Part of Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, ATDC is a startup accelerator that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful technology companies. Each year, member companies that have met rigorous growth milestones are selected to graduate.
Calling ATDC “the flagship” of the institute’s economic development programs, Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson praised the level of support the center offers emerging firms. “Success is seldom a one-man enterprise,” he said. “These companies can now go on to be tremendously successful.”
Stephen Fleming, a Georgia Tech vice president and executive director of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, outlined ATDC’s history and noted the recent expansion of the entrepreneur-in-residence program, which gives member companies access to CEOs and others who have successfully created their own startup firms.
“We are making use of a lot of the resources from our community,” Fleming said.
Bill Cronin, vice president of economic development for Invest Atlanta, told the graduating firms they and other companies like them are a vital part of the city’s business culture. “Last year, the companies that were incubated at Georgia Tech directly represented $84 million annually to our local economy,” Cronin said.
“This is only a start, as these companies ripen and mature, they will make money and hopefully reinvest in their businesses and our economy,” Cronin added. “They will cross-pollinate and create new strains of technology, industry hybrids and innovative business ideas.”
State Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), a 1991 graduate of Georgia Tech, said the eight firms are “a microcosm of what America is all about: innovation, free markets and entrepreneurship.”
Nina Sawczuk, general manager of the ATDC, mentioned the two new community catalysts – Jennifer Bonnett and Chip Schooler – and detailed results of a new survey of ATDC member companies that indicated 98 percent of members would recommend the program to other startups.
The 2012 ATDC graduates included:
On the Floor
Graduation wasn’t the only component of the 2012 Startup Showcase. After the formal ceremony, event attendees moved to an exhibit hall featuring 45 ATDC member companies and Georgia Tech researchers displaying their products and technologies.
Steve Dickerson, founder and CEO of exhibitor SoftWear Automation, which produces technology that automates the sewing of garments, said his booth was experiencing a healthy amount of traffic.
He also had praise for ATDC, from which two of his other startup companies have graduated. “It’s the whole level of support [ATDC gives] you,” Dickerson said. “I’ve leaned on ATDC to come up with everything from ideas on investors to company names. I’m pretty darn pleased.”
A half dozen Georgia Tech researchers also showed the technologies they were developing:
About ATDC: The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) serves as the hub for technology entrepreneurship in Georgia. Founded in 1980, ATDC helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful technology companies by providing coaching, connections, and community. Through business incubation and acceleration services, ATDC has supported the creation of hundreds of technology companies that together have raised more than a billion dollars in outside financing. Headquartered in Atlanta’s Technology Square, ATDC members benefit from a close proximity to Georgia Tech and connections with other Georgia research universities. ATDC was named one of the “10 technology incubators that are changing the world” by Forbes Magazine in 2010.
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]]>The study found that applying mechanical forces to an injury site immediately after healing began disrupted vascular growth into the site and prevented bone healing. However, applying mechanical forces later in the healing process enhanced functional bone regeneration. The study’s findings could influence treatment of tissue injuries and recommendations for rehabilitation.
“Our finding that mechanical stresses caused by movement can disrupt the initial formation and growth of new blood vessels supports the advice doctors have been giving their patients for years to limit activity early in the healing process,” said Robert Guldberg, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “However, our findings also suggest applying mechanical stresses to the wound later on can significantly improve healing through a process called adaptive remodeling.”
The study was published last month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine and the U.S. Department of Defense.
Because blood vessel growth is required for the regeneration of many different tissues, including bone, Guldberg and former Georgia Tech graduate student Joel Boerckel used healing of a bone defect in rats for their study. Following removal of eight millimeters of femur bone, they treated the gap with a polymer scaffold seeded with a growth factor called recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2), a potent inducer of bone regeneration. The scaffold was designed in collaboration with Nathaniel Huebsch and David Mooney from Harvard University.
In one group of animals, plates screwed onto the bones to maintain limb stability prevented mechanical forces from being applied to the affected bone. In another group, plates allowed compressive loads along the bone axis to be transferred, but prevented twisting and bending of the limbs. The researchers used contrast-enhanced micro-computed tomography imaging and histology to quantify new bone and blood vessel formation.
The experiments showed that exerting mechanical forces on the injury site immediately after healing began significantly inhibited vascular growth into the bone defect region. The volume of blood vessels and their connectivity were reduced by 66 and 91 percent, respectively, compared to the group for which no force was applied. The lack of vascular growth into the defect produced a 75 percent reduction in bone formation and failure to heal the defect.
But the study found that the same mechanical force that hindered repair early in the healing process became helpful later on.
When the injury site experienced no mechanical force until four weeks after the injury, blood vessels grew into the defect and vascular remodeling began. With delayed loading, the researchers observed a reduction in quantity and connectivity of blood vessels, but the average vessel thickness increased. In addition, bone formation improved by 20 percent compared to when no force was applied, and strong tissue biomaterial integration was evident.
