well, that and face painting. And silly putty. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFaculty and staff brought their kids (25 in total, ages 2 to 14) for a day of fun and learning, and department chair Ravi Bellamkonda hopes the community building event will become an annual tradition. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe are interested in building the best possible BME department in the world, and this is only possible when our faculty, staff and students view the department as part of their family,\u201d says Bellamkonda. \u201cThis event is one of many we envision to invite not just our faculty, staff and students to share what they do with their children, but also to celebrate all of them as a whole, not just the \u2018work\u2019 part of them.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe lines between work, family and recreation converged, or were blurred, for all the participants last Friday. In some cases, it was mainly about the recreation. Shannon and Tom Barker (director of graduate training, and associate professor\/Petit Faculty Fellow, respectively, in the Coulter Department) brought their kids, who had a blast, according to Shannon. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt was wonderful to interact with faculty and staff outside of our normal work routines,\u201d she says. \u201cMy daughter is still talking about it, which is pretty high praise given the attention span of a four year old. Given my kids young age, their favorite part was after lunch: the bouncy house and the balloon man, as my daughter calls him, who made her a treasured pink pony.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBasically, this was the ultimate show-and-tell experience, with lab tours, demonstrations, experiments and games for the kids, and it definitely left an impression. \u201cI liked the face painting and touching the pig\u2019s eyeball. Science is awesome,\u201d says six-year-old Emma Sullivan, whose mom, Shannon Sullivan, graduate program coordinator for the Coulter Department, adds, \u201cIt was a great opportunity to expose her to science in a unique way, but mostly it was just plain fun for both of us.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat\u2019s exactly the kind of reaction Bellamkonda was going for. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe do some amazing things in the department in terms of our research and we are always happy to open our doors to children, to interest them in science and engineering,\u201d says Bellamkonda, who saw only happy faces (many of them painted), and people delighted with activities that also included, \u201ctouching brains and dissecting eyes and touching hearts and learning about optics and materials.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA range of demonstrations was designed for kids to learn scientific principles used in bio-complex labs, with an emphasis on hands-on fun, according to Ph.D. student Kyle Blum, an NIH Computational Neuroscience Trainee, who participated in the demos as well as the tour of Professor Lena Ting\u2019s lab.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cMy two favorite demos were the cardiovascular demo, in which we had dissections of pig and chicken hearts prepared for the kids to learn about how blood is pumped through our bodies, and the edible cell demo, in which kids made their own large-scale cells out of candy that resembled different cellular organelles, and learned about what each of them does along the way,\u201d Blum says.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u201cFor the Ting Lab tour, we had demonstrations set up for the kids with their parents and grandparents to teach them how we study sensorimotor control of posture and balance,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe were able to demonstrate how we elicit reactive postural responses experimentally by having volunteers stand on our motorized platform and moving it to throw them off balance. In addition to the platform, we showed them how we can record their motions and use electromyography to measure the neural response to the movement of the platform. It was great to see both the kids and their parents asking questions about what our lab does, and hopefully learning about neuroscience from the experience.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBounce houses in the bio-complex, a hands-on experiments table, the lab tours filled with kids wearing lab coats, balloons and ice cream \u2013 all in all, not your typical day at the office. Donna Sibble, business administrator in the Coulter Department, brought her grandson Julian, who enjoyed the magic show (Professor Garrett Stanley, complete with cape) and the experiments, but was especially thrilled to visit Ross Ethier\u2019s lab, where they were dissecting a pig\u2019s eyeball. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cOn our way home,\u201d Donna says, \u201che pleaded with me to stop by the store to buy Borax and Elmer\u2019s Glue so that he could replicate the \u2018silly putty\u2019 he made at the experiment table. I truly look forward to bringing him again next year.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"First \u2018Bring Your Child\/Grandchild to Work Day\u2019 a Hit with BME Community."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFirst \u2018Bring Your Child\/Grandchild to Work Day\u2019 a Hit with BME Community.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"First \u2018Bring Your Child\/Grandchild to Work Day\u2019 a Hit with BME Community."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-06-19 07:28:52","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:37","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-06-19T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-06-19T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"303981":{"id":"303981","type":"image","title":"Kids and grandkids of BME faculty \u0026 staff enjoyed hands-on demonstrations in high-tech 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painting","file":{"fid":"199636","name":"camerazoom-20140613124935698_1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/camerazoom-20140613124935698_1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/camerazoom-20140613124935698_1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2273999,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/camerazoom-20140613124935698_1_0.jpg?itok=HqjsHm0o"}},"304031":{"id":"304031","type":"image","title":"Faculty member, Garrett Stanley, PhD, gives \u0022magical\u0022 scientific demonstration to curious visitor","body":null,"created":"1449244609","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:56:49","changed":"1475895009","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:09","alt":"Faculty member, Garrett Stanley, PhD, gives \u0022magical\u0022 scientific demonstration to curious visitor","file":{"fid":"199640","name":"14251262577_eb1abccca8_b.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/14251262577_eb1abccca8_b_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/14251262577_eb1abccca8_b_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":215972,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/14251262577_eb1abccca8_b_0.jpg?itok=LAsGElqD"}}},"media_ids":["303981","304011","303991","303971","304031"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/","title":"Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"300531":{"#nid":"300531","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Faculty Leadership for the Petit Scholars Program","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETom Barker to serve as new faculty advisor.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Parker H. Petit Institute announced that Thomas Barker, a Petit Faculty Fellow and associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), will serve as the new faculty advisor to the Petit Undergraduate Research Scholars program beginning in 2014. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBarker\u2019s lab has served as a mentoring and training ground for a number of undergraduate students during his years at Georgia Tech and he has regularly served on the annual review committees to select incoming scholars. Barker has personally advised over 50 undergraduate researchers including over 25 that have received Georgia Tech\u2019s Presidential Undergraduate Scholar Award, 3 NSF-ERC Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) awardees, and 6 Petit Scholars. Barker is also the primary faculty mentor for Georgia Tech\u2019s Undergraduate iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines competition) team. Seventeen (17) of Barker\u2019s undergraduate researchers have published in peer-reviewed journals and 2 have received the College of Engineering\u2019s high award for undergraduate research.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0022I\u0027m excited and honored to become the Faculty Advisor for the Petit Scholars Program. Research is at the core of Georgia Tech\u0027s mission and I relish the opportunity to help nurture the next generation of great scientists and engineers. The Petit Scholars program is the flagship undergraduate research program in biosciences at Georgia Tech and I look forward to continuing its growth and impact.\u0022\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWith Tom\u0027s long history of mentoring and training undergraduate students and his ongoing support of the program over the years, we are looking forward to this next generation of leadership in the Petit Scholars program,\u201d said Bob Guldberg, PhD, Executive Director of the Petit Institute.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESince 2007, the program has been lead by Todd McDevitt, Carol Ann and David D. Flanagan Professor in BME and the director of the Stem Cell Engineering Center at Georgia Tech. Under his leadership, the Petit Scholars program flourished after McDevitt overhauled the application and review process, drawing a richer, more diverse pool of top undergrads to more than double the number of annual scholars. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOriginally established as a summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program from a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant awarded to the Georgia Tech\/Emory Center for Tissue Engineering, the program was expanded to a full year research opportunity that has funded more than 200 elite undergraduate bioengineering and bioscience scholars from Atlanta area universities to date.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Tom Barker to serve as new faculty advisor."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETom Barker to serve as new faculty advisor.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Tom Barker to serve as new faculty advisor."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-06-02 10:30:42","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:29","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-06-02T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-06-02T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"300541":{"id":"300541","type":"image","title":"Tom Barker, PhD - New faculty advisor to the Petit Undergraduate Research Scholars program","body":null,"created":"1449244572","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:56:12","changed":"1475895004","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:04","alt":"Tom Barker, PhD - New faculty advisor to the Petit Undergraduate Research Scholars program","file":{"fid":"199522","name":"barker_-_headshot.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/barker_-_headshot_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/barker_-_headshot_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":90952,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/barker_-_headshot_0.jpg?itok=z9POw4SS"}}},"media_ids":["300541"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.ibb.gatech.edu\/petit-scholars","title":"Petit Scholars info and application"},{"url":"http:\/\/barker.bme.gatech.edu\/MBEL_website\/the_lab.html","title":"Barker lab"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"132","name":"Institute Leadership"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:colly.mitchell@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EColly Mitchell\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPetit Scholars Program Administrator\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["colly.mitchell@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"262751":{"#nid":"262751","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Imaging Technology Could Unlock Mysteries of a Childhood Disease","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBy the time they\u2019re two, most children have had respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and suffered symptoms no worse than a bad cold. But for some children, especially premature babies and those with underlying health conditions, RSV can lead to pneumonia and bronchitis \u2013 which can require hospitalization and have long-term consequences.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA new technique for studying the structure of the RSV virion and the activity of RSV in living cells could help researchers unlock the secrets of the virus, including how it enters cells, how it replicates, how many genomes it inserts into its hosts \u2013 and perhaps why certain lung cells escape the infection relatively unscathed. That could provide scientists information they need to develop new antiviral drugs and perhaps even a vaccine to prevent severe RSV infections.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe want to develop tools that would allow us to get at how the virus really works,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/facultystaff\/faculty_record.php?id=105\u0022\u003EPhilip Santangelo\u003C\/a\u003E, an associate professor in the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EWallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University\u003C\/a\u003E. \u201cWe really need to be able to follow the infection in a single living cell without affecting how the virus infects its hosts, and this technology should allow us to do that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research was supported by the National Institutes of Health\u2019s National Institute of General Medical Sciences and published online ahead of print in the journal \u003Cem\u003EACS Nano\u003C\/em\u003E on December 30, 2013. While RSV will be the first target for the work, the researchers believe the imaging technique they developed could be used to study other RNA viruses, including influenza and Ebola.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019ve shown that we can tag the genome using our probes,\u201d explained Santangelo. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve learned from this is that the genome does get incorporated into the virion, and that the virus particles created are infectious. We were able to characterize some aspects of the virus particle itself at super-resolution, down to 20 nanometers, using direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM) imaging.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERSV can be difficult to study. For one thing, the infectious particle can take different forms, ranging from 10-micron filaments to ordinary spheres. The virus can insert more than one genome into the host cells and the RNA orientation and structure are disordered, which makes it difficult to characterize.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research team, which included scientists from Vanderbilt University and Emory University, used a probe technology that quickly attaches to RNA within cells. The probe uses multiple fluorophores to indicate the presence of the viral RNA, allowing the researchers to see where it goes in host cells \u2013 and to watch as infectious particles leave the cells to spread the infection.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBeing able to see the genome and the progeny RNA that comes from the genome with the probes we use really give us much more insight into the replication cycle,\u201d Santangelo said. \u201cThis gives us much more information about what the virus is really doing. If we can visualize the entry, assembly and replication of the virus, that would allow us to decide what to go after to fight the virus.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research depended on a new method for labelling RNA viruses using multiply-labeled tetravalent RNA imaging probes (MTRIPS). The probes consist of a chimeric combination of DNA and RNA oligonucleotide labeled internally with fluorophores tetravelently complexed to neutravidin. The chimeric combination was used to help the probes evade cellular defenses.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere are lots of sensors in the cell that look for foreign RNA and foreign DNA, but to the cell, this probe doesn\u2019t look like anything,\u201d Santangelo explained. \u201cThe cell doesn\u2019t see the nucleic acid as foreign.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIntroduced into cells, the probes quickly diffuse through a cell infected with RSV and bind to the virus\u2019s RNA. Though binding tightly, the probe doesn\u2019t affect the normal activities of the virus and allows researchers to follow the activity for days using standard microscopy techniques. The MTRIPS can be used to complement other probe technology, such as GFP and gold nanoparticles.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWork done by graduate student Eric Alonas to concentrate the virus was essential to the project, Santangelo said. The concentration had to be done without adversely affecting the infectivity of the virus, which would have impacted its ability to enter host cells.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt took quite a bit of work to get the right techniques to concentrate the RSV,\u201d he said. \u201cNow we can make lots of infectious virus that\u2019s labelled and can be stored so we can use it when we want to.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo study the infection\u2019s progress in individual cells, the researchers faced another challenge: living cells move around, and following them complicates the research. To address that movement, the laboratory of Thomas Barker \u2013 also in the Coulter Department \u2013 used micro-patterned fibronectin on glass to create 50-micron \u201cislands\u201d that contained the cells during the study.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmong the mysteries that the researchers would like to tackle is why certain lung cells are severely infected \u2013 while others appear to escape ill effects.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIf you look at a field of cells, you see huge differences from cell to cell, and that is something that\u2019s not understood at all,\u201d Santangelo said. \u201cIf we can figure out why some cells are exploding with virus while others are not, perhaps we can figure out a way to help the bad ones look more like the good ones.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to those already mentioned, the research team included James Crowe, professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University; Elizabeth Wright, assistant professor in the School of Medicine at Emory University; Daryll Vanover, Jeenah Jung, Chiara Zurla, Jonathan Kirschman, Vincent Fiore, and Alison Douglas from the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University; Aaron Lifland and Manasa Gudheti from Vutara Inc. in Salt Lake City, and Hong Yi from the Emory University School of Medicine.