Register HERE for Zoom Link
Swartz started her independent career as an assistant professor at Northwestern University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering before moving to the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where she was promoted to full professor and eventually served as director of the Institute of Bioengineering.
Trained as a bioengineer, Prof. Swartz uses quantitative approaches in immunobiology and physiology, including biotransport and biomechanics, to develop a deeper understanding of how the lymphatic system regulates immunity in homeostasis and disease, particularly in cancer and chronic inflammation. Her lab applies this knowledge to develop novel immunotherapeutic approaches in cancer, including lymph node-targeting vaccine approaches, as well as in vitro model systems that recapitulate relevant features of the tumor-immune interface.
Among her many honors, Swartz was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2023, National Academy of Medicine in 2020, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018, and named a MacArthur Fellow in 2012.
The Bioengineering Seminar Series is co-hosted by the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and they are open to all in the bio-community.
ABSTRACT
Giovanni Traverso, Ph.D., will aim to review ongoing efforts towards the development of drug delivery and sensing technologies capable of operating in extreme environment like the gastrointestinal tract. Specifically, he will present advances in materials science, device development and translational efforts towards addressing medication non-adherence and the dosing of macromolecules.
BIO
Giovanni Traverso is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Associate Physician in the Division of Gastroenterology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK, and his PhD from the lab of Prof. Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins University where he developed non-invasive tests for the detection of colon cancer. For his post-doctoral research, he worked in the laboratory of Professor Robert Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he developed a series of novel technologies for drug delivery as well as physiological sensing via the gastrointestinal tract. His current research program is focused on developing the next generation of drug delivery systems to enable efficient delivery of therapeutics through the gastrointestinal tract as well developing novel ingestible electronic devices for sensing a broad array of physiologic and pathophysiologic parameters.
The Bioengineering Seminar Series is co-hosted by the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and they are open to all in the bio-community.
ABSTRACT
This talk will explore several breakthrough technologies from the Gen-4 NSF Engineering Research Center ATP-Bio (Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems). The goal of ATP-Bio is to achieve cryogenic suspension of cell, tissue, organ and whole organism “testbed” systems for societal benefits in healthcare, food and sustainability and biodiversity. Engineering approaches to achieve this based on manipulation of temperature, pressure and concentration including supercooling, partial freezing, isochoric (isovolumetric) and vitrification (glass forming) approaches will be introduced. We will also discuss rapid and uniform rewarming of materials from these states so that they are both viable and functional for specific applications. Highlights include the first robust drosophila embryo and zebrafish embryo cryopreservation, the first scalable pancreatic islet cryopreservation, and the first cryopreservation of a whole rat kidney for up to 100 days.
BIO
Bischof works in the area of thermal bioengineering with a focus on biopreservation, thermal therapy, and nanomedicine. His awards include the ASME Van Mow Medal and Fellowships in societies including Cryobiology, JSPS, ASME, AIMBE and IAMBE. He has served as the President of the Society for Cryobiology and Chair of the Bioengineering Division of the ASME. Bischof obtained a B.S. in Bioengineering from U.C. Berkeley (UCB) in 1987, an M.S. from UCB and U.C. San Francisco in 1989, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UCB in 1992. After a Post-doctoral Fellowship at Harvard in the Center for Engineering in Medicine, he joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 1993. Bischof is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Departments of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, and the Medtronic-Bakken Endowed Chair and Director of the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, and Director of the new NSF Engineering Research Center ATP-Bio.
The Bioengineering Seminar Series is co-hosted by the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and they are open to all in the bio-community.
Carla Eroglu, Ph.D.
Vice Chair of Research
Chancellor's Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology
Professor of Neurobiology
Duke University School of Medicine
HHMI Investigator
Cagla Eroglu, Ph.D., completed her undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and Master of Science degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics in her hometown, Ankara, Turkey. Then she moved to European Molecular Biology Laboratories in Heidelberg, Germanyfor her Ph.D. In her Ph.D., Eroglu investigated the structure function relationship of metabotropic glutamate receptors which are G-protein coupled receptors. She found that these receptors directly interact with sterols within the membrane and these lipid-protein interactions regulate the affinity of mGluRs for glutamate. For her postdoctoral studies, Eroglu moved across the globe and joined the lab of Ben Barres, Ph.D., at Stanford. There she studied how astrocyte-secreted Thrombospondins promote formation of excitatory synapses via interacting with the gabapentin receptor Cacna2d-1. In 2008, Eroglu started her lab in Duke University Cell Biology department. The Eroglu lab investigates how astrocytes, and other glial cells, control the formation, maturation and refinement of synaptic circuits.