“We found that having a very stable environment initially is very important because mechanical stresses applied early on disrupted very small vessels that were forming,” said Guldberg, who is also the director of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech. “If you wait until those vessels have grown in and they’re a little more mature, applying a mechanical stimulus then induces remodeling so that you end up with a more robust vascular network.”
The study’s results may help researchers optimize the mechanical properties of tissue regeneration scaffolds in the future.
“Our study shows that one might want to implant a material that is stiff at the very beginning to stabilize the injury site but becomes more compliant with time, to improve vascularization and tissue regeneration,” added Guldberg.
Georgia Tech mechanical engineering graduate student Brent Uhrig and postdoctoral fellow Nick Willett also contributed to this research.
]]>The five-year project focuses on developing biomaterials capable of capturing certain molecules from embryonic stem cells and delivering them to wound sites to enhance tissue regeneration in adults. By applying these unique molecules, clinicians may be able to harness the regenerative power of stem cells while avoiding concerns of tumor formation and immune system compatibility associated with most stem cell transplantation approaches.
"Pre-clinical and clinical evidence strongly suggests that the biomolecules produced by stem cells significantly impact tissue regeneration independent of differentiation into functionally competent cells," said Todd McDevitt, director of the Stem Cell Engineering Center at Georgia Tech and an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "We want to find out if the signaling molecules responsible for scarless wound healing and functional tissue restoration during early stages of embryological development can be used with adult wounds to produce successful tissue regeneration without scar formation."
In addition to McDevitt, Coulter Department associate professor Johnna Temenoff and Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering professor Robert Guldberg are also investigators on the project.
Regenerative medicine seeks to restore normal structure and function to tissues compromised by degenerative diseases and traumatic injuries. The contrast between embryonic and adult wound healing suggests that molecules that facilitate tissue regeneration during embryonic development are distinctly different from those of adult tissues.
This grant includes plans for engineering biomaterials that can efficiently capture morphogens, which are molecules secreted by embryonic stem cells undergoing differentiation. The study will also evaluate the regenerative activity of molecule-filled biomaterials in animal models of dermal wound healing, hind limb ischemia and bone fractures. Examining the effects of the morphogens on a range of animal wound models will increase the likelihood of success and define any limitations of the technology, such as its use for specific tissues or injuries.
"Biomaterials have largely been used in an attempt to direct stem cell differentiation or serve as passive cell transplantation vehicles for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering purposes," said McDevitt, who is also a Petit Faculty Fellow in the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech. "The idea of specifically engineering biomaterial properties to capture and deliver complex assemblies of stem cell-derived morphogens without transplanting the cells themselves represents a novel strategy to translate the potency of stem cells into a viable regenerative medicine therapy."
The award was one of 17 granted this year through the NIH Director's Transformative Research Projects Program (T-R01), which was created to challenge the status quo with innovative ideas that have the potential to advance fields and speed the translation of research into improved health for the American public.
Another T-R01 grant was awarded to Coulter Department professor Shuming Nie, associate professor May Wang and University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Thoracic Surgery Research Laboratory director Sunil Singhal. That $7 million, five-year grant will support continuing work by the Emory-Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology team on developing fluorescent nanoparticle probes that hone in on cancer cells and on creating instruments that visualize them for cancer detection during surgery.
Since its inception in 2009, the NIH Director's Award Program has funded a total of 406 high-risk research projects, including 79 T-R01 awards.
"The NIH Director's Award programs reinvigorate the biomedical work force by providing unique opportunities to conduct research that is neither incremental nor conventional," said James M. Anderson, director of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives, who guides the NIH Common Fund's High-Risk Research program. "The awards are intended to catalyze giant leaps forward for any area of biomedical research, allowing investigators to go in entirely new directions."
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]]>Mice given a single H1N1 vaccine through the skin using a coated metal microneedle patch as well as mice vaccinated through subcutaneous injection were 100 percent protected against a lethal flu virus challenge six weeks after vaccination. However, when challenged with the H1N1 virus six months later, the injected mice had a 60 percent decrease in antibody production against the virus and extensive lung inflammation. Mice that were vaccinated with microneedles, on the other hand, maintained high levels of protection and antibody production after six months, with no signs of lung inflammation.
"A major goal of influenza vaccine development has been to confer strong immune responses, including immunological memory and cellular immune responses for long-term protection, and to limit virus spread after infection," said first author Dimitrios Koutsonanos, MD, post-doctoral fellow of microbiology and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine.
The research team also included Ioanna Skountzou, MD, PhD, Richard Compans, PhD, Maria del Pilar Martin, PhD, and Joshy Jacob, PhD, from Emory, and Georgia Tech bioengineers Mark Prausnitz, PhD, and Vladimir Zarnitsyn, PhD.
Researchers already have found that intramuscular injection is not the most efficient way to deliver vaccines. The muscles have a low concentration of cells needed to relay immune signals and activate a T-cell response, including dendritic cells, macrophages, and MHC class II-expressing cells. The skin, however, contains a rich network of antigen-presenting cells, including macrophages, Langerhans cells and dermal dendritic cells that activate cytokines and chemokines – immune signaling cells responsible for initiating an immune response.