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne of the challenges of studying RSV is maintaining its activity in the laboratory setting \u2013 a problem parents of young children don\u2019t share.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen you handle this virus in the lab, you have to always be careful about it losing infectivity,\u201d Santangelo noted. \u201cBut if you take a room full of children who have not been infected and let one infected child into the room, 15 minutes later all of the children will be infected.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThe research described here was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under contract R01 GM094198-01. Any conclusions or opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: Eric Alonas, et al., \u201cCombining Single RNA Sensitive Probes with Subdiffraction-Limited and Live-Cell Imaging Enables the Characterization of Virus Dynamics in Cells,\u201d (ACS Nano, December 2013). (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1021\/nn405998v\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1021\/nn405998v\u003C\/a\u003E).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u0026nbsp; USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-894-6986) or Brett Israel (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) (404-385-1933).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA new technique for studying the structure of the RSV virion and the activity of RSV in living cells could help researchers unlock the secrets of the virus, including how it enters cells, how it replicates, how many genomes it inserts into its hosts \u2013 and perhaps why certain lung cells escape the infection relatively unscathed.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Scientists have developed a new technique for studying RSV, a common childhood illness."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2013-12-29 21:43:10","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:36","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-12-30T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-12-30T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"262721":{"id":"262721","type":"image","title":"RSV infected cell","body":null,"created":"1449243999","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:39","changed":"1475894948","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:08","alt":"RSV infected cell","file":{"fid":"198433","name":"infected-cell.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/infected-cell_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/infected-cell_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":264504,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/infected-cell_0.jpg?itok=wky9vSA5"}},"262731":{"id":"262731","type":"image","title":"RSV viral filament","body":null,"created":"1449243999","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:39","changed":"1475894948","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:08","alt":"RSV viral filament","file":{"fid":"198434","name":"viral_filament1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/viral_filament1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/viral_filament1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":227839,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/viral_filament1_0.jpg?itok=fyU13qB0"}},"262741":{"id":"262741","type":"image","title":"RSV RNA binding","body":null,"created":"1449243999","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:39","changed":"1475894948","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:08","alt":"RSV RNA binding","file":{"fid":"198435","name":"rna-binding.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/rna-binding_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/rna-binding_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":183158,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/rna-binding_0.jpg?itok=8NYH4zav"}}},"media_ids":["262721","262731","262741"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1133","name":"genome"},{"id":"10660","name":"infection"},{"id":"13850","name":"Philip Santangelo"},{"id":"82651","name":"replication"},{"id":"984","name":"RNA"},{"id":"7647","name":"RSV"},{"id":"82661","name":"virion"},{"id":"4292","name":"virus"},{"id":"82671","name":"Wallace Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"262671":{"#nid":"262671","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Study Brings Scientists Closer to the Origin of RNA","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOne of the biggest questions in science is how life arose from the chemical soup that existed on early Earth. One theory is that RNA, a close relative of DNA, was the first genetic molecule to arise around 4 billion years ago, but in a primitive form that later evolved into the RNA and DNA molecules that we have in life today. New research shows one way this chain of events might have started.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EToday, genetic information is stored in DNA. RNA is created from DNA to put that information into action. RNA can direct the creation of proteins and perform other essential functions of life that DNA can\u2019t do. RNA\u2019s versatility is one reason that scientists think this polymer came first, with DNA evolving later as a better way to store genetic information for the long haul. But like DNA, RNA also could be a product of evolution, scientists theorize.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EChemists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have shown how molecules that may have been present on early Earth can self-assemble into structures that could represent a starting point of RNA. The spontaneous formation of RNA building blocks is seen as a crucial step in the origin of life, but one that scientists have struggled with for decades. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIn our study, we demonstrate a reaction that we see as important for the formation of the earliest RNA-like molecules,\u201d said Nicholas Hud, professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech, where he\u2019s also the director of the Center for Chemical Evolution.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study was published Dec. 14 online in the\u003Cem\u003E Journal of the American Chemical Society\u003C\/em\u003E. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERNA is perfect for the roles it plays in life today, Hud said, but chemically it\u2019s extraordinarily difficult to make. This suggests that RNA evolved from simpler chemical couplings. As life became more chemically complex and enzymes were born, evolutionary pressures would have driven pre-RNA into the more refined modern RNA.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERNA is made of three chemical components: the sugar ribose, the bases and phosphate. A ribose-base-phosphate unit links together with other ribose-base-phosphate units to form an RNA polymer. Figuring out how the bond between the bases and ribose first formed has been a difficult problem to address in the origins of life field, Hud said. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the study, Hud\u2019s team investigated bases that are chemically related to the bases of modern RNA, but that might be able to spontaneously bond with ribose and assemble with other bases through the same interactions that enable DNA and RNA to store information. They homed in on a molecule called triaminopyrimidine (TAP). \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers mixed TAP with ribose under conditions meant to mimic a drying pond on early Earth. TAP and ribose reacted together in high yield, with up to 80 percent of TAP being converted into nucleosides, which is the name for the ribose-base unit of RNA. Previous attempts to form a ribose-base bond with the current RNA bases in similar reactions had either failed or produced nucleosides in very low yields. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis study is important in showing a feasible step for how we get the start of an RNA-like molecule, but also how the building blocks of the first RNA-like polymers could have found each other and self-assembled in what would have been a very complex mixture of chemicals,\u201d Hud said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers demonstrated this property of the TAP nucleosides by adding another molecule to their reaction mixture, called cyanuric acid, which is known to interact with TAP. Even in the unpurified reaction mixture, noncovalent polymers formed with thousands of paired nucleosides. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt is amazing that these nucleosides and bases actually assemble on their own, as life today requires complex enzymes to bring together RNA building blocks and to spatially order them prior to polymerization,\u201dsaid Brian Cafferty, a graduate student at Georgia Tech and co-author of the study\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study demonstrated one possible way that the building blocks for an ancestor of RNA could have come together on early Earth. TAP is an intriguing candidate for one of the first bases that eventually led to modern RNA molecules, but there are certainly others, Hud said. \u003Cbr \/\u003EFuture work, in Hud\u2019s lab and by other laboratories in the Center for Chemical Evolution, will investigate the origins of RNA\u2019s phosphate backbone, as well as other pathways toward modern RNA. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re looking for a simple, robust chemistry that can explain the earliest origin of RNA or its ancestor,\u201d Hud said. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Chemical Evolution under award number CHE-1004570, and the NASA Exobiology Program under award number NNX13AIO2G. Any conclusions or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsoring agencies.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia 30332-0181 USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts:\u003C\/strong\u003E Brett Israel (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter:\u003C\/strong\u003E Brett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOne of the biggest questions in science is how life arose from the chemical soup that existed on early Earth. One theory is that RNA, a close relative of DNA, was the first genetic molecule to arise around 4 billion years ago, but in a primitive form that later evolved into the RNA and DNA molecules that we have in life today. New research shows one way this chain of events might have started.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"New research shows one way that a molecule leading to RNA might have first formed."}],"uid":"27902","created_gmt":"2013-12-23 12:18:14","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:36","author":"Brett Israel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-12-23T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-12-23T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"262661":{"id":"262661","type":"image","title":"Self-assembly of TAP-ribose nucleoside","body":null,"created":"1449243999","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:39","changed":"1475894948","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:08","alt":"Self-assembly of TAP-ribose nucleoside","file":{"fid":"198430","name":"afm_sub_1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/afm_sub_1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/afm_sub_1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":431709,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/afm_sub_1_0.jpg?itok=VeKLefOv"}}},"media_ids":["262661"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"82621","name":"center for chemical evoluation"},{"id":"1041","name":"dna"},{"id":"4504","name":"Nicholas Hud"},{"id":"9854","name":"Origin Of Life"},{"id":"984","name":"RNA"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-385-1933\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"261581":{"#nid":"261581","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium Awarded $3.5M to Assist Commercialization of Medical Devices for Children","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium (APDC) has been awarded $3.5 million over five years by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to assist scientists, clinicians and entrepreneurs in bringing medical devices for children to the market with greater efficiency. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe APDC is one of only seven FDA pediatric device consortia in the country. The center is a public-private partnership between the Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, Children\u0027s Healthcare of Atlanta, and now the Virginia Commonwealth University. The APDC\u2019s mission is to increase the accessibility of medical devices that will improve the health of children. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe APDC was founded in 2011, and the new award is a second-phase grant. The latest funding positions Atlanta as a national leader in pediatric technologies. The award follows a $20 million joint investment by Georgia Tech and Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta, announced in June 2012, for developing technological solutions for improving children\u2019s health.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe APDC\u2019s mission is crucial to improving the health of children. Many medical devices used to treat children were designed and produced for adults, so they are not optimal for the pediatric physiology and anatomy. The APDC was created to help academic entrepreneurs and small businesses obtain the expertise that they need to commercialize their pediatric medical technologies. \u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThis additional round of funding will make a profound impact on the availability of medical devices designed especially for pediatric patients,\u201d said David Ku, the Lawrence P. Huang Chair Professor of Engineering Entrepreneurship at Georgia Tech, who will lead the APDC.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEntrepreneurs struggle to commercialize pediatric technologies because the market for these devices is small compared to that of the adult medical device market. The APDC\u2019s hope is that more efficient development of pediatric devices will improve the benefit-to-cost ratio for these products so that they can succeed in smaller markets. \u003Cbr \/\u003ETo achieve this goal, the APDC provides expertise in device engineering, laboratory and animal model studies, design and analysis of clinical trials with access to relevant pediatric populations, and identification of the best clinical application for introduction of a technology into the marketplace. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAPDC also has experience in prototyping, business planning, good manufacturing practices, regulatory affairs and intellectual property protection. The center\u2019s advisors have been assisting projects since 2011 when APDC was awarded initial funding from the FDA.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cOur team\u2019s combined expertise of over 80 years should help the community at large bring additional devices to market,\u201d said Ku, who is also a Regents Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAPDC\u2019s co-directors are Barbara Boyan, dean of the School of Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth, and Wilbur Lam, assistant professor of in pediatrics with appointments at Emory University, the Aflac Cancer Center of Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. APDC\u2019s associate director is Kevin Maher, M.D., a cardiologist and researcher specializing in pediatrics with appointments at the Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta, Sibley Heart Center and Emory University.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"U.S. Food and Drug Administration grants public-private partnership five year award"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EU.S. Food and Drug Administration grants Georgia Tech and partners a five year award.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"U.S. Food and Drug Administration grants public-private partnership five year award"}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2013-12-17 11:58:59","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:33","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-12-17T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-12-17T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"261621":{"id":"261621","type":"image","title":"David Ku, MD, PhD - Executive Director, Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium","body":null,"created":"1449243999","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:39","changed":"1475894948","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:08","alt":"David Ku, MD, PhD - Executive Director, Atlantic Pediatric Device Consortium","file":{"fid":"198400","name":"d._ku.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/d._ku_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/d._ku_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2457902,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/d._ku_0.jpg?itok=-II8ZF9q"}}},"media_ids":["261621"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/pediatricdevicesatlanta.org\/","title":"Atlanta Pediatric Device Consortium"}],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:mcdevitt@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EMegan McDevitt\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirector Communications \u0026amp; Marketing\u003Cbr \/\u003EPetit Institute\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EBrett Israel\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EResearch News\u003Cbr \/\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["mcdevitt@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"260971":{"#nid":"260971","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Four Faculty Named 2013 AAAS Fellows","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech faculty continue to be recognized as among the most respected in their field. Last month, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) named four \u2014 in biology, computing and engineering \u2014 to its 2013 class of fellows\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EElection as a fellow of AAAS, the world\u2019s largest general scientific society, is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers. Fellows are recognized for meritorious efforts to advance science or its applications.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENew fellows include:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003ESchool of Interactive Computing Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EHenrik Christensen\u003C\/strong\u003E, cited \u201cfor contributions to applied estimation methods in mapping, robot localization, visual tracking and recognition, as well as national-level leadership of the robotics community.\u201d\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ESchool of Biology Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EMark Hay\u003C\/strong\u003E, cited \u201cfor distinguished contributions in ecology, particularly for developing marine chemical ecology and for elucidating how chemical cues and signals structure populations, communities, and ecosystems.