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Abstract
Our epithelial tissues form barriers that separate us from the outside world. As such they are subject to a barrage of external assaults, including pathogens, allergens, wounds and carcinogens. To cope with these stresses, these tissues must constantly be rejuvenated. They do so through resident stem cells, which have the ability to self-renew long term and differentiate to make and maintain the barrier tissue. These stem cells must also be able to sense and respond quickly to injury in order to fuel rapid tissue regeneration. How stem cells balance self-renewal and differentiation is of fundamental importance to our understanding of normal tissue maintenance and wound repair. The regulatory circuitry governing this normal balancing act must be intricately regulated in normal homeostasis, and then transiently altered to cope with injury responses. Increasing evidence suggests that the mechanism goes awry in inflammation and becomes hijacked in cancers.
Skin epithelium is an excellent model system to understand how stem cells remain quiescent during times of minimal wear and tear, how these cells become mobilized during active tissue regeneration and wound-repair, and how the normal process of stem cell activation goes awry in cancer and inflammation. We’ve identified and characterized at a molecular level the skin’s stem cells and shown that they reside in distinct niches that impart to the stem cells their behavior both in task and in the molecular properties they display. We use high throughput genetic and genomic approaches to dissect at a molecular level how stem cell interactions with their microenvironments differ in homeostasis, wound repair and inflammation, and how stem cells acquire and recall memories of their past experiences. These memories can profoundly impact their future behaviors. Finally, we study how heterogeneity in tumor microenvironments emerges from aberrant interactions with oncogenic stem cells. As we show, this heterogeneity leads to stem cells that acquire resistance to chemo and immune therapies. Our global objective is to apply our knowledge of the basic science of epithelial stem cells to unfold new avenues for therapeutics.
About the Speaker
Elaine Fuchs is the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at The Rockefeller University and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her lab studies the role of skin stem cells in homeostasis and wound repair and how these processes go awry in cancer and inflammatory diseases.
Fuchs received her B.S. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Princeton. She studied skin biology as a post-doctoral fellow with Howard Green at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Fuchs was a faculty member at the University of Chicago for twenty years before joining Rockefeller University in 2002.
Fuchs’ contributions to skin and stem cell biology have been recognized through honors including the National Medal of Science in 2008, the March of Dimes Prize in 2012, and the E.B. Wilson Prize from the American Society of Cell Biology in 2015. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
Research
The Fuchs lab employs high throughput genomics, single cell sequencing, live imaging, cell biology, and functional approaches to unravel the pathways that balance stem cell self-renewal with tissue regeneration. Her team investigates how stem cells establish unique chromatin landscapes and programs of gene expression, and how this shifts in response to changes in their local environment. They also study the signaling pathways that must be turned on and off at the right time and place for adult skin stem cells to become activated to regenerate tissue. They seek to discover the activating signals from the neighboring cells that instruct the stem cells to make hair or repair wounds, and the inhibitory signals that tell them to stop making tissue.
Overall, Fuchs studies tissue biology at multiple levels, from its stem cells and the signals that control them to the epigenetic, transcriptional, and translational programs that maintain an orchestrated balance of tissue growth. While the foundations of normal tissue homeostasis and injury repair are still unfolding, the fundamental discoveries that Fuchs’s lab has made already provide insights into how skin and its stem cells cope with different environmental stresses, including aging, inflammation, and cancer, offering new avenues for treating human skin disorders.
"Launch Your Innovation into Georgia's Thriving Life Science Ecosystem”
Featured speakers
Maria Thacker-Goethe, MPH
CEO, Center for Global Health Innovation
President, Georgia Bio
Edie Stringfellow
VP, Ecosystem Development
Center for Global Health Innovation
Kristin Boscan
Managing Director, Office of Workforce Development
Center for Global Health Innovation
Georgia is poised to become one of the nation’s top emerging life science hubs. With a critical mass of life science organizations and companies leading innovations for the industry, projected growth in Georgia’s life science-related occupations exceeds that of the U.S. overall, increasing by seven percent over the next 10 years.