The Emory/Georgia Tech research team previously reported that delivery of seasonal influenza vaccine through the skin using antigen-coated metal microneedle patches or dissolving microneedles elicited strong immune responses that can confer protection at least equal to conventional intramuscular injections. The team has developed dissolving microneedle technology that could be used in easy-to-administer, painless patches.
"The pandemic H1N1 A/California/04/09 influenza virus continues to be the predominant strain," said lead researcher Ioanna Skountzou, MD, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine. "Our research shows that skin-based vaccination, made possible through microneedle technology, may now be a viable and more effective alternative to intramuscular injection for H1N1 flu and other strains as well."
"Microneedle delivery also offers other logistical advantages that make this method attractive for influenza vaccination, such as inexpensive manufacturing, small size for easy storage and distribution, and simple administration that might enable self-vaccination to increase patient coverage," said Prausnitz.
This news release was written by Emory University.
Media Contacts: Holly Korschun, Emory University (404-727-3990)(hkorsch@emory.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu).
]]>
The capsule's structure -- hollow except for polymer chains tethered to the interior of the shell -- provides spatially-segregated compartments that make it a good candidate for multi-drug encapsulation and release strategies. The microcapsule could be used to simultaneously deliver distinct drugs by filling the core of the capsule with hydrophilic drugs and trapping hydrophobic drugs within nanoparticles assembled from the polymer chains.
"We have demonstrated that we can make a fairly complex multi-component delivery vehicle using a relatively straightforward and scalable synthesis," said L. Andrew Lyon, a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. "Additional research will need to be conducted to determine how they would best be loaded, delivered and triggered to release the drugs."
Details of the microcapsule synthesis procedure were published online on July 5, 2011 in the journal Macromolecular Rapid Communications.
Lyon and Xiaobo Hu, a former visiting scholar at Georgia Tech, created the microcapsules. As a graduate student at the Research Institute of Materials Science at the South China University of Technology, Hu is co-advised by Lyon and Zhen Tong of the South China University of Technology. Funding for this research was provided to Hu by the China Scholarship Council.
The researchers began the two-step, one-pot synthesis procedure by forming core particles from a temperature-sensitive polymer called poly(N-isopropylacrylamide). To create a dissolvable core, they formed polymer chains from the particles without a cross-linking agent. This resulted in an aggregated collection of polymer chains with temperature-dependent stability.
"The polymer comprising the core particles is known for undergoing chain transfer reactions that add cross-linking points without the presence of a cross-linking agent, so we initiated the polymerization using a redox method with ammonium persulfate and N,N,N’,N’-tetramethylethylenediamine. This ensured those side chain transfer reactions did not occur, which allowed us to create a truly dissolvable core," explained Lyon.
For the second step in the procedure, Lyon and Hu added a cross-linking agent to a polymer called poly(N-isopropylmethacrylamide) to create a shell around the aggregated polymer chains. The researchers conducted this step under conditions that would allow any core-associated polymer chains that interacted with the shell during synthesis to undergo chain transfer and become grafted to the interior of the shell.
Cooling the microcapsule exploited the temperature sensitivities of the polymers. The shell swelled with water and expanded to its stable size, while the free-floating polymer chains in the center of the capsule diffused out of the core, leaving behind an empty space. Any chains that stuck to the shell during its synthesis remained. Because the chains control the interaction between the particles they store and their surroundings, the tethered chains can act as hydrophobic drug carriers.
Compared to delivering a single drug, co-delivery of multiple drugs has several potential advantages, including synergistic effects, suppressed drug resistance and the ability to tune the relative dosage of various drugs. The future optimization of these microcapsules may allow simultaneous delivery of distinct classes of drugs for the treatment of diseases like cancer, which is often treated using combination chemotherapy.
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]]>“We applaud this initiative, and Georgia Tech is honored to collaborate to identify ways to strengthen the manufacturing sector to help create jobs in Georgia and across the United States,” said Peterson, who also serves as a member of the Secretary of Commerce's National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
The steering committee will guide the efforts of industry leaders, federal agency heads and university presidents, and will partner universities with industry and government agencies to develop new research and education agendas related to advanced manufacturing.
The president also announced a new National Robotics Initiative as part of the advanced manufacturing and technology focus. Henrik Christensen, KUKA Chair of Robotics for Georgia Tech, serves as an academic and research leader on the National Robotics Initiative.
According to Christensen, this is a critical time for the U.S. While the last 25 years saw tremendous progress due to the Internet, the next game-changing revolution will be robotics.
“Robotics technology addresses a number of our nation’s most critical needs, including reinvigorating the U.S. manufacturing base, protecting our citizens and soldiers, caring for our aging population, preserving our environment, and reducing our dependence on foreign oil,” Christensen said. “Through the National Robotics Initiative, the United States can regain our leadership position from Europe, Japan and South Korea, both in terms of basic research and in terms of the application of the technology to secure future growth. As home to one of the nation’s top robotics programs, Georgia Tech is an enthusiastic member of this strategic effort.”