\u201d\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ESchool of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EHang Lu\u003C\/strong\u003E, cited \u201cfor distinguished contributions to the field of engineering systems for high-throughput quantitative and systems biology, particularly for microfluidics, automation, image-based science, and phenomics.\u201d\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ESchool of Aerospace Engineering Professor \u003Cstrong\u003ESuresh Menon\u003C\/strong\u003E, cited \u201cfor distinguished and innovative contributions to the field of multi-scale computational simulation and modeling of turbulent combustion in power and propulsion systems.\u201d\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech faculty continue to be recognized as among the most respected in their field. Last month, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) named four \u2014 in biology, computing and engineering \u2014 to its 2013 class of fellows\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Honorific in the world\u2019s largest general scientific society is determined by peers"}],"uid":"27299","created_gmt":"2013-12-13 16:33:08","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:33","author":"Michael Hagearty","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-12-13T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-12-13T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"260951":{"id":"260951","type":"image","title":"Henrik Christensen","body":null,"created":"1449243987","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:27","changed":"1475894945","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:05","alt":"Henrik Christensen","file":{"fid":"198368","name":"10p1000-p71-032_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/10p1000-p71-032_0_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/10p1000-p71-032_0_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":389386,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/10p1000-p71-032_0_0.jpg?itok=9hoxboeh"}},"260931":{"id":"260931","type":"image","title":"Mark Hay","body":null,"created":"1449243987","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:27","changed":"1475894945","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:05","alt":"Mark Hay","file":{"fid":"198366","name":"12e7001-p1-018.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/12e7001-p1-018_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/12e7001-p1-018_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":209169,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/12e7001-p1-018_0.jpg?itok=TRoDRU_B"}},"260941":{"id":"260941","type":"image","title":"Hang Lu","body":null,"created":"1449243987","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:27","changed":"1475894945","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:05","alt":"Hang Lu","file":{"fid":"198367","name":"11e2016-p3-033.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11e2016-p3-033_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11e2016-p3-033_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":484004,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/11e2016-p3-033_0.jpg?itok=wKxAsyto"}},"260921":{"id":"260921","type":"image","title":"Suresh Menon","body":null,"created":"1449243987","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:27","changed":"1475894945","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:05","alt":"Suresh Menon","file":{"fid":"198365","name":"menon-s.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/menon-s_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/menon-s_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":4130,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/menon-s_0.jpg?itok=DpAdhPW4"}}},"media_ids":["260951","260931","260941","260921"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1629","name":"AAAS"},{"id":"11701","name":"AAAS Fellows"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"260861":{"#nid":"260861","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Petit Institute Announces 2013 \u0022Above and Beyond\u0022 Award Winners","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience announced the winners of its annual Interdisciplinary Education and Research \u0022Above and Beyond\u0022 awards given annually to staff, a junior faculty member, a senior faculty member, six trainees and staff members. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0022We have so many people who contribute to the great bio-community at Georgia Tech,\u0022 stated Bob Guldberg, executive director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience. \u0022These awards serve as a way to celebrate a few individuals who have gone above and beyond to make a real difference in our community.\u0022\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWinners included, Julia Babensee, PhD, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, received the senior faculty award for her dedication in the planning the 2012 Biomedical Engineering Society Meeting and planning of the first workshop on Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech recently.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EChristine Payne, PhD, an associate professor in the School of Chemistry, received the junior faculty award for writing a instrumentation grant for a new super resolution fluorescence microscope (Zeiss Elyra PS-1) which will be part of the Petit Institute\u0027s microscopy core beginning in 2014 and will be available for all researchers to use.\u003Cbr \/\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003EThe trainee awards were given to graduate students, Alex Caulk, Tracy Hookway, Timothy Kassis, Chris Quinto, Torri Rinker, Denise Sullivan for their dedication to the broader community through community service activities as well as volunteering. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECaulk, a doctoral student in Georgia Tech\u0027s interdisciplinary bioengineering program was recognized for his leadership and service activities for the Bioengineering Graduate Student Advisory Committee (BGSAC).\u0026nbsp; Caulk is advised by Rudy Gleason, PhD.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E Hookway, a postdoctoral fellow from the lab of Todd McDevitt, PhD, was recognized for her role as the local event organizer for the recent Tissue Engineering Regenerative Medicine International Society annual meeting held in Atlanta, GA in 2013. Hookway brought a new innovative approach to the trainee-lead events for this workshop, introducing the first high school outreach event to the society. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EKassis, a doctoral student in Georgia Tech\u0027s bioengineering program and advised by J. Brandon Dixon, PhD, was recognized for his many volunteer and service activities over several years for the Bioengineering and Bioscience Unified Graduate Students (BBUGS) group as well as the BGSAC organization. \u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EQuinto received his award for his two years of service as Co-Director for the BBUGS student organization which involved management and oversight of numerous volunteer and service activities to the bio-community.\u0026nbsp; Quinto is a doctoral candidate in the biomedical engineering from the lab of Gang Bao, PhD.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERinker, a doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering advised by Johnna Temenoff, PhD, was recognized for the dedication and excellent organizational skills she brought to the BBUGS education and outreach committee the last two years as well as helping the New Science Club which services Coretta Scott King Young Women\u0027s Leadership Academy and B.E.S.T Academy, two minority-serving public high schools in the City of Atlanta.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESullivan, a doctoral candidate and National Science Foundation fellow in the lab of Todd McDevitt, PhD, received the award also for her many efforts for the BBUGS education and outreach committee and the New Science Club.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe staff awards were given to Rachel Cochran who serves as grants administrator, and Sandra Powell, accounting manager, for the Petit Institute. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Interdisciplinary Education and Research \u0022Above and Beyond\u0022 awards were started in 2009 to recognize team-based individuals who demonstrate exemplary service to the institute and contribute to its collegial, collaborative environment.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Trainees, staff, senior and junior faculty, honored"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESenior faculty, junior faculty, trainees and staff recognized for going \u0022above and beyond\u0022 for the community.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Senior faculty, junior faculty, trainees and staff recognized"}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2013-12-13 13:46:08","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:33","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-12-13T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-12-13T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"260871":{"id":"260871","type":"image","title":"2013 Petit Institute recognizes six trainees with \u0022Above and Beyond\u0022 awards","body":null,"created":"1449243987","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:27","changed":"1475894945","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:05","alt":"2013 Petit Institute recognizes six trainees with \u0022Above and Beyond\u0022 awards","file":{"fid":"198363","name":"2013_above_and_beyond_trainee_pic-500pxls.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/2013_above_and_beyond_trainee_pic-500pxls_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/2013_above_and_beyond_trainee_pic-500pxls_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":96066,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/2013_above_and_beyond_trainee_pic-500pxls_0.jpg?itok=k_bPvrX2"}}},"media_ids":["260871"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/ibb.gatech.edu\/","title":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"14197","name":"Julia babensee"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:colly.mitchell@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EColly Mitchell\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMarketing and Events\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute\u003Cbr \/\u003Efor Bioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["colly.mitchell@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"259671":{"#nid":"259671","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Development Spotlight: EBB to Open in 2015","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn McDonald, professor in the School of Biology and director of the Integrated Cancer Research Center, has also spent many years as the chief scientific officer for Georgia Tech\u2019s Ovarian Cancer Institute.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECollaboration doesn\u2019t just come easy for him. It is at the very foundation of his research approach when it comes to understanding cancer. McDonald, then, was a natural choice among faculty members who will relocate to the Engineered Biosystems Building (EBB) when it opens in 2015. Campaign Georgia Tech has been instrumental in raising money for the building.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019m convinced that the effective treatment of complex diseases like cancer will require an understanding of the interactive relationships that underlie cell function,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cI am excited about the prospect of working with other researchers committed to a \u2018systems\u2019 approach to better understand the basis of cancer onset and progression.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe EBB was conceptualized and designed, and will be constructed, according to one fundamental tenet \u2014 that understanding and fighting multifaceted disease requires a new way of doing things; that new insights emerge not from the solitary confines of one laboratory or one discipline but from shared resources, spaces, and expertise.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe collaborative spaces within the facility are decidedly intentional and planned. The five-story, 200,000-square-foot building will house faculty members and other researchers in three research neighborhoods: chemical biology, cell and developmental bioengineering, and systems biology. Within each neighborhood, scientists and engineers from many different disciplines will share lab, office, and communal spaces, making it possible for them to share ideas, perspectives, and resources in an entirely new way.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor many years, McDonald has taken a collaborative approach to cancer research, working with faculty in chemistry and computer science to develop new, highly accurate diagnostic tests for ovarian and prostate cancer, and partnering with biomedical engineers, chemists, and biologists in cell therapies and personalized cancer medicine. Once the EBB is operational, collaboration will drive its every function and use, which will help accelerate the pace of discovery.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe are not striving to compete with cancer centers like MD Anderson,\u201d explained McDonald. \u201cWe are complementing their efforts by developing these unique integrative approaches, and this building will greatly enhance our ability to do that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor more about Campaign Georgia Tech, click \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/c.gatech.edu\/15nooQ5\u0022\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EEditor\u2019s Note: This article is part of a monthly series that focuses on Campaign Georgia Tech.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn McDonald, professor in the School of Biology and director of the Integrated Cancer Research Center, has also spent many years as the chief scientific officer for Georgia Tech\u2019s Ovarian Cancer Institute.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"John McDonald, professor in the School of Biology and director of the Integrated Cancer Research Center, has also spent many years as the chief scientific officer for Georgia Tech\u2019s Ovarian Cancer Institute."}],"uid":"27445","created_gmt":"2013-12-09 15:28:56","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:29","author":"Amelia Pavlik","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-12-09T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-12-09T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"259621":{"id":"259621","type":"image","title":"Engineered Biosystems Building","body":null,"created":"1449243977","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:17","changed":"1475894938","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:58","alt":"Engineered Biosystems Building","file":{"fid":"198325","name":"ebb_oct2012_5.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ebb_oct2012_5_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ebb_oct2012_5_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":534038,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ebb_oct2012_5_0.jpg?itok=Z-hKjCh7"}}},"media_ids":["259621"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/c.gatech.edu\/15nooQ5","title":"Campaign Georgia Tech"}],"groups":[{"id":"1259","name":"Whistle"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"11162","name":"Campaign Georgia Tech"},{"id":"16821","name":"Engineered Biosystems Building"},{"id":"46481","name":"Integrated Cancer Research Center"},{"id":"2371","name":"John McDonald"},{"id":"14992","name":"Office of Development"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"258951":{"#nid":"258951","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Wallace Coulter at 100: A Legacy of Biomedical Innovation","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn the early 1990s, when Wallace H. Coulter \u2014 legendary scientist and inventor of a device to rapidly count cells \u2014 was elected as a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), he was unable to attend the meeting to accept the nomination. Rather than mail the award to him, Georgia Tech\u2019s Robert Nerem, who was AIMBE\u2019s president at the time, hopped on a plane from Atlanta and flew to Miami to present Coulter with the award in person.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmong his many titles, Nerem is the founding director of Georgia Tech\u2019s Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience. He has been a bioengineer for more than 35 years. Nerem knew how important Coulter was to the field, but the man he met in Miami gave no hint of scientific or business celebrity.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHe was a fascinating individual, very humble in nature,\u201d Nerem said. \u201cAs the CEO of an important company, he did not believe in an executive dining room. So he hosted me for lunch in the cafeteria where all the other employees were. That was just his style.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe connection made then and maintained through the years was instrumental in the formation of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Walter H. Coulter\u0027s life and approach to work are an inspiration to us all and we try to honor his memory every day in the way we approach our educational and research activities,\u0022 said Steve Cross, Georgia Tech\u2019s Executive Vice President for Research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis year, Wallace Coulter would have turned 100, and to celebrate the life and scientific legacy of Coulter, his namesake department is hosting a celebration on Dec. 5-6 at Georgia Tech and Emory University.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI have heard many wonderful stories about Wallace\u2019s deep commitment to his team and his people and employees,\u201d said Ravi Bellamkonda, who holds a Wallace H. Coulter Chair in the department. \u201cI\u2019d like to think that the Coulter Department has a similar environment of a team and a family.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECoulter studied electronics as a student at Georgia Tech in the early 1930s. The Coulter Foundation, through its philanthropy, helped establish the innovative academic department operated jointly by Georgia Tech and Emory University.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s no question that the major gift by the Coulter Foundation was extremely important in building the biomedical engineering department to propel itself in a very short time to being a leading department in the country,\u201d said Don Giddens, the founding chair of the Coulter Department and former dean of the College of Engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe biomedical research conducted today might not be possible without the invention of the Coulter Counter. The Coulter Counter transformed diagnostics in hospitals by allowing rapid counting of blood cells. As cells of different sizes go through the counter, the cells change the current that flows through the device. That change in current is used to very rapidly count blood cells, providing information that helps spot illnesses in patients.