The Center for Global Health Innovation (CGHI) is a 501(c)(3) organization that was launched in January 2020 to bring talented people and companies together in the Global Health, Health Technology, and Life Sciences industries to accelerate the innovation opportunities inside of Global Health problems and provide tomorrow’s solutions for today’s health challenges. We work on behalf of 400+ member and partner organizations to advance the growth of the life sciences industry by driving public policy, building a network of industry leaders, creating access to capital, introducing cutting-edge STEM education programs, and creating robust value-driven purchasing programs.
Join us for our next Bio Launchpad Seminar to hear about:
This event in the series is co-hosted by Georgia Tech's Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB), VentureLab, and CMaT. For inquiries or suggestions about future seminars, contact Cynthia Sundell, Senior Director of Life Sciences, IBB, or Harold Solomon, Principal, VentureLab.
The Due Diligence Training Workshop will be held virtually via Zoom. All participants must pre-register for the event. All materials will be distributed electronically prior to the meeting. Co-Founder and Area President, Howard Lubert, will be conducting the workshop.
REGISTER HERE for Participation Link. Registration is required before Monday, May 22, 2023.
Due Diligence Workshop Pricing:
“The Who, What, When, Where, and Why of Gene Expression Variation in C. Elegans”
Avery Davis Bell, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow – Annalise Paaby, Ph.D., Advisor Georgia Tech
“Evolution of Polarity Establishment – The Long and Short Story”
Samiksha Kaul, Ph.D. Graduate Student, Biological Sciences – Annalise Paaby, Ph.D., Advisor Georgia Tech
This is a great opportunity to:
10:00 a.m. Welcome and Introduction
10:15 a.m. Theresa Gillespie, Ph.D. - Emory University
10:45 a.m. Lisa Renzi-Hammond, Ph.D. - University of Georgia
11:15 a.m. Project updates from 2022-23 seed grant teams
Noon Poster session with lunch
1:30 p.m. Project updates from 2022-23 seed grant teams
2:00 p.m. Bradley Phillips, Pharm.D. - University of Georgia, GCTSA
2:30 p.m. "Challenges and Opportunities in Vaccine-preventable Disease Surveillance, Prevention, and Elimination" - Stephen Crooke, Ph.D. - Centers for Disease Control
3:00 p.m. Poster awards, closing remarks
]]>Two mini-symposia will highlight short talks in the areas of bioinformatics/single cell analytics, and in experimental applications of single cell technologies including scRNAseq, snATACseq, Multi-omics, and others, for biological, clinical, and translational research.
Visit workshop website for more information.
]]>Nakia Melecio
Director, The Center for MedTech Excellence at Georgia Tech
Melissa Heffner
Program Director, Venture Lab
Brittney Odioi
Principal Diversity & Inclusion Officer, MIT Lincoln Lab
To attend virtually via Zoom, register HERE.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are important factors to consider in the innovation economy, as they can have a significant impact on the success and sustainability of a business. Having a diverse team can lead to a wider range of perspectives and ideas, which can lead to more innovative and creative solutions and better connection to customers.
During this panel session, we will hear about approaches to increase diversity and inclusion in research, entrepreneurship, and commercialization.
This event is the 7th session in the 2022-2023 Bench2Market Talks series, which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community.
]]>“Gene-Environment Interactions in the Personalized Environment and Genes Study (PEGS)"
Alison Motsinger-Reif, Ph.D., Chief, Biostatistics & Computational Biology Branch and Principal Investigator, NIH / NIEHS
Our special guest speaker, Alison Motsinger-Reif from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, is Chief of and a principal investigator in the Biostatistics and Computational Biology Branch. Overall, her group focuses on the development and application of modern statistical approaches for understanding the etiology of common, complex diseases. Read more
This is a great opportunity to:
*To participate virtually, CLICK HERE
Anita Devineni, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
Emory University
ABSTRACT
How does the brain process sensory cues to generate adaptive behaviors that are innate, yet flexible? My lab investigates this question in the taste system of the fruit fly Drosophila, which offers unique tools to study how individual neurons contribute to neural circuit computations. I will discuss ongoing work to characterize the architecture and function of central taste pathways in the fly brain. We are using calcium imaging, optogenetics, high-resolution behavioral assays, and connectomic analyses to study how taste pathways transform sensory representations into motor actions.