The Advanced Manufacturing Partnership will commit to form a multiuniversity, collaborative framework for the sharing of educational materials and best practices relating to advanced manufacturing and its linkage to the innovation.
Susan Hockfield, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Andrew Liveries of Dow Chemical are chairing the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership steering committee. In addition to Peterson, other committee members include University of California at Berkley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, Stanford President John Hennessy and Carnegie Mellon President Jared Cohon.
“Many of our challenges can be solved through innovation and fostering an entrepreneurial environment, as well as collaboration between industry, education and government to create a healthy economic environment and an educated workforce,” Peterson said. “This collaborative effort will facilitate job creation and global competitiveness and is a component of Georgia Tech’s strategic plan.”
]]>The annual study showed that with a$12.6 billion economic impact on the state’s economy in FY2010, Georgia’spublic university system remains a powerful economic engine for the state, generating130,738 full- and part-time jobs statewide during the same time period.
The eightinstitutions of the University System located in the metro Atlanta areaaccounted for $5.8 billion of the USG’s $12.6 billion total. Georgia Tech,Georgia State University, Clayton State University, Kennesaw State University,Southern Polytechnic State University, Georgia Gwinnett College, AtlantaMetropolitan College and Georgia Perimeter College also produced 53,658 jobs.
]]>The new programs stem from the findings of an innovation task force, co-chaired by Associate Vice President for Research Ravi Bellamkonda and College of Computing Professor Merrick Furst, that was created to support the strategic plan. The task force recommended a number of transformational changes in the Institute’s approach to innovation, including new or expanded programs designed to provide both education and resources to campus innovators.
“Innovation is one of the Institute’s primary strategic goals, so it’s essential that we provide the Tech community with the support they need to develop and ultimately commercialize their research and ideas,” said Stephen E. Cross, executive vice president for research.
The new initiatives include:
The new programs will complement the following existing initiatives at Tech:
The new programs stem from the findings of an innovation task force, co-chaired by Associate Vice President for Research Ravi Bellamkonda and College of Computing Professor Merrick Furst, that was created to support the strategic plan. The task force recommended a number of transformational changes in the Institute’s approach to innovation, including new or expanded programs designed to provide both education and resources to campus innovators.
“Innovation is one of the Institute’s primary strategic goals, so it’s essential that we provide the Tech community with the support they need to develop and ultimately commercialize their research and ideas,” said Stephen E. Cross, executive vice president for research.
The new initiatives include:
The new programs will complement the following existing initiatives at Tech:
]]>
That investment earned the company a 2011 "Deal of the Year" award from Georgia Bio, a nonprofit association that represents Georgia's pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device community.
CardioMEMS, which has more than 65 employees, grew out of Georgia Tech research. The company's products combine wireless communications technology with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication, providing doctors with more information while making monitoring less invasive for patients.
MEMS uses micro-machining fabrication to build electrical and mechanical systems at the micron scale -- one-millionth of a meter. Using technology originally developed for the integrated circuit industry, MEMS is an attractive platform for medical devices because mechanical, sensing and computational functions can be placed on a single chip.
CardioMEMS began marketing its first product in 2006: the EndoSure sensor, which measures blood pressure inside a repaired abdominal aortic aneurysm. Implanted along with a stent graft during endovascular repair, this tiny sensor may allow doctors to monitor post-surgery patients more effectively than the CT scans that had previously been used. The EndoSure sensor is also less expensive and more convenient.
Now the company's second product, a sensor that measures intracardiac pressure in people who suffer from congestive heart failure, is moving closer to FDA approval.
Implanted in the pulmonary artery, CardioMEMS' new heart sensor enables Class III heart-failure patients (considered to be in the moderate stage of heart failure) to take daily intracardiac pressure readings at home. This information is transmitted to a website, which enables physicians to monitor patients more effectively and alter medications when necessary. In fact, results from the recent clinical study showed a 40 percent reduction in hospitalizations when doctors used data from CardioMEMS' system to treat patients.
Launched in 2001, CardioMEMS was co-founded by Dr. Jay Yadav, a cardiologist and director at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation at the time, and Mark Allen, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the school's MEMS research group.
Due to the unique nature of its technology, CardioMEMS elected to locate in Atlanta to be close to Allen and his students. ATDC accepted CardioMEMS into its incubator program shortly after the startup's formation. The Georgia Research Alliance assisted with an industry partnership grant early in the company's development.
"ATDC has played an important role in CardioMEMS' success, especially during our early years," said David Stern, CardioMEMS' senior vice president for scientific affairs and one of the company's first full-time employees.
Bioscience companies face unique challenges, Stern explained: They have greater needs for capital, face higher technical risks and typically need FDA or other regulatory approval before they can market their products or services. And unlike many entrepreneurs that can start their companies in a garage or home office, bioscience companies require special facilities.
CardioMEMS was among the first tenants in ATDC's Biosciences Center, located within Georgia Tech's Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T) research center, which enabled the company to access wet labs equipped with special ventilation and purified water systems. CardioMEMS was also able to use Georgia Tech clean rooms for micromachining.