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe invention of the Coulter Counter was the foundation for the successful, multi-national Coulter Corporation. Wallace Counter also held 85 patents and positioned the Coulter Corporation as a leader in the diagnostics technology industry. In October 1997, the Coulter Corporation was acquired by Beckman Instruments, Inc. and the company is now known as Beckman Coulter, Inc.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI will always remember the Coulter Counter as the best way to count cells without having to do it by eye and on a microscope that can be prone with many different errors,\u201d said Manu Platt, an assistant professor and GRA Distinguished Cancer Scientist in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, who also earned his PhD in the Coulter Department. \u201cFor it now to be so routinely done in hospitals has allowed for greater processing of a large number of patient blood draws.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnalysis of blood work revolutionized the detection of cancer and many kinds of blood-related diseases. Tests that once took several days took just minutes with the Coulter Counter.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWallace Coulter firmly believed that technology and engineering can change medicine for the better,\u201d Bellamkonda said. \u201cThat is entirely our focus here in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOutside of biology, the Coulter Counter has had commercial impacts in other fields such as manufacturing. For example, the Coulter Counter is used in paint manufacturing to quickly measure particle size and number.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Coulter Counter was based on the Coulter Principle, which says that when cells are passed through microchannels separating electrolyte solutions, a transient current drop is proportional to the particle volume.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Coulter Principle is one of the precursors to microfluidic studies that are commonly used today, Platt said.These studies are now at the forefront of how to miniaturize or \u201cnano-ize\u201d diagnostic detection devices for cheaper, faster and better assays, which are directly applicable to\u0026nbsp; environments like those in developing countries, such as in rural Africa where Platt does fieldwork studying HIV\/AIDS.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMicrofluidic studies, such as Assistant Professor Todd Sulchek\u2019s work sorting cells by stiffness to spot disease, are a modern legacy of the Coulter Counter.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat principle \u2014 the idea of making a very small aperture or very small hole \u2014 is a foundation for microfluidics,\u201d said Sulchek, who works in both the Coulter Department and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. \u201cPeople realized that if you make very small dimensions, on the scale of individual cells, you can utilize new mechanisms for detection. That idea underpins almost all of microfluidics.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECoulter was driven to innovate, something that the Coulter Department also strives for. Many of the Coulter Department\u2019s faculty members have created startups and are interested in taking their ideas further. They are not satisfied with just publishing a study, Bellamkonda said. Embedded in the DNA of the Coulter Department is a drive to move technologies to patients as fast as possible, he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJust one example of this drive is found in the Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics lab of Ajit Yoganathan, the Associate Chair for Translational Research, Regents Professor and the Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair in Biomedical Engineering. His lab has a rich history of translational research over the past 34 years, working closely with cardiologists and cardiac surgeons, both adult and pediatric, to identify the important questions and challenges that the clinicians face and how the lab\u2019s research could help clinical care.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYoganathan\u2019s lab has developed a repair technology for the mitral valve that is currently licensed for commercialization to a major heart valve company, and the lab has also developed a minimal blood loss access port into the left ventricle, which is in clinical trials in partnership with his startup company Apica Cardiovascular.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe ideas came from basic research that was going on in the lab and having the Coulter funding allowed us to take it to the next level,\u201d Yoganathan said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHelping improve the lives of patients through commercializing biomedical research is a modern-day Coulter principle.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe old Coulter principle is how to count particles. The new Coulter principle, pioneered with single-minded focus by the Coulter Foundation, is helping us take engineering innovations from the lab and successfully commercialize them,\u201d Bellamkonda said. \u201cWallace\u2019s legacy vibrantly lives on through the work of his foundation.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E 177 North Avenue\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u0026nbsp; USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brett Israel (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDecember 5, 2013 - Wallace H. Coulter would have turned 100 this year. To celebrate the life and scientific legacy of Coulter, his namesake department, the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, is hosting a celebration on Dec. 5-6.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"To celebrate the life and scientific legacy of Wallace H. Coulter, his namesake department is hosting a celebration on Dec. 5-6 at Georgia Tech and Emory University."}],"uid":"27902","created_gmt":"2013-12-05 10:28:50","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:29","author":"Brett Israel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-12-05T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-12-05T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"258921":{"id":"258921","type":"image","title":"Wallace H. Coulter","body":null,"created":"1449243977","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:17","changed":"1475894943","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:03","alt":"Wallace H. Coulter","file":{"fid":"198299","name":"coulter-profile.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/coulter-profile_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/coulter-profile_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":109036,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/coulter-profile_0.jpg?itok=CC7ngIo9"}},"258931":{"id":"258931","type":"image","title":"The First Coulter Counter","body":null,"created":"1449243977","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:17","changed":"1475894943","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:03","alt":"The First Coulter Counter","file":{"fid":"198300","name":"coulter_counter.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/coulter_counter_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/coulter_counter_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":72942,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/coulter_counter_0.jpg?itok=aECiayz3"}},"258941":{"id":"258941","type":"image","title":"Coulter Principle Patent","body":null,"created":"1449243977","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:17","changed":"1475894943","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:03","alt":"Coulter Principle Patent","file":{"fid":"198301","name":"coulter_patent.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/coulter_patent_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/coulter_patent_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":157675,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/coulter_patent_0.jpg?itok=uv18-h3_"}}},"media_ids":["258921","258931","258941"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"81341","name":"coulter counter"},{"id":"81351","name":"coulter foundation"},{"id":"81361","name":"coulter principle"},{"id":"9553","name":"Wallace H. Coulter"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-385-1933\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"258881":{"#nid":"258881","#data":{"type":"news","title":"ChBE Postdoc Receives Prestigious NIH Award","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDr. Adriana San Miguel, a postdoctoral associate in the School of Chemical \u0026amp; Biomolecular Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Hang Lu, has been awarded a K99\/R00 Pathway to Independence Award by the National Institutes of Health. With a proposed total budget of $927,000, her project is titled, \u201cElucidating synaptic regulators \u003Cem\u003Evia\u003C\/em\u003E high-throughput morphological characterization.\u201d Using the nematode \u003Cem\u003ECaenorhabditis elegans \u003C\/em\u003Eas a model, the proposed work aims to understand how synapses (connections between neurons in our brain) are shaped by environmental and activity-dependent factors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe K99\/R00 Pathway to Independence Award is an award given by NIH to postdoctoral scientists to support their transition into an independent faculty appointment. This award provides support for a one- to two-year postdoctoral mentored phase and a successive three-year independent phase as a principal investigator. The main objective of this grant is to support promising scientists in the early stages of their career and accelerate their transition to an independent research position.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis competitive award is one of the few available for non-U.S. citizens and is a great complement for prospective faculty candidates. Current faculty members of the Georgia Tech community who have won this award include Dr. Brandon Dixon (Mechanical Engineering) and Dr. Matthew Torres (Biology).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAfter completing undergraduate studies in chemical engineering at Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM) and working in industry for a couple of years, Adriana moved to the United States from her native Mexico to pursue a graduate degree at Georgia Tech. She completed her Ph.D. in chemical and biomolecular engineering under the supervision of Dr. Sven Behrens, working on stimulus-responsive microcapsules and emulsions. She is now a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Hang Lu\u2019s lab, where she and others work on integrated engineering systems to perform high-throughput experiments with the nematode \u003Cem\u003EC. elegans\u003C\/em\u003E to answer biological questions that cannot be addressed with conventional methods. Tools developed in the Lu lab, including microfluidics, machine learning and hardware automation, allow unbiased quantitative multidimensional characterization of micron-sized synaptic sites in large animal populations.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27741","created_gmt":"2013-12-04 17:04:33","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:29","author":"Katie Brown","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-12-04T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-12-04T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"258891":{"id":"258891","type":"image","title":"Adriana San Miguel","body":null,"created":"1449243977","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:46:17","changed":"1475894943","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:03","alt":"Adriana San Miguel","file":{"fid":"198298","name":"san_miguel_adriana.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/san_miguel_adriana_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/san_miguel_adriana_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":885373,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/san_miguel_adriana_0.jpg?itok=LRiiRq4B"}}},"media_ids":["258891"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.nlm.nih.gov\/ep\/pathway.html","title":"NIH Pathway to Independence (PI) Award (K99\/R00)"}],"groups":[{"id":"1240","name":"School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EKatie Brown\u003Cbr \/\u003ESchool of Chemical \u0026amp; Biomolecular Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E(404) 385-2299\u003Cbr \/\u003Enews@chbe.gatech.edu\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["news@chbe.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"257661":{"#nid":"257661","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Clinical Trial Shows Tongue-Controlled Wheelchair Outperforms Popular Wheelchair Navigation System","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAfter a diving accident left Jason DiSanto paralyzed from the neck down in 2009, he had to learn how to navigate life from a powered wheelchair, which he controls with a sip-and-puff system. Users sip or puff air into a straw mounted on their wheelchair to execute four basic commands that drive the chair. But results from a new clinical study offer hope that sip-and-puff users like DiSanto could gain a higher level of independence than offered by this common assistive technology.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the study, individuals with paralysis were able to use a tongue-controlled technology to access computers and execute commands for their wheelchairs at speeds that were significantly faster than those recorded in sip-and-puff wheelchairs, but with equal accuracy. This study is the first to show that the wireless and wearable Tongue Drive System outperforms sip-and-puff in controlling wheelchairs. Sip-and-puff is the most popular assistive technology for controlling a wheelchair.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Tongue Drive System is controlled by the position of the user\u2019s tongue. A magnetic tongue stud lets them use their tongue as a joystick to drive the wheelchair. Sensors in the tongue stud relay the tongue\u2019s position to a headset, which then executes up to six commands based on the tongue position.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Tongue Drive System holds promise for patients who have lost the use of their arms and legs, a condition known as tetraplegia or quadriplegia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s really easy to understand what the Tongue Drive System can do and what it is good for,\u201d said Maysam Ghovanloo, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a study co-author and principal investigator. \u201cNow, we have solid proof that people with disabilities can potentially benefit from it.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study was published on Nov. 27 in the journal \u003Cem\u003EScience Translational Medicine\u003C\/em\u003E. The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and the National Science Foundation funded the research. Scientists from Shepherd Center in Atlanta, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago were also involved in the study. Jeonghee Kim and Hangue Park, who are working on the Tongue Drive System as graduate students at Georgia Tech, are co-authors of the study.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe Tongue Drive System is a novel technology that empowers people with disability to achieve maximum independence at home and in the community by enabling them to drive a power wheelchair and control their environment in a smoother and more intuitive way,\u201d said\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENorthwestern co-lead investigator Elliot Roth, M.D, chair of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Feinberg and the medical director of the patient recovery unit at Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. \u201cThe opportunity to use this high-tech innovation to improve the quality of life among people with mobility limitations is very exciting.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research team had subjects complete a set of tasks commonly used in similar clinical trials. Subjects in the trials were either able-bodied or people with tetraplegia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBy the end of the trials, everybody preferred the Tongue Drive System over their current assistive technology,\u201d said Joy Bruce, manager of Shepherd Center\u2019s Spinal Cord Injury Lab and co-author of the study. \u201cIt allows them to engage their environment in a way that is otherwise not possible for them.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers compared how able-bodied subjects were able to execute commands either with the Tongue Drive System or with a keypad and mouse. For example, targets randomly appeared on a computer screen and the subjects had to move the cursor to click on the target. Scientists are able to calculate how much information is transferred from a person\u2019s brain to the computer as they perform a point-and-click task. The performance gap narrowed throughout the trial between the keypad and mouse and the Tongue Drive System.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor the first time, the research team showed that people with tetraplegia can maneuver a wheelchair better with the Tongue Drive System than with the sip-and-puff system. On average, the performance of 11 subjects with tetraplegia using the Tongue Drive System was three times faster than their performance with the sip-and-puff system, but with the same level of accuracy, even though more than half of the patients had years of daily experience with sip-and-puff technology.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat was a very exciting finding,\u201d Ghovanloo said. \u201cIt attests to how quickly and accurately you can move your tongue.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe idea for piercing the tongue with the magnet was the inspiration of Anne Laumann, M.D., professor of dermatology at Feinberg and a lead investigator of the Northwestern trial. She had read about an early stage of Tongue Drive System using a glued-on tongue magnet. The problem was the magnet fell off after a few hours and aspiration of the loose magnet was a real danger to these users.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cTongue piercing put to medical use \u2014 who would have thought it? It is needed and it works!\u201d Laumann said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe experiments were repeated over five weeks for the able-bodied test group, and over six weeks for the tetraplegic group. All of the subjects with tetraplegia were able to complete the trial, which Ghovanloo called an \u201cexciting\u201d and \u201cmajor finding.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe tetraplegic group was using the Tongue Drive System just one day each week, but their improvement in performance was dramatic.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe saw a huge, very significant improvement in their performance from session one to session two,\u201d Ghovanloo said. \u201cThat\u2019s an indicator of how quickly people learn this.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EExperiments on the Tongue Drive System to date have been done in the lab or hospital. In future studies, scientists will test how the Tongue Drive System performs outside of the controlled clinical environment. The research team hopes to test how patients maneuver with the Tongue Drive System in their homes and other environments.