{"691153":{"#nid":"691153","#data":{"type":"news","title":"A Daughter\u2019s Determination: How Hope Drove Discovery","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMeghna Iyer\u003C\/strong\u003E (Biology 2026) came to Georgia Tech determined to understand the disease that was slowly taking her mother\u0027s life. Working with researchers in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/cassie-mitchell-lab\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech Laboratory for Pathology Dynamics\u003C\/a\u003E, she helped use AI to analyze 36 million biomedical research papers, uncovering biological connections among ALS, Alzheimer\u0027s disease, and frontotemporal dementia. After losing her mother, Meghna returned to the lab with an even stronger resolve to continue the work, earning first-author publication on the study and helping create a tool that could accelerate future research for families facing these devastating diseases.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/news.research.gatech.edu\/feature\/neurodegenerative-diseases\u0022\u003ERead the full story. \u0026gt;\u0026gt;\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMeghna Iyer (Biology 2026) came to Georgia Tech trying to understand her mother\u2019s illness. What she discovered is changing how scientists connect three neurodegenerative diseases.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Meghna Iyer (Biology 2026) came to Georgia Tech trying to understand her mother\u2019s illness. What she discovered is changing how scientists connect three neurodegenerative diseases."}],"uid":"36583","created_gmt":"2026-07-17 14:49:22","changed_gmt":"2026-07-17 14:58:12","author":"lvidal7","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-07-17T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-07-17T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680604":{"id":"680604","type":"image","title":"als-thumb.jpg","body":"\u003Cp\u003EA Georgia Tech student, Meghna Iyer, transformed her search to understand her mother\u0027s ALS into AI-driven research that could reshape how scientists study neurodegenerative diseases.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1784048017","gmt_created":"2026-07-14 16:53:37","changed":"1784048017","gmt_changed":"2026-07-14 16:53:37","alt":"Two smiling researchers wearing jackets sit on rocks at a sunny beach with shoreline homes and the ocean in the background.","file":{"fid":"264887","name":"als-thumb.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/14\/als-thumb.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/14\/als-thumb.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2526212,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/07\/14\/als-thumb.jpg?itok=glNqw-cB"}}},"media_ids":["680604"],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"1275","name":"School of Biological Sciences"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"4896","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"166882","name":"School of Biological Sciences"},{"id":"192249","name":"cos-community"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}