If CardioMEMS had been required to build its own clean room, it would have cost millions of dollars and delayed R&D for months, Stern said. In addition, Georgia Tech's clean rooms have a broad array of specialized equipment, which enabled CardioMEMS to execute its prototyping faster -- and try different equipment to see what it would ultimately need to invest in.
The physical proximity to other entrepreneurs and researchers in ES&T was also a plus. "At one point we were next to another medical-device company, so it was easy for our staffs to have impromptu discussions walking down the hallways," Stern said. Being on Georgia Tech's campus gave CardioMEMS access to a deep talent pool, and enabled the company to hire professors as consultants, graduate students as permanent employees and current students as interns.
An important aspect of being able to use Georgia Tech facilities and hire talent was the lack of red tape. "With most institutions, that becomes very complicated and you can spend a lot of time negotiating contracts rather than getting work done," Stern explained. "Yet ATDC was able to make it all really easy."
"This may sound like a minor point, but it's not," said Stern, noting that startup is a crucial time for any company, but especially for a biotech firm. "It's during those early years that you have the least amount of money -- and the most to accomplish. You don't want to waste time or money on anything that doesn't involve progressing R&D or acquiring talent."
Today CardioMEMS is located in Technology Enterprise Park, a biobusiness complex located south of the Georgia Tech campus, and FDA approval of its heart sensor would position the company for considerable growth. The heart sensor has faced a longer road to commercialization than the company's first product, however, its market potential is dramatically larger, said Stern, citing a patient population of more than 1.5 million compared to about 30,000 for the EndoSure sensor.
Although CardioMEMS is already contributing to Georgia's economy by generating new high-tech jobs, the company's success has broader implications, observed Nina Sawczuk, ATDC general manager.
The $100 billion U.S. medical device industry is made up of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises and a few large players. "Medical device companies are located throughout the country, but concentrated in specific regions known for other high-technology industries, such as microelectronics and biotechnology," Sawczuk explained. "Georgia is among the top 10 states with the highest number of medical device companies and our focus is on supporting the small, innovative companies."
To this end Georgia Tech has partnered with Saint Joseph's Translational Research Institute, Piedmont Healthcare and the Georgia Research Alliance to launch the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI), an initiative aimed at accelerating the development of next-generation medical devices and technology in the Southeast.
"CardioMEMS is a catalyst for developing a next generation medical-device industry hub in Georgia," Sawczuk continued. "CardioMEMS marries MEMS technology with more traditional medical device technology. This is particularly exciting because the company is creating a new type of wireless product that is the future of the medical device industry. It is success stories such as CardioMEMS that the GCMI plans to replicate in the Southeast."
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When it comes to stem cell research, California and Massachusetts lead the nation with hot-shot scientists and well-funded laboratories. But Georgia has its own stable of scientists working on the stem cell frontier, and the groundbreaking experiment launched on Peachtree Street could help raise the profile of Georgia's stem cell efforts.
Emory University, Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia all have scientists conducting advanced stem cell research. And the Shepherd Center can now boast that it is the first site in the world to test the safety of a treatment that scientists hope will someday help paralyzed patients walk again.
"Shepherd has now established their own precedent for running a stem cell-based clinical trial and that level of experience and expertise will be coveted," said Hans Keirstead, a neuroscientist at the University of California Irvine who pioneered the therapy being tested in the trial. "Absolutely, they will have a real leg up on the rest of the world."
]]>While 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.
"Successfully integrating knowledge of stem cell biology with bioprocess engineering and process development into single individuals is the challenging goal of this program," 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.
McDevitt 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.
Ph.D. students funded by Georgia Tech's 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.
"This program provides a unique opportunity for engineers to generate standardized and quantitative methods for stem cell isolation, characterization, propagation and differentiation," said Nerem. "These 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."
The 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:
• Creating reproducible, controlled and scalable methods to expand and differentiate stem cells with defined phenotypes and epigenetic states.
• Developing reliable, rapid and quantifiable methods to characterize the composition and function of stem cells to be generated.
• Designing low-cost systems capable of producing large populations of defined stem cells and derivatives.
Students 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.
The 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.
"We 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," added McDevitt.
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]]>The research team plans to develop a system that will excavate brain tumor cells by directing them away from their location in the interior of the brain to a more external location where they can be removed or killed. Nanofiber-based polymer thin films coated with biochemical cues will be aligned in the brain to provide a corridor for tumor cells to follow to a gel-based 'sink' where they will be captured and safely removed or encouraged to die through chemical signaling.
"We believe this is the first attempt to exploit the invasive, migrating properties of brain tumors by engineering a path for the tumors to move away from the primary site to a location where treatment can occur," said lead investigator Ravi Bellamkonda, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.
Collaborating with Bellamkonda on this project are Tobey MacDonald, director of the pediatric neuro-oncology program at the Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and an associate professor of pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine; and Barun Brahma, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. The initial partnership between the researchers began with seed funding from the Georgia Cancer Coalition and Ian's Friends Foundation.