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Tongue Drive System isn\u2019t quite ready for commercialization, but Ghovanloo\u2019s startup company, Bionic Sciences, is working with Georgia Tech to move the technology forward. \u003Cbr \/\u003EGhovanloo is the foundering director of the GT-Bionics Laboratory, where his team is experimenting with other devices to improve the quality of life for individuals with disability.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAll of my projects are related to helping people with disabilities using the latest and greatest technologies,\u201d Ghovanloo said. \u201cThat\u2019s my goal in my professional life.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDiSanto hopes that the one day he\u2019ll be able to use a tongue-powered wheelchair outside of the hospital, which would help him gain some independence he lost after his diving accident.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The Tongue Drive System will greatly increase my quality of life when I can start using it everywhere I go,\u201d DiSanto said. \u201cWith the sip-and-puff system, there is always a straw in front of my face. With the Tongue Drive, people can see you, not just your adaptive equipment.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research is supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering under award number 1RC1EB010915, and by the National Science Foundation under awards CBET-0828882 and IIS-0803184. Any conclusions or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsoring agencies.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EDr. Ghovanloo\u0027s company, Bionic Sciences, is negotiating with the Georgia Tech Research Corporation for a license to the technologies discussed in this article. If the license is executed, the results of his research on the Tongue Drive System could affect his personal financial status. Dr. Ghovanloo\u0027s Conflict of Interest has been reviewed and approved by Georgia Tech in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECITATION\u003C\/strong\u003E: J Kim, et al \u201cThe Tongue Enables Computer and Wheelchair Control for People with Spinal Cord Injury,\u201d (\u003Cem\u003EScience Translational Medicine\u003C\/em\u003E, 2013). \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/\u0022 title=\u0022http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/dx.doi.org\/\u003C\/a\u003E 10.1126\/scitranslmed.3006296\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAtlanta, Georgia 30332-0181 USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts:\u003C\/strong\u003E Brett Israel (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter:\u003C\/strong\u003E Brett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn a new clinical trial, individuals with paralysis were able to use a tongue-controlled technology to access computers and execute commands for their wheelchairs at speeds that were significantly faster than those recorded in sip-and-puff wheelchairs, but with equal accuracy. This study is the first to show that the wireless and wearable Tongue Drive System outperforms sip-and-puff in controlling wheelchairs. Sip-and-puff is the most popular assistive technology for controlling a wheelchair.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27902","created_gmt":"2013-11-27 15:11:36","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:25","author":"Brett Israel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-11-27T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-11-27T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"257641":{"id":"257641","type":"image","title":"Dr. Ghovanloo and Jason DiSanto","body":null,"created":"1449243856","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:44:16","changed":"1475894938","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:58","alt":"Dr. Ghovanloo and Jason DiSanto","file":{"fid":"198268","name":"ghovanloo-disanto.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ghovanloo-disanto_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ghovanloo-disanto_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":347706,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ghovanloo-disanto_0.jpg?itok=l4FbSz5K"}},"257631":{"id":"257631","type":"image","title":"A pierced tongue for science","body":null,"created":"1449243856","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:44:16","changed":"1475894938","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:58","alt":"A pierced tongue for science","file":{"fid":"198267","name":"disanto_piercing.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/disanto_piercing_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/disanto_piercing_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":328085,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/disanto_piercing_0.jpg?itok=5cCvbtv6"}},"257621":{"id":"257621","type":"image","title":"Tongue-controlled computer","body":null,"created":"1449243856","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:44:16","changed":"1475894938","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:58","alt":"Tongue-controlled computer","file":{"fid":"198266","name":"disanto_computer.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/disanto_computer_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/disanto_computer_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":296600,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/disanto_computer_0.jpg?itok=A-ewRWZH"}},"257671":{"id":"257671","type":"image","title":"Wheelchair obstacle course","body":null,"created":"1449243856","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:44:16","changed":"1475894938","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:58","alt":"Wheelchair obstacle course","file":{"fid":"198269","name":"obstacle_course_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/obstacle_course_0_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/obstacle_course_0_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":399715,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/obstacle_course_0_0.jpg?itok=1xj-jG0a"}}},"media_ids":["257641","257631","257621","257671"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"80981","name":"jason disanto"},{"id":"8781","name":"Maysam Ghovanloo"},{"id":"7135","name":"tetraplegia"},{"id":"8782","name":"Tongue Drive System"},{"id":"80971","name":"tongue piercing"},{"id":"1652","name":"wheelchair"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-385-1933\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"257211":{"#nid":"257211","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Scientists Work to Engineer an Injectable Therapy for Rotator Cuff Injuries","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor a baseball pitcher, a rotator cuff injury often means an extended stay on the disabled list for surgery and rehabilitation of the damaged tendons. But a new technology under development may stop this shoulder injury from becoming so severe that surgery is required.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;A research team is attempting to engineer an injectable therapy for the shoulder\u2019s supraspinatus tendon, a rotator cuff tendon that is commonly torn in sports. When the tendon is damaged, the body makes things worse by activating enzymes that further break down the tendon. The scientists hope to develop an injectable compound that would deliver an inhibitor capable of blocking these enzymes, thereby reducing the severity of the injury or even healing the tissue.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cNormally people focus on treating tendon injuries after the tear has occurred, but we\u2019re focusing on a much earlier stage in the disease,\u201d said Johnna Temenoff, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. \u201cThis is the first time that an injectable therapy specifically designed to interact with tissue at an early disease state has been attempted for this particular tendon injury.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETemenoff\u2019s work is supported by a $1 million grant from the \u003Cem\u003ENational Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)\u003C\/em\u003E for five years of research, which began in September 2013. Collaborating on the research is Manu Platt, an assistant professor in the same department. Temenoff\u2019s previous work on tendon injuries, which focused on quarterbacks in football, was sponsored by the NFL Charities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShoulder tendon injuries are common overuse injuries for athletes and also for industrial workers whose repetitive overhead motion put them at risk. The rotator cuff is a collation of four tendons, and the tendons are made of collagen. Overuse of the tendons damages the collagen, and people feel stiff and sore in their shoulders as the area becomes weaker.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnce a tendon is damaged, the body accelerates the damage by activating enzymes that eat at the tendon, worsening the condition over time.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe interesting thing about this disease is that we don\u2019t know exactly what causes it,\u201d Temenoff said. \u201cWe\u2019re studying enzymes that are known to chew up the collagen, and we\u2019re looking at then delivering inhibitors to those enzymes in a local injection in the tendon to try to stop the degradation.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn their research, the team will use an animal model to characterize when these collagen-destroying enzymes are the most active. This will give researchers a good idea of when to inject inhibitors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo that patients won\u2019t need multiple shots, the scientists are working on a drug delivery material that will release the inhibitors over time once inside the body. One idea is to control the interactions between the inhibitors and small amounts of the blood thinner heparin. The team will also study the histology and mechanics of the tendons after healing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETemenoff said that the injectable therapy could, in theory, work on other kinds of tendon injuries, not just in the shoulder.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re studying the disease in the shoulder, but it\u2019s the same disease that causes tennis elbow, Achilles injuries, and jumper\u2019s knee,\u201d Temenoff said. \u201cIt\u2019s the same process, just in different tendons in the body.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research is supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) under award1R01AR063692-01A1\u003Cstrong\u003E.\u003C\/strong\u003E Any conclusions or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NIAMS. \u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u003Cbr \/\u003E Georgia Institute of Technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E 177 North Avenue\u003Cbr \/\u003E Atlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181\u0026nbsp; USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brett Israel (404-385-1933) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or John Toon (404-894-6986) (\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: Brett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers are attempting to engineer an injectable therapy for the shoulder\u2019s supraspinatus tendon, a rotator cuff tendon that is commonly torn in sports. When the tendon is damaged, the body makes things worse by activating enzymes that further break down the tendon. The scientists hope to develop an injectable compound that would deliver an inhibitor capable of blocking these enzymes, thereby reducing the severity of the injury or even healing the tissue.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers are attempting to engineer an injectable therapy for the shoulder\u2019s supraspinatus tendon, a rotator cuff tendon that is commonly torn in sports."}],"uid":"27902","created_gmt":"2013-11-25 15:50:35","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:25","author":"Brett Israel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-11-26T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-11-26T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"257231":{"id":"257231","type":"image","title":"Engineering an injectable therapy for rotator cuff injuries.","body":null,"created":"1449243856","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:44:16","changed":"1475894938","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:58","alt":"Engineering an injectable therapy for rotator cuff injuries.","file":{"fid":"198245","name":"temenoff.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/temenoff_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/temenoff_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":190543,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/temenoff_1.jpg?itok=lyZIPToU"}}},"media_ids":["257231"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"4124","name":"baseball"},{"id":"14370","name":"Johnna Temenoff"},{"id":"12525","name":"NFL"},{"id":"80831","name":"rotator cuff"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrett Israel\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-385-1933\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"254651":{"#nid":"254651","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Todd McDevitt and Krishnendu Roy Recognized for Breakthrough Research and Leadership  In Immunoengineering and Regenerative Medicine","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe University System of Georgia Board of Regents has approved the appointment of Krishnendu (Krish) Roy and Todd McDevitt to Carol Ann and David D. Flanagan Faculty Professorships in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. \u0026nbsp;These appointments, generously endowed by the Flanagans in 2011, serve to recognize and reward faculty that are conducting high impact research and are exemplary citizens of the Wallace H. Coulter department and Georgia Tech as a whole. \u0026nbsp;Both Roy and McDevitt are bringing cutting-edge research and thought leadership to the burgeoning fields of immunoengineering and regenerative medicine.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMcDevitt is an associate professor in the Coulter Department, a Petit Faculty Fellow in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, and director of the Stem Cell Engineering Center at Georgia Tech. The objective of McDevitt\u2019s research program is to develop enabling technologies for the directed differentiation of stem cells for regenerative medicine, disease models, and diagnostic applications. Much of his research focuses on the application of technologies to engineer stem cell fate, on stem cell bioprocessing and on engineering regenerative therapies from stem cells. McDevitt has garnered more than $9 million in funding, including a Transformative R01 award from the NIH and an NSF IGERT on Stem Cell Biomanufacturing. He received the 2010 Society for Biomaterials Young Investigator Award, a New Investigator Award from the American Heart Association and was recognized as one of the \u201c40 Under 40\u201d by \u003Cem\u003EGeorgia Trend\u003C\/em\u003E magazine. McDevitt graduated cum laude from Duke University, with a B.S.E. and a double major in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in 2001 in Bioengineering from the University of Washington, where he worked for Patrick S. Stayton, and where he conducted post-doctoral research in the pathology laboratory of Charles E. Murry.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERoy joined the Coulter Department this summer as professor and is currently the director of the Center for Immunoengineering.\u0026nbsp; He is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). He received his B.S. from the Indian Institute of Technology, M.S. from Boston University and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Following his Ph.D., he joined a start-up biotechnology company, Zycos Inc., where he served as a senior scientist in drug delivery research.\u0026nbsp; He joined The University of Texas at Austin in 2002, where most recently he was professor of Biomedical Engineering. He also served as the director of the graduate program and as associate chair for education and outreach. His research interests are in the areas of immunoengineering with particular focus on material-directed cells signaling and immune cell generation and controlled drug and vaccine delivery technologies with applications in cancer and immunotherapies.\u0026nbsp; Roy has received the Young Investigator Awards from The Society for Biomaterials (SFB) and the Controlled Release Society (CRS). He has been extensively funded by NIH, NSF, the Coulter Foundation, the Whitaker Foundation and the Cancer Prevention And Research Institute of Texas, among others. He serves as a member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Controlled Release and the European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech and Emory created the joint department of biomedical engineering in the fall of 1997. The collaborative relationship blends the expertise of medical researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine with that of the engineering faculty at Georgia Tech, and is the first of its kind between a public and private institution. The collaboration has resulted in a biomedical engineering program that consistently ranks among the top five in the nation by\u003Cem\u003E U.S. News \u0026amp; World Report.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Flanagans Support Novel, High-Impact Biomedical Research with Endowment"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe University System of Georgia Board of Regents has approved the appointment of Krishnendu (Krish) Roy and Todd McDevitt to Carol Ann and David D. Flanagan Faculty Professorships in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. \u0026nbsp;These appointments, generously endowed by the Flanagans in 2011, serve to recognize and reward faculty that are conducting high impact research and are exemplary citizens of the Wallace H. Coulter department and Georgia Tech as a whole. \u0026nbsp;Both Roy and McDevitt are bringing cutting-edge research and thought leadership to the burgeoning fields of immunoengineering and regenerative medicine.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The University System of Georgia Board of Regents has approved the appointment of Krishnendu (Krish) Roy and Todd McDevitt to Carol Ann and David D. Flanagan Faculty Professorships in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering."}],"uid":"27182","created_gmt":"2013-11-14 15:15:41","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:22","author":"Adrianne Proeller","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-11-14T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-11-14T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"243221":{"id":"243221","type":"image","title":"Dr. Krishnendu Roy","body":null,"created":"1449243704","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:41:44","changed":"1475894919","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:39","alt":"Dr. Krishnendu Roy","file":{"fid":"197851","name":"roy-agarwal_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/roy-agarwal_0_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/roy-agarwal_0_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":88915,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/roy-agarwal_0_0.jpg?itok=eiMOER6G"}},"254661":{"id":"254661","type":"image","title":"Todd McDevitt","body":null,"created":"1449243828","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:43:48","changed":"1475894934","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:54","alt":"Todd McDevitt","file":{"fid":"198186","name":"todd_mcdevitt_lab.