The National Cancer Institute is providing more than $1 million for the EUREKA grant. For the project, Bellamkonda, MacDonald and Brahma are focusing on treating medulloblastomas -- highly malignant brain tumors that account for more than 20 percent of pediatric brain tumors.
"Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor we see in children, but unfortunately the five-year survival rates for children with this cancer only range from 50 to 70 percent and the majority of survivors have a significantly reduced quality of life as a result of treatment-related toxicities," said MacDonald, who is also a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar. "An increasing number of survivors are also at risk for developing secondary malignancies as a result of the treatment we now administer. Clearly we have to do a much better job at treating these tumors; however, improving survival while reducing the toxic effects of treatment will require a highly innovative approach."
Medulloblastoma treatment currently involves surgery followed by radiation therapy to the entire brain and spine and up to one year of intensive intravenous chemotherapy. However, radiation is often delayed or omitted altogether in young children due to its debilitating long-term side effects on the developing central nervous system.
These changes to the timing of radiation administration can adversely impact survival. And while surgery is a mainstay of treatment, it too can cause a significant loss of cognitive and neurological function due to the critical areas of the brain that may be involved by the tumor's spread but require an extensive surgical area to remove as much of the tumor as possible.
This EUREKA grant aims to address the urgent need to develop therapies to safely treat invasive medulloblastomas in children.
"Our plan is to deliver the tumor to the drug -- by directing tumor cells to a specially engineered gel that can be removed or designed to kill the cells -- rather than the current strategy of delivering the drug to the tumor, which is problematic due to the irregular vasculature and poor diffusivity of the tumor tissue," explained Bellamkonda, who is also a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar.
The researchers plan to design a polymer thin film system that will include topographical and biochemical cues similar to those that guide the initial brain tumor invasion. The thin films will be rolled up and deployed with minimally invasive catheters. Because neural tissue will not be suctioned and the films are very thin, there should be minimal tissue and tumor disruption.
The films will also be non-toxic to the patient because they will be engineered with biocompatible, stable polymers. In previous studies, the polymers have been implanted in the nervous systems of small animals for more than 16 weeks with no adverse tissue reactions.
"This research represents a radical approach to treating invasive tumors that is based on the universal properties and mechanics of cell motility and the migration characteristic of metastasis, regardless of the molecular and genetic origins of the tumor," added Bellamkonda.
If successful, this approach would identify a new and innovative way to treat pediatric medulloblastomas and has the potential to open a new avenue for the treatment of other invasive solid tumors, such as brain stem tumors. These cancers are incurable because they are located in an inoperable region and/or they are resistant or inaccessible to the delivery of chemotherapy agents.
]]>Patches containing micron-scale needles that carry vaccine with them as they dissolve into the skin could simplify immunization programs by eliminating the use of hypodermic needles -- and their "sharps" disposal and re-use concerns. Applied easily to the skin, the microneedle patches could allow self-administration of vaccine during pandemics and simplify large-scale immunization programs in developing nations.
Details of the dissolving microneedle patches and immunization benefits observed in experimental mice were reported July 18th in the advance online publication of the journal Nature Medicine. Conducted by researchers from Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, the study is believed to be the first to evaluate the immunization benefits of dissolving microneedles. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
"In this study, we have shown that a dissolving microneedle patch can vaccinate against influenza at least as well, and probably better than, a traditional hypodermic needle," said Mark Prausnitz, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Just 650 microns in length and assembled into an array of 100 needles for the mouse study, the dissolving microneedles penetrate the outer layers of skin. Beyond their other advantages, the dissolving microneedles appear to provide improved immunity to influenza when compared to vaccination with hypodermic needles.
"The skin is a particularly attractive site for immunization because it contains an abundance of the types of cells that are important in generating immune responses to vaccines," said Richard Compans, professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine.
In the study, one group of mice received the influenza vaccine using traditional hypodermic needles injecting into muscle; another group received the vaccine through dissolving microneedles applied to the skin, while a control group had microneedle patches containing no vaccine applied to their skin. When infected with influenza virus 30 days later, both groups that had received the vaccine remained healthy while mice in the control group contracted the disease and died.
Three months after vaccination, the researchers also exposed a different group of immunized mice to flu virus and found that animals vaccinated with microneedles appeared to have a better "recall" response to the virus and thus were able to clear the virus from their lungs more effectively than those that received vaccine with hypodermic needles.
"Another advantage of these microneedles is that the vaccine is present as a dry formulation, which will enhance its stability during distribution and storage," said Ioanna Skountzou, an Emory University assistant professor.
Pressed into the skin, the microneedles quickly dissolve in bodily fluids, leaving only the water-soluble backing. The backing can be discarded because it no longer contains any sharps.
"We envision people getting the patch in the mail or at a pharmacy and then self administering it at home," said Sean Sullivan, the study’s lead author from Georgia Tech. "Because the microneedles on the patch dissolve away into the skin, there would be no dangerous sharp needles left over."