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/todd_mcdevitt_lab_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/todd_mcdevitt_lab_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":4014690,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/todd_mcdevitt_lab_0.jpg?itok=mx5Wdvcj"}}},"media_ids":["243221","254661"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/facultystaff\/faculty_record.php?id=173","title":"Krishnendu Roy"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/facultystaff\/faculty_record.php?id=78","title":"Todd McDevitt"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"},{"id":"140","name":"Cancer Research"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"249","name":"Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"5775","name":"Bioscience Research"},{"id":"25821","name":"Georgia Tech \u0026 Emory Center for Regenerative Medicine (GTEC)"},{"id":"73511","name":"immunoengineering"},{"id":"75821","name":"Immunoengineering Center"},{"id":"167130","name":"Stem Cells"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAdrianne Proeller\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["adrianne.proeller@bme.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"154521":{"#nid":"154521","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Coulter Department, Potter Recognized by Regents","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Steve Potter, associate professor in the Coulter Department, are recipients of the 2013 Regents\u2019 Teaching Excellence Awards. This marks the first time that both awards have gone to the same department. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe Coulter Department is an excellent example of an academic unit designing its curriculum and instructional approach to truly focus on student learning and achievement,\u201d said Rafael L. Bras, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. \u201cIt\u2019s no surprise that the department and one of its own, Steve Potter, would be selected to receive these awards.\u201d \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe University System of Georgia (USG) Teaching Excellence Awards recognize both individual faculty and staff, and departments and programs for a strong commitment to teaching and student success. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Coulter Department was recognized for its design and implementation of a problem-focused curriculum. \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cProblem-driven learning aims to develop empowered, self-directed inquirers who fearlessly seek and tackle local and global problems,\u201d said Wendy Newstetter, who helped develop the award-winning BME curriculum and is now director of educational research and innovation for the College of Engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA team of BME faculty, including Newstetter, BME Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies Joe Le Doux and Director of Learning Sciences Innovation and Research Barbara Fasse, are scheduled to share their curriculum design approach in March 2013 during a workshop for faculty from across the state.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPotter, director of the Laboratory for NeuroEngineering, was recognized for his self-defined \u201creal world\u201d approach to teaching neuroscience courses. For example, students interview experts in the field and use what they learn from experts and readings to create new neuroscience articles for Wikipedia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cNothing is more rewarding for me than to get an email from one of my former students telling me about where they are now and how much they still appreciate and use what they learned in a class of mine,\u201d Potter said. \u201cTo get recognition from the USG for leaving a lasting influence on my students is icing on the cake.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Steve Potter, associate professor in the Coulter Department, are recipients of the 2013 Regents\u2019 Teaching Excellence Awards.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Steve Potter, associate professor in the Coulter Department, are recipients of the 2013 Regents\u2019 Teaching Excellence Awards."}],"uid":"27445","created_gmt":"2012-09-17 09:43:30","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:12:50","author":"Amelia Pavlik","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-09-17T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2012-09-17T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"154301":{"id":"154301","type":"image","title":"Steve Potter","body":null,"created":"1449178859","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:40:59","changed":"1475894787","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:27","alt":"Steve Potter","file":{"fid":"195249","name":"steve_potter.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/steve_potter_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/steve_potter_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1603996,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/steve_potter_0.jpg?itok=aTrvsx9w"}}},"media_ids":["154301"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/","title":"Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"}],"groups":[{"id":"1259","name":"Whistle"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"728","name":"Board of Regents"},{"id":"14219","name":"Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"43551","name":"Regents\u0027 Teaching Excellence Awards"},{"id":"168365","name":"Steve Potter"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:adrianne.proeller@bme.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EAdrianne Proeller\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECoulter Department of Biomedical Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"133101":{"#nid":"133101","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Student Project MAID Awarded in National Competition","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Biomedical Engineering undergraduate student project MAID has received numerous accolades from both national and local competitions. MAID, or Magnetically Assisted Intubation Device, is a simplified approach to intubation that utilizes magnets to guide the endotracheal tube into the airway of a patient easily and quickly, with less risk and without the need for visualization.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis May, the MAID team was awarded third place in the National College Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) BME Idea competition where they won $1,000 and an expenses-paid spot at the BME VentureLab at USC. VentureLab is a five-day intensive bootcamp designed to help early startups accelerate their ventures. The workshop will evolve the MAID business strategy, sales channels, and marketing to give them a better understanding of the financial mechanics of their venture.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003EMAID has been awarded in several competitions since their 2nd place win at the Inventure Prize Competition in March, 2011. The team won $10,000 cash and a patent application by the Georgia Tech Office of Technology Licensing. MAID also had an unprecedented sweep in the March 2012 Georgia Tech College of Management\u0027s Business Plan Competition, including first place in the Undergraduate Competition, first in the Overall Competition, Most Commercializable Plan and the Alumni Award in the poster session, for total winnings of $42,500. They also won first place and $500 at the at the Design of Medical Devices Conference, held April 10-12, 2012 at the University of Minnesota and $1,000 at the Product Development and Management Association\u0027s (PDMA) 2012 Student Competition Awards on April 19, 2012 at Georgia Tech. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn July 2011, the MAID team was awarded a $25,000 seed grant from TRIBES. TRIBES is the Translational Research Institute for Biomedical Engineering \u0026amp; Science in the Biomedical Engineering Department of Georgia Tech. The MAID team has been advised by Leanne West of GTRI and Professor of the Practice Franklin Bost of TRIBES and the Atlanta Pediatric Device Consortium to develop their device since the InVenture Prize win. GTRI has provided the student project MAID with assistance in prototyping and testing their novel medical device.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe team responsible for designing MAID is composed of biomedical engineering seniors Alex Cooper, Elizabeth Flanagan, Shawna Hagen and Jacob Thompson.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Biomedical Engineering undergraduate student project MAID has received numerous accolades from both national and local competitions.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The MAID team was awarded third place in the National College Inventors and Innovators Alliance BME Idea competition"}],"uid":"27657","created_gmt":"2012-05-29 15:38:53","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:12:18","author":"Lee Taylor","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-05-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2012-05-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"133091":{"id":"133091","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech Student Project MAID Awarded","body":null,"created":"1449178659","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:37:39","changed":"1475894621","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:43:41","alt":"Georgia Tech Student Project MAID Awarded","file":{"fid":"194728","name":"11p1000-p42-033.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11p1000-p42-033_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11p1000-p42-033_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2175711,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/11p1000-p42-033_0.jpg?itok=2e0MXmWh"}}},"media_ids":["133091"],"groups":[{"id":"67773","name":"IBB Center - TRIBES"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"34641","name":"MAID"},{"id":"12418","name":"TRIBES"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJenny Taylor\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jenny.taylor@bme.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejenny.taylor@bme.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jenny.taylor@bme.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"123171":{"#nid":"123171","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Shean Phelps Named Medical Director for the Translational Research Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Science (TRIBES)","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EShean Phelps, MD, MPH, FAAFP, has been named Medical Director for the Translational Research Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Science (TRIBES). In this role, he is responsible for providing key subject matter expertise to the development, execution and communication of TRIBES\u2019 scientific\/medical evidence plan.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition, Dr. Phelps provides clinical input into safety and regulatory interactions and assists with the development of global collaborations that integrate broad medical, scientific, and commercial concepts into the program. These efforts are designed to shepherd the transition of viable ideas into useable products across and between the fields of medicine, technology and science.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe are excited to have someone of Dr. Phelps\u2019 broad clinical expertise as part of our leadership team\u201d said Barbara Boyan, Executive Director of TRIBES and the Price Gilbert, Jr. Chair in Tissue Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory and Associate Dean for Research and Innovation for Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to his role as TRIBES Medical Director, Dr. Phelps serves as the Director of Health Systems Technology Research and Development at the Georgia Tech Research Institute where he manages and facilitates health-related technological synergies internally and externally.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Phelps retired in March 2011 from the U. S. Army with over 30 years of total active federal service. He started in the military as a Special Forces Senior Non-Commissioned Officer. \u0026nbsp;Following his commission, he completed medical school and residency and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Medical Corps.\u0026nbsp; His duties included planning, supporting, and\/or directing numerous Department of Defense research and development projects totaling over $150 million.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWidely regarded as an expert on a variety of special operations\/operational medicine, injury biomechanics and wilderness medicine topics, he currently focuses on research into the cause, prevention, and development of applied solutions to human injury. He is certified as both a Senior U.S. Army and U.S. Navy Flight Surgeon\/Aerospace Medicine physician, and is a distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Translational Research Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Science (TRIBES) links biomedical research and educational activities at Georgia Tech with key medical institutions and organizations for the benefit of diagnosis and treatment of patients in the healthcare system. TRIBES provides critical capabilities to pre-commercial engineering development activities for the license and transition of technology into industry.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETRIBES is part of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and includes three centers directed by Boyan \u2013 the Center for Advanced Bioengineering for Soldier Survivability, the Center for Pediatric Healthcare Technology Innovation and the Atlanta Pediatric Device Consortium.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EShean Phelps, MD, MPH, FAAFP, has been named Medical Director for the Translational Research Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Science (TRIBES). \u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27182","created_gmt":"2012-04-10 14:01:01","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:12:00","author":"Adrianne Proeller","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-04-10T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2012-04-10T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"123161":{"id":"123161","type":"image","title":"Shean Phelps","body":null,"created":"1449178582","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:36:22","changed":"1475894743","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:43","alt":"Shean Phelps","file":{"fid":"194424","name":"phelps_headshot.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/phelps_headshot_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/phelps_headshot_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":141965,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/phelps_headshot_1.jpg?itok=hAxq2VLz"}}},"media_ids":["123161"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.tribes.gatech.edu\/welcome","title":"TRIBES"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"9548","name":"Barbara Boyan"},{"id":"12147","name":"medical director"},{"id":"169000","name":"Shean Phelps"},{"id":"12418","name":"TRIBES"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["adrianne.proeller@bme.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"64852":{"#nid":"64852","#data":{"type":"news","title":"How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot?","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor people, being touched can initiate many different\nreactions from comfort to discomfort, from intimacy to aggression. But how\nmight people react if they were touched by a robot? Would they recoil, or would\nthey take it in stride? In an initial study, researchers at the Georgia\nInstitute of Technology found people generally had a positive response toward\nbeing touched by a robotic nurse, but that their perception of the robot\u2019s\nintent made a significant difference. The research is being presented today at\nthe Human-Robot Interaction conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat we found was that how people perceived the intent of the\nrobot was really important to how they responded. So, even though the robot\ntouched people in the same way, if people thought the robot was doing that to\nclean them, versus doing that to comfort them, it made a significant difference\nin the way they responded and whether they found that contact favorable or\nnot,\u201d said Charlie Kemp, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter\nDepartment of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn the study, researchers looked at how people responded when\na robotic nurse, known as Cody, touched and wiped a person\u2019s forearm. Although\nCody touched the \u0026nbsp;subjects\nin exactly the same way, they reacted more positively when they believed Cody\nintended to clean their arm versus when they believed Cody intended to comfort\nthem. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThese results echo similar studies done with nurses. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere have been studies of nurses and they\u2019ve looked at how\npeople respond to physical contact with nurses,\u201d said Kemp, who is also an\nadjunct professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Computing. \u201cAnd they found that,\nin general, if people interpreted the touch of the nurse as being instrumental,\nas being important to the task, then people were OK with it. But if people\ninterpreted the touch as being to provide comfort \u2026 people were not so\ncomfortable with that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn addition, Kemp and his research team tested whether people\nresponded more favorably when the robot verbally indicated that it was about to\ntouch them versus touching them without saying anything beforehand.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe results suggest that people preferred when the robot did\nnot actually give them the warning,\u201d said Tiffany Chen, doctoral student at\nGeorgia Tech. \u201cWe think this might be because they were startled when the robot\nstarted speaking, but the results are generally inconclusive.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003ESince many useful tasks require that a robot touch a person,\nthe team believes that future research should investigate ways to make robot\ntouch more acceptable to people, especially in healthcare. Many important\nhealthcare tasks, such as wound dressing and assisting with hygiene, would\nrequire a robotic nurse to touch the patient\u0027s body, \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIf we want robots to be successful in healthcare, we\u2019re going\nto need to think about how do we make those robots communicate their intention\nand how do people interpret the intentions of the robot,\u201d added Kemp. \u201cAnd I\nthink people haven\u2019t been as focused on that until now. Primarily people have\nbeen focused on how can we make the robot safe, how can we make it do its task\neffectively. But that\u2019s not going to be enough if we actually want these robots\nout there helping people in the real world.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to Kemp and Chen, the research group consists of\nAndrea Thomaz, assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Computing, and\npostdoctoral fellow Chih-Hung Aaron King.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn an initial study, researchers at the Georgia\nInstitute of Technology found people generally had a positive response toward\nbeing touched by a robotic nurse, but that their perception of the robot\u2019s\nintent made a significant difference.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Charlie Kemp\u0027s lab investigates how people react to a robot in a healthcare setting."}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2011-03-09 10:31:12","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:08:22","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-03-09T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2011-03-09T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"64850":{"id":"64850","type":"image","title":"How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot?  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Photo - Cody","file":{"fid":"192112","name":"Cody.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Cody_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Cody_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2063184,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Cody_0.jpg?itok=5b5_ul7q"}},"64854":{"id":"64854","type":"image","title":"How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot - Shot of Study","body":null,"created":"1449176783","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:06:23","changed":"1475894571","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:51","alt":"How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot - Shot of Study","file":{"fid":"192113","name":"cody.studyshot.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cody.studyshot_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cody.studyshot_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":143140,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/cody.studyshot_0.jpg?itok=CsOl-YVP"}}},"media_ids":["64850","64854"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/healthcare-robotics.com\/","title":"Healthcare Robotics Lab"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.hsi.gatech.edu\/hrl\/pdf\/hri2011.pdf","title":"Paper: Touched By a Robot: An Investigation of Subjective Responses to Robot-initiated Touch,"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"11526","name":"Andrea Thomaz"},{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"2157","name":"Charlie Kemp"},{"id":"12320","name":"Cody"},{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"594","name":"college of engineering"},{"id":"4887","name":"GVU Center"},{"id":"2494","name":"Health Systems Institute"},{"id":"12319","name":"Healthcare Robotics Lab"},{"id":"11892","name":"RIM@GT"},{"id":"1356","name":"robot"},{"id":"166848","name":"School of Interactive Computing"},{"id":"12318","name":"Tiffany Chen"},{"id":"12317","name":"Walter H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"62517":{"#nid":"62517","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Hosts Sickle Cell Disease Symposium","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech will host the Sickle Cell Disease Symposium\nbringing together researchers, policy experts and community advocates to\ndiscuss the latest research and strategies for future success in combating this\ncomplex and debilitating blood disorder. The symposium begins at Georgia Tech\u2019s\nInstitute for Bioengineering and Bioscience on November 4 and concludes the\nevening of November 5. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s a misconception that sickle cell disease solely affects\nAfrican Americans and that it does not represent a health disparity. \u0026nbsp;All\nraces can be affected and the disease is most prevalent in those with ancestry\nfrom sub-Saharan Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, the Mediterranean and Latin and\nSouth America,\u201d said conference organizer Gilda Barabino, professor and\nassociate chair for graduate studies in the Wallace H. Coulter\nDepartment of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. \u201cSickle cell\ndisease is prevalent in populations that face social, economic, cultural,\nstructural, geographical and other barriers to comprehensive and quality care\nand, as such is among the\u0026nbsp;diseases that\u0026nbsp;involve\u0026nbsp;health\ndisparities.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003ESickle cell disease is a blood disorder that\nresults in patients having mostly hemoglobin S in their blood streams. Patients\nwith this disorder often have red blood cells that take on a sickle shape,\nrather than the typical disc shape. The sickle-shaped blood cells are less\npliable than normal red blood cells, making it difficult for blood to pass\nthrough small blood vessels. When sickle cells clog up small blood vessels,\nless fresh blood can flow to that tissue, causing damage and the eventual\ncomplications that accompany sickle cell disease. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere is no cure for sickle cell\ndisease, and existing therapies are limited in their benefit to patients.\u0026nbsp;\nThis blood disorder involves virtually every organ system, and each must be\naddressed in the context of the other systems,\u201d said Barabino. \u201cWhile\nunderstandably, since Sickle cell disease is a blood disorder, hematological\nperspectives have dominated, there is much to learn from other areas to include\nperspectives on public health, nutrition, health outcomes and surveillance.\nFuture translational advances in the next century will only occur through integrated\napproaches that view the patient in total and draw on the tools and\ntechnologies of a variety of disciplines.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe symposium will gather experts from the U.S.\nCenters for Disease Control and Prevention, Children\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta,\nthe University of Southern California, the University of California \u2013 San\nFrancisco, the University of Minnesota, the University of Virginia, the\nUniversity of the West Indies and Medical College of Georgia as well as the\nGeorgia Institute of Technology and Emory University.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBy bringing together scientists, policy experts\nand consumers, the organizers hope to build a true community amongst\nresearchers aiming to develop treatments and possible cures for this disease.\nThey also aim to strengthen existing partnerships and develop a blueprint for\nresearch that establishes the state of Georgia as an unrivaled leader in this\nfield. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSickle cell disease is a very complicated and\ndebilitating genetic blood disorder for which a cure and effective treatment\nstrategies remain elusive, even 100 years after the initial discovery of the\ndisease. By bringing together these groups, we seek to work across boundaries\nand deliver a blueprint for an integrated sickle cell research strategy,\u201d said\nBarabino.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech will host the Sickle Cell Disease Symposium bringing\ntogether researchers, policy experts and community advocates to discuss the\nlatest research and strategies for future success in combating this complex and\ndebilitating blood disorder.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Conference runs at the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience November 4-5."}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2010-11-03 11:04:10","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:42","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-11-03T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-11-03T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"62520":{"id":"62520","type":"image","title":"Gilda Barabino","body":null,"created":"1449176369","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:59:29","changed":"1475894541","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:21","alt":"Gilda Barabino","file":{"fid":"191487","name":"08C3041-P1-089.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/08C3041-P1-089_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/08C3041-P1-089_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1898140,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/08C3041-P1-089_0.jpg?itok=yEqgK_sF"}},"62516":{"id":"62516","type":"image","title":"Sickle Cell","body":null,"created":"1449176369","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:59:29","changed":"1475894541","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:21","alt":"Sickle Cell","file":{"fid":"191632","name":"sicklecell2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sicklecell2.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/sicklecell2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2858389,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/sicklecell2.jpg?itok=O3m5BEmQ"}}},"media_ids":["62520","62516"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.sicklecellsymposium.gatech.edu\/","title":"Sickle Cell Disease Symposium"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"}],"keywords":[{"id":"11155","name":"barabino"},{"id":"1613","name":"Biomedical Engieering"},{"id":"169317","name":"Sickle Cell"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"62746":{"#nid":"62746","#data":{"type":"news","title":"$1.48 M Awarded for Single Molecule Probes","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPhillip Santangelo, assistant professor in the Coulter Department, has received an R01 NIH\/National Institute for General Medicine Sciences award to develop single molecule sensitive probes for the study of virus replication, assembly and budding. The $1.48 million project will focus on the human respiratory syncytial (hRSV) virus. hRSV is recognized as the most important viral agent of serious pediatric respiratory tract disease. Worldwide, acute respiratory tract disease is the leading cause of mortality due to infectious disease, and hRSV remains one of the pathogens deemed most important for vaccine and antiviral development. He will collaborate with James E. Crowe, Jr., MD, The Departments of Microbiology and Immunology, and Pediatrics and The Vanderbilt Vaccine Center; Vanderbilt University Medical Center for the 5-year study.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Phillip Santangelo, assistant professor in the Coulter Department, has received an R01 NIH\/National Institute for General Medicine Sciences award to develop single molecule sensitive probes for the study of virus replication, assembly and budding.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"$1.48 M Awarded for Single Molecule Probes"}],"uid":"27349","created_gmt":"2010-09-30 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:46","author":"Floyd Wood","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-09-23T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-09-23T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"62747":{"id":"62747","type":"image","title":"Prof. Santangelo","body":null,"created":"1449176394","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:59:54","changed":"1475894547","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:27","alt":"Prof. Santangelo","file":{"fid":"191556","name":"thk51351.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/thk51351_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/thk51351_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":7081,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/thk51351_0.jpg?itok=TrTmqLqx"}}},"media_ids":["62747"],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"248","name":"IBB"},{"id":"2076","name":"NIH"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EAdrianne Proeller\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=aproeller3\u0022\u003EContact Adrianne Proeller\u003C\/a\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["adrianne.proeller@bme.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"60675":{"#nid":"60675","#data":{"type":"news","title":"NSF Awards Stem Cell Bio-Manufacturing Research and Edu. Program to GT","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $3 million to the Georgia Institute of Technology to fund a unique research program on stem cell bio-manufacturing. The program is specifically focused on developing engineering methods for stem cell production, in order to meet the anticipated demand for stem cells. The award comes through the NSF\u0027s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Program, which supports innovation in graduate education in fields that cross academic disciplines and have broad societal impact.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile stem cell research is on the verge of broadly impacting many elements of the medical field - regenerative medicine, drug discovery and development, cell-based diagnostics and cancer - the bio-process engineering that will be required to manufacture sufficient quantities of functional stem cells for these diagnostic and therapeutic purposes has not been rigorously explored.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Successfully integrating knowledge of stem cell biology with bioprocess engineering and process development into single individuals is the challenging goal of this program,\u0022 said Todd McDevitt, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and a Petit Faculty Fellow in the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences at Georgia Tech.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMcDevitt is leading the IGERT with Robert M. Nerem, professor emeritus of the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Nerem is also director of the Georgia Tech\/Emory Center (GTEC) for Regenerative Medicine, which will administer this award.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. students funded by Georgia Tech\u0027s stem cell bio-manufacturing IGERT will receive interdisciplinary educational training in the biology, engineering, enabling technologies, commercialization and public policy related to stem cells. Their research efforts will focus on developing innovative engineering approaches to bridge the gap between basic discoveries made in stem cell biology and therapeutic stem cell-based technologies.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022This program provides a unique opportunity for engineers to generate standardized and quantitative methods for stem cell isolation, characterization, propagation and differentiation,\u0022 said Nerem. \u0022These techniques must be developed in a scalable manner to efficiently produce sufficient numbers of stem cells and derivatives in accessible formats in order to yield a spectrum of novel therapeutic and diagnostic applications of stem cells.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech program is centered around three main research thrusts, which focus on several critical technologies that must be developed to enable the application and use of stem cell-based products:\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E* Creating reproducible, controlled and scalable methods to expand and differentiate stem cells with defined phenotypes and epigenetic states.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n* Developing reliable, rapid and quantifiable methods to characterize the composition and function of stem cells to be generated.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n* Designing low-cost systems capable of producing large populations of defined stem cells and derivatives.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EStudents in the program will be able to take advantage of the core facilities provided by the new Stem Cell Engineering Center at Georgia Tech, which is directed by McDevitt. Technologies developed by the students supported through this IGERT will be rapidly integrated into academic and industrial stem cell practices and cell-based products.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe award will support 30 new Ph.D. students over the next five years and brings together more than two dozen faculty members from Georgia Tech, Emory University, the University of Georgia and the Morehouse School of Medicine. In addition, plans are being made for students to participate in international research collaborations with the National University of Ireland at Galway, Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge and the University of Toronto.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We anticipate this program will produce the future leaders and innovators in the field of stem cell bio-manufacturing who will contribute significantly at the interface of stem cell engineering, biology and therapy,\u0022 added McDevitt.\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Biomedical engineering associate professor Todd McDevitt is co-leading Georgia Tech\u0027s new research program on stem cell bio-manufacturing, which is specifically focused on developing engineering methods for stem cell production in order to meet the anticipated demand for stem cells.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"NSF Awards Stem Cell Bio-Manufacturing Research and Edu. Program"}],"uid":"27349","created_gmt":"2010-08-16 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:19","author":"Floyd Wood","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-08-16T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-08-16T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"60676":{"id":"60676","type":"image","title":"Todd McDevitt","body":null,"created":"1449176281","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:58:01","changed":"1475894528","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:08","alt":"Todd McDevitt","file":{"fid":"191188","name":"tjb64868.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tjb64868_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tjb64868_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":36421,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tjb64868_0.jpg?itok=WuB0FNLQ"}}},"media_ids":["60676"],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"140","name":"Cancer Research"},{"id":"132","name":"Institute Leadership"},{"id":"141","name":"Chemistry and Chemical Engineering"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"149","name":"Nanotechnology and Nanoscience"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"248","name":"IBB"},{"id":"10506","name":"IGERT"},{"id":"6217","name":"McDevitt"},{"id":"363","name":"NSF"},{"id":"171009","name":"stem cell bio-manufacturing"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EAbby Vogel Robinson\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EResearch News and Publications\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=avogel6\u0022\u003EContact Abby Vogel Robinson\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-385-3364\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["abby@innovate.