The microneedle arrays were made from a polymer material, poly-vinyl pyrrolidone, that has been shown to be safe for use in the body. Freeze-dried vaccine was mixed with the vinyl-pyrrolidone monomer before being placed into microneedle molds and polymerized at room temperature using ultraviolet light.
In many parts of the world, poor medical infrastructure leads to the re-use of hypodermic needles, contributing to the spread of diseases such as HIV and hepatitis B. Dissolving microneedle patches would eliminate re-use while allowing vaccination to be done by personnel with minimal training.
Though the study examined only the administration of flu vaccine with the dissolving microneedles, the technique should be useful for other immunizations. If mass-produced, the microneedle patches are expected to cost about the same as conventional needle-and-syringe techniques, and may lower the overall cost of immunization programs by reducing personnel costs and waste disposal requirements, Prausnitz said.
Before dissolving microneedles can be made widely available, however, clinical studies will have to be done to assure safety and effectiveness. Other vaccine formulation techniques may also be studied, and researchers will want to better understand why vaccine delivery with dissolving microneedles has been shown to provide better protection.
Beyond those already mentioned, the study involved Jeong-Woo Lee, Vladimir Zarnitsyn, Seong-O Choi and Niren Murthy from Georgia Tech, and Dimitrios Koutsonanos and Maria del Pilar Martin from Emory University.
"The dissolving microneedle patch could open up many new doors for immunization programs by eliminating the need for trained personnel to carry out the vaccination," Prausnitz said. "This approach could make a significant impact because it could enable self-administration as well as simplify vaccination programs in schools and assisted living facilities."
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Media Relations Contacts: John Toon, Georgia Tech (404-894-6986) (jtoon@gatech.edu), Holly Korschun, Emory University (404-727-3990) (hkorsch@emory.edu) or Abby Vogel Robinson, Georgia Tech (404-385-3364) (abby@innovate.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The study shows that delivering stem cells on a polymer scaffold to treat large areas of missing bone leads to improved bone formation and better mechanical properties compared to treatment with the scaffold alone. This type of therapeutic treatment could be a potential alternative to bone grafting operations.
"Massive bone injuries are among the most challenging problems that orthopedic surgeons face, and they are commonly seen as a result of accidents as well as in soldiers returning from war," said the study's lead author Robert Guldberg, a professor in Georgia Tech's Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. "This study shows that there is promise in treating these injuries by delivering stem cells to the injury site. These are injuries that would not heal without significant medical intervention."
Details of the research were published in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 11, 2010. This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
The study was conducted in rats in which two bone gaps eight millimeters in length were created to simulate massive injuries. One gap was treated with a polymer scaffold seeded with stem cells and the other with scaffold only. The results showed that injuries treated with the stem cell scaffolds showed significantly more bone growth than injuries treated with scaffolds only.
Guldberg and mechanical engineering graduate student Kenneth Dupont experimented with scaffolds containing two different types of human stem cells -- bone marrow-derived mesenchymal adult stem cells and amniotic fluid fetal stem cells.
"We were able to directly evaluate the therapeutic potential of human stem cells to repair large bone defects by implanting them into rats with a reduced immune system," explained Guldberg, who is also the director of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech.
Micro-CT measurements showed no significant differences in bone regeneration between the two stem cell groups. However, combining the two types of stem cells produced significantly higher bone volume and strength compared to scaffolds without cellular augmentation.
Although stem cell delivery significantly enhanced bone growth and biomechanical properties, it was not able to consistently repair the injury. Eight weeks after the treatment, new bone bridged the gaps in four of nine defects treated with scaffolds seeded with adult stem cells, one of nine defects treated with scaffolds seeded with fetal stem cells, and none of the defects treated with the scaffold alone.
"We thought that the functional regeneration of the bone defects may have been limited by stem cells migrating away from the injury site, so we decided to investigate the fate and distribution of the delivered cells," said Guldberg.
To do this, Guldberg labeled stem cells with fluorescent quantum dots -- nanometer-scale particles that emit light when excited by near-infrared radiation -- to track the distribution of stem cells after delivery on the scaffolds and completed the same experiments as previously described.
Throughout the entire study, the researchers observed significant fluorescence at the stem cell scaffold sites. However, beginning seven to 10 days after treatment, signals appeared at the scaffold-only sites. Additional analysis with immunostaining revealed that the quantum dots present at the scaffold-only sites were contained in inflammatory cells called macrophages that had taken up quantum dots released from dead stem cells.
"While our overall study shows that stem cell therapy has a lot of promise for treating massive bone defects, this experiment shows that we still need to develop an improved way of delivering the stem cells so that they stay alive longer and thus remain at the injury site longer," explained Guldberg.
The researchers also found that the quantum dots diminished the function of the transplanted stem cells and thus their therapeutic effect. When the stem cells were labeled with quantum dots, the results showed a failure to enhance bone formation or bridge defects. However, the same low concentration of quantum dots did not affect cell viability or the ability of the stem cells to become bone cells in laboratory studies.