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"60673":{"#nid":"60673","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Garcia Lab Research ft. in Science Translational Medicine Journal","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers have developed an improved coating technique that could strengthen the connection between titanium joint-replacement implants and a patient\u0027s own bone. The stronger connection - created by manipulating signals the body\u0027s own cells use to encourage growth - could allow the implants to last longer.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EImplants coated with \u0022flower bouquet\u0022 clusters of an engineered protein that mimics the body\u0027s own cell-adhesion material fibronectin made 50 percent more contact with the surrounding bone than implants coated with protein pairs or individual strands. The cluster-coated implants were fixed in place more than twice as securely as plugs made from bare titanium - which is how joints are currently attached.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EResearchers believe the biologically-inspired material improves bone growth around the implant and strengthens the attachment and integration of the implant to the bone. This work also shows for the first time that biomaterials presenting biological sequences clustered together at the nanoscale enhance cell adhesion signals. These enhanced signals result in higher levels of bone cell differentiation in human stem cells and promote better integration of biomaterial implants into bone.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022By clustering the engineered fibronectin pieces together, we were able to create an amplified signal for attracting integrins, receptors that attached to the fibronectin and directed and enhanced bone formation around the implant,\u0022 said Andres Garcia, professor in Georgia Tech\u0027s Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDetails of the new coating were reported in the August 18 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Arthritis Foundation, and the Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute through the Georgia Tech\/Emory Center for the Engineering of Living Tissues.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETotal knee and hip replacements typically last about 15 years until the components wear down or loosen. For many younger patients, this means a second surgery to replace the first artificial joint. With approximately 40 percent of the 712,000 total hip and knee replacements in the United States in 2004 performed on younger patients 45-64 years old, improving the lifetime of the titanium joints and creating a better connection with the bone becomes extremely important.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn this study, Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry professor David Collard and his students coated clinical-grade titanium with a high density of polymer strands - akin to the bristles on a toothbrush. Then, Garcia and Tim Petrie - formerly a graduate student at Georgia Tech and currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington - modified the polymer to create three or five self-assembled tethered clusters of the engineered fibronectin, which contained the arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD)sequence to which integrins binds.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo evaluate the in vivo performance of the coated titanium in bone healing, the researchers drilled two-millimeter circular holes into a rat\u0027s tibia bone and pressed tiny clinical-grade titanium cylinders into the holes. The research team tested coatings that included individual strands, pairs, three-strand clusters and five-strand clusters of the engineered fibronectin protein.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022To investigate the function of these surfaces in promoting bone growth, we quantified osseointegration, or the growth of bone around the implant and strength of the attachment of the implant to the bone,\u0022 explained Garcia, who is also a Woodruff Faculty Fellow at Georgia Tech.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAnalysis of the bone-implant interface four weeks later revealed a 50 percent enhancement in the amount of contact between the bone and implants coated with three- or five-strand tethered clusters compared to implants coated with single strands. The experiments also revealed a 75 percent increase in the contact of the three- and five-strand clusters compared to the current clinical standard for replacement-joint implants, which is uncoated titanium.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers also tested the fixation of the implants by measuring the amount of force required to pull the implants out of the bone. Implants coated with three- and five-strand tethered clusters of the engineered fibronectin fragment displayed 250 percent higher mechanical fixation over the individual strand and pairs coatings and a 400 percent improvement compared to the unmodified polymer coating. The three- and five-cluster coatings also exhibited a twofold enhancement in pullout strength compared to uncoated titanium.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech bioengineering graduate students Ted Lee and David Dumbauld, chemistry graduate students Subodh Jagtap and Jenny Raynor, and research technician Kellie Templeman also contributed to this study.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThis work was partly funded by Grant No. R01 EB004496-01 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and PHS Grant UL1 RR025008 from the Clinical and Translational Science Award program, NIH, National Center for Research Resources. The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official view of the NIH.\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Better Joint Replacements: Titanium Coating with Protein \u0022Flower Bouquet\u0022 Nanoclusters Strengthens Implant Attachment","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Garcia Lab Research ft. in Science Translational Medicine Journa"}],"uid":"27349","created_gmt":"2010-08-18 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:19","author":"Floyd Wood","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-08-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-08-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"60674":{"id":"60674","type":"image","title":"Garcia","body":null,"created":"1449176281","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:58:01","changed":"1475894528","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:08","alt":"Garcia","file":{"fid":"191187","name":"twm64473.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/twm64473_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/twm64473_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":35513,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/twm64473_0.jpg?itok=yYA2iYQ2"}}},"media_ids":["60674"],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"141","name":"Chemistry and Chemical Engineering"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"149","name":"Nanotechnology and Nanoscience"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"150","name":"Physics and Physical Sciences"}],"keywords":[{"id":"539","name":"Andres Garcia"},{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"248","name":"IBB"},{"id":"10504","name":"Nanoclusters"},{"id":"169331","name":"Science Translational Medicine"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EAbby Vogel Robinson\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EResearch News and Publications\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=avogel6\u0022\u003EContact Abby Vogel Robinson\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-385-3364\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["abby@innovate.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"58140":{"#nid":"58140","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Melissa Kemp Wins the Council of Systems Biology  in Boston Award","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMelissa Kemp, Ph.D. was named the winner of the third annual Council for Systems Biology in Boston (CSB2) Award, sponsored by Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc.  The award was presented this morning during the CSB2 2010 International\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nConference on Systems Biology of Human Disease.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Sponsoring the CSB2 Award is a natural fit for Merrimack, as our company mission is to use systems biology techniques to understand a disease mechanism and then discover and develop drugs to optimally treat that disease,\u0022 said Birgit Schoeberl, Ph.D. Merrimack\u0027s Vice President of Research. \u0022We are proud to support CSB2 and talented researchers like Melissa Kemp who continue to help the systems biology field reach its full potential.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDr. Kemp receives this award in recognition of her work developing approaches to measure changes in a protein oxidation state and integrate ROS signaling with signaling by kinases and transcription factors. Dr. Kemp is an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering department at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Dr. Kemp is an extraordinary young investigator at the intersection between engineering and cell biology,\u0022 said Professor Peter Sorger, Chair of CSB2. \u0022Dr. Kemp\u0027s promising work studying the complex connections between signaling networks that are most commonly studied in isolation is the essence of contemporary systems biology.\u0022   \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAbout the CSB2 Prize in Systems Biology sponsored by Merrimack :The CSB2 Prize sponsored by Merrimack is awarded to a young scientist for exceptional contributions to the development and application of innovative new modeling and computational methods as judged by their technical quality, broad utility and fundamental theoretical insight. This prize is presented by the Council for Systems Biology in Boston (CSB2) which builds local, regional, and national links between academic and industrial laboratories active\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nin the areas of systems and computational biology. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ECSB2 is dedicated to promoting quantitative, systems and synthetic biology in the Boston area and beyond by promoting interactions among academic and pharmaceutical laboratories, organizing international symposia and recognizing the achievements of promising young scientists and engineers. The International Conference on the Systems Biology of Human Disease (\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.csb2.org\/events\/sbhd-2010\u0022 title=\u0022http:\/\/www.csb2.org\/events\/sbhd-2010\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www.csb2.org\/events\/sbhd-2010\u003C\/a\u003E) is a major annual symposium focusing on the application of network and systems biology to unmet medical needs.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAbout Merrimack\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMerrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery and development of novel medicines for the treatment of cancer and inflammation. The Company is advancing arobust pipeline of engineered therapeutics paired with molecular diagnostics. Merrimack\u0027s first two oncology candidates, MM-121,partnered with sanofi-aventis, and MM-111, are in Phase 1 clinical testing with multiple pre-clinical development and research stage programs in the pipeline. MM-121 and MM-111 are investigational drugs and have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or any international regulatory agency. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Company\u0027s proprietary Network Biology discovery platform, developed with the help of leading scientists from MIT and Harvard, integrates the fields of engineering, biology and computing to enable mechanism-based model driven discovery and development of both therapeutics and diagnostics. Merrimack is a privately-held company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For additional information, please visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.merrimackpharma.com\u0022 title=\u0022http:\/\/www.merrimackpharma.com\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www.merrimackpharma.com\u003C\/a\u003E.\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Melissa Kemp, Ph.D. was named the winner of the third annual Council for Systems Biology in Boston (CSB2) Award, sponsored by Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Melissa Kemp Wins the Council of Systems Biology  in Boston Awar"}],"uid":"27349","created_gmt":"2010-06-01 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:39","author":"Floyd Wood","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-06-17T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-06-17T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"58141":{"id":"58141","type":"image","title":"Prof. Mellissa Kemp","body":null,"created":"1449176204","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:56:44","changed":"1475894512","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:41:52","alt":"Prof. Mellissa Kemp","file":{"fid":"190767","name":"tzj67170.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tzj67170_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tzj67170_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":46933,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tzj67170_0.jpg?itok=Ru7Ah8mg"}}},"media_ids":["58141"],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"141","name":"Chemistry and Chemical Engineering"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"9889","name":"CSB2"},{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"9695","name":"Innovative Measurement"},{"id":"5084","name":"Melissa Kemp"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EFloyd Wood\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIBB\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:floyd.wood@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EContact Floyd Wood\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-385-4084\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["floyd.wood@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"57750":{"#nid":"57750","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Mark Prausnitz presents the Medtronic Lecture at Oxford","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMark Prausnitz, PhD. presents the Medtronic Lecture in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, on June 2, 2010.\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Mark Prausnitz, PhD. presents the Medtronic Lecture in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, on June 2","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Mark Prausnitz presents the Medtronic Lecture at Oxford"}],"uid":"27349","created_gmt":"2010-06-01 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:39","author":"Floyd Wood","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-06-01T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-06-01T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.chbe.gatech.edu\/News\/PrausnitzAbstract.pdf","title":"Prausnitz\u0027s Abstract"}],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"141","name":"Chemistry and Chemical Engineering"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"1303","name":"chbe"},{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"248","name":"IBB"},{"id":"495","name":"Mark Prausnitz"},{"id":"9699","name":"University of Oxford"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EJosie Giles\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESchool of Chemical \u0026amp; Biomolecular Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=jg234\u0022\u003EContact Josie Giles\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-385-2299\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["josie.giles@chbe.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"57124":{"#nid":"57124","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Modeling control of the electric power grid on the brain","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EModeling control of the electric power grid on the brain\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nPosted: Wed, May 19, 2010\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMay 16-19, the Coulter Department hosted a meeting of research collaborators intent on studying living neural networks (LNNs) of rat brain cells in BME Associate Professor Steve Potter\u2019s lab to see how those cells process dynamic situations, adapt and learn.  From those studies, the researchers hope to create a \u0022biologically inspired\u0022 computer program to manage and control complex power grids. Their project \u201cNeuroscience and Neural Networks for Engineering the Future Intelligent Electric Power Grid\u201d is being led by Ganesh Kumar Venayagamoorthy, Missouri University of Science and Technology, in collaboration with co-PIs Potter, Ron Harley, Georgia Tech Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Donald Wunsch, Missouri S\u0026amp;T.  The study is funded by the NSF Office of the Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation. View a video of Steve Potter discussing LNNs at \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/brain2grid.com\/movies\/\u0022 title=\u0022http:\/\/brain2grid.com\/movies\/\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/brain2grid.com\/movies\/\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"May 16-19, the Coulter Department hosted a meeting of research collaborators intent on studying living neural networks (LNNs) of rat brain cells in BME Associate Professor Steve Potter\u2019s lab to see how those cells process dynamic situations, adapt and learn.  From those studies, the researchers hope to create a \u0022biologically inspired\u0022 computer program to manage and control complex power grids. Their project \u201cNeuroscience and Neural Networks for Engineering the Future Intelligent Electric Power Grid\u201d is being led by Ganesh Kumar Venayagamoorthy, Missouri University of Science and Technology, in collaboration with co-PIs Potter, Ron Harley, Georgia Tech Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Donald Wunsch, Missouri S\u0026amp;T.  The study is funded by the NSF Office of the Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"BME Hosts Collaborative Meeting if Brain2Grid Group"}],"uid":"27182","created_gmt":"2010-05-19 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:06:18","author":"Adrianne Proeller","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-05-19T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2010-05-19T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.bme.gatech.edu\/","title":"Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu\/index.html","title":"School of Electrical and Computer Engineering"},{"url":"http:\/\/brain2grid.com\/","title":"Brain2Grid website"}],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"154","name":"Environment"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"249","name":"Biomedical Engineering"},{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"9610","name":"Brain2Grid"},{"id":"2435","name":"ECE"},{"id":"1925","name":"Electrical and Computer Engineering"},{"id":"5443","name":"Neuroengineering"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003EAdrianne Proeller\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=aproeller3\u0022\u003EContact Adrianne Proeller\u003C\/a\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["adrianne.proeller@bme.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}