"Although in vitro laboratory studies remain important, this work provides further evidence that well-characterized in vivo models are necessary to test the ability of regenerative tissue strategies to effectively integrate and restore function in complex living organisms," added Guldberg. "Improved methods of non-invasive cell tracking that do not alter cell function in vivo are needed to optimize stem cell delivery strategies and compare the effectiveness of different stem cell sources for tissue regeneration."
Guldberg is currently exploring alternative cell tracking methods, such as genetically modifying the stem cells to express green fluorescent protein and/or other luminescent enzymes such as luciferase. He is also investigating the addition of programming cues to the scaffold that will direct the stem cells to differentiate into bone cells. These signals may be particularly effective for fetal stem cells, which are believed to be more primitive than adult stem cells, according to Guldberg.
Lessons learned from the current work are also being applied to develop effective stem cell therapies for severe composite injuries to multiple tissues including bone, nerve, vasculature and muscle. This follow-on work is being conducted in the Georgia Tech Center for Advanced Bioengineering for Soldier Survivability in collaboration with Ravi Bellamkonda and Barbara Boyan, professors in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.
Other authors on the paper include Andres Garcia, professor and Woodruff Faculty Fellow in Georgia Tech's Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience; Georgia Tech research scientist Hazel Stevens, Georgia Tech graduate student Joel Boerckel; and National University of Ireland medical student Kapil Sharma.
This work was funded by grant number R01-AR051336 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and by grant number EEC-9731643 from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH or NSF.
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Media Relations Contacts: Abby Vogel (avogel@gatech.edu; 404-385-3364) or John Toon (jtoon@gatech.edu; 404-894-6986).
Writer: Abby Vogel
]]>Guldberg, who currently serves as IBB associate director, will assume duties as director on November 1.
"We're thrilled that Bob Guldberg has accepted this appointment," said Senior Vice Provost for Research and Innovation Mark Allen. "We had an enormous amount of interest and we attracted candidates of the highest caliber. He has thorough grounding in IBB and a great understanding of where it needs to go strategically in the next few years."
Guldberg first joined the faculty ranks at Georgia Tech in 1996, serving both in IBB and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. He was appointed associate director of IBB in 2004.
"It is a great honor to be asked to serve as the next director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience," said Guldberg. "IBB's original mission when it was launched in 1995 was to be a vehicle for accelerating Georgia Tech's move into bio-related research. This was an incredibly successful experiment made possible by the generous support of alumnus Pete Petit and the vision and dedicated efforts of IBB's founding director Bob Nerem and other leaders on campus."
When first launched in 1995, the mission of IBB was to create an awareness of bioengineering and bioscience on the Georgia Tech campus. With the Institute now fully established, Guldberg said IBB is now "positioned to have an even greater impact by serving as the heart of the broader Georgia Tech bioscience and bioengineering community and an international model for interdisciplinary research and education."
Guldberg succeeds Mechanical Engineering Professor Robert Nerem in the role of director. Nerem has served in this leadership role at IBB since its inception. Nerem will continue contributing to promising research goals, along with fostering Georgia Tech's evolving relationship with Emory University in the field of bioengineering.
"I believe Bob [Guldberg] has the right set of skills to take the Petit Institute to the next level," said Nerem. "He certainly will have my full support."
"As for me, I will turn my attention and energies to continuing to build our regenerative medicine research program through our joint Georgia Tech/Emory Center (GTEC). This includes expanding our efforts in stem cell technology. I also hope to help build further bridges between Georgia Tech and Emory University, as I believe Emory will in the future become an even more important partner with Georgia Tech."
Guldberg received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering, his masters in bioengineering/mechanical engineering and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan.
The rich promise that IBB poses in such areas as regenerative medicine, stem cell research and cancer fighting drugs has Guldberg enthused about the future of the Institute and the research that develops.
"Through leadership in addressing the challenges of translational research in addition to new collaborative programs and facilities, IBB will bring scientists and engineers together to work towards creative solutions to important scientific and societal problems," Guldberg said. "This is a great opportunity and I am tremendously excited to start this new chapter in the life of IBB."
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Maybe they could regrow the tissue: Grow the cartilage, grow the blood vessels, grow the nerves and even grow the bone.
]]>January 13, 2009. The Georgia Tech Emory Center for the Engineering of Living Tissues (GTEC), a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, celebrated its tenth year of innovative research. When founded in 1998, GTEC's focus was on replacing tissues or growing cell-based substitutes outside the body for implantation into the body. As GTEC has evolved over the last decade, its approach has broadened from a focus on tissue engineering to one that includes tissue regeneration.
Now, a decade after the $25 million National Science Foundation award, GTEC is internationally recognized for its strengths and novel applications in the emerging field of Regenerative Medicine. The center
]]>Biological factors are not the only influence on stem-cell behaviour
]]>Liposomal nanocarriers coated with polyethylene glycol have been extensively investigated as chemotherapeutic delivery vehicles particularly due to their prolonged circulation in the bloodstream. Tumor blood vessels are inherently
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