RESEARCH
In the Devineni lab, we study how the brain integrates information from our internal and external worlds. An animal’s survival depends on interpreting cues from the outside world and selecting an appropriate behavioral response, such as hiding when a predator’s scent is detected. Moreover, behavioral flexibility is crucial for survival. For example, a hungry animal may prioritize finding food over staying hidden. A fundamental challenge in neuroscience is to understand how the brain integrates internal and external cues to generate flexible behavior.We address these questions in the fruit fly taste system. The taste system is a great model to study how the brain integrates different signals to generate flexible behavior. We use our sense of taste to determine what to eat, and our responses to food are profoundly gated by internal signals such as hunger, experience, and reward. The fruit fly Drosophila offers a wiring diagram of the brain and genetic tools to study neural circuits at single-cell resolution. We combine a broad range of approaches, from molecular and cellular studies to optogenetics, functional imaging, connectomics, behavior, and computational analysis and modeling. Our goal is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of how neural circuits integrate and transform information, and how these mechanisms are dysregulated in models of disordered behavior.
Additional career highlights include:
Dr. Japour, holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and an M.D. from Northwestern University Medical School.
]]>Brian Walsh, M.S., MBA
Managing Director, Innova Group
Keyton Weissinger
Chief Operating Officer, Copient Health
To attend virtually via Zoom, register HERE.
Fundraising is critical for the success of early-stage startups. But for many first-time entrepreneurs, the process can seem daunting. How do you concisely communicate the value of your technology and your plans to go to market? Join this interactive webinar on how to effectively pitch your start-up to potential investors. Speakers, Brian Walsh and Keyton Weissinger will present example pitches and discuss how to build a milestone plan and budget to map out your path to market.
This event is the 6th session in the 2022-2023 Bench2Market Talks series, which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community.
]]>REGISTER HERE for Participation Link. Registration is required before Monday, March 120, 2023 at 10:00 AM.
If you are a Georgia Tech student, faculty, employee you ARE a Keiretsu academic partner and the monthly meetings are FREE. GT spots are limited, so register ASAP!
Meetings are open to members, guests, sponsors, partners, and presenting entrepreneurs from any Keiretsu Forum global chapters and regions.
Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend.
Bio: Dr. James Huff is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education and Honors College Senior Faculty Fellow at Harding University. He conducts transdisciplinary research on identity that lies at the nexus of applied psychology and engineering education. Dr. Huff received the NSF CAREER award (No. 2045392) to advance research on professional shame as a pernicious force that powerfully affects individual well-being and cultural equity in domains of engineering education and practice. As Director of the Beyond Professional Identity (BPI) lab, Dr. Huff has mentored numerous undergraduate students, doctoral students, and academic professionals from more than 10 academic disciplines in using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) as a qualitative research method to examine identity in a variety of contexts.
Virtual Event Information:
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Email: beth.wieder@bme.gatech.edu
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Bio: Dr. James Huff is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education and Honors College Senior Faculty Fellow at Harding University. He conducts transdisciplinary research on identity that lies at the nexus of applied psychology and engineering education. Dr. Huff received the NSF CAREER award (No. 2045392) to advance research on professional shame as a pernicious force that powerfully affects individual well-being and cultural equity in domains of engineering education and practice. As Director of the Beyond Professional Identity (BPI) lab, Dr. Huff has mentored numerous undergraduate students, doctoral students, and academic professionals from more than 10 academic disciplines in using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) as a qualitative research method to examine identity in a variety of contexts.
Virtual Event Information:
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Email: beth.wieder@bme.gatech.edu
]]>AGENDA Outline
March 2: Sessions will focus on talks on Al and big data.
March 3:
Sessions will include pediatric orthopedic surgeons from Shriners Hospitals for Children-Greenville showcasing smart robotic exoskeleton designed to address excessive knee flexion- a condition common in patients with cerebral palsy. There will also be a poster session and networking reception!
March 4: Activities will include lab tours
View FULL AGENDA
Call for posters for the Shriners State of Research Event with a special emphasis on muscle and bone health.
Undergraduate and graduate students welcome!
Poster Details - All posters must be 48"X36" There will be a prize for best poster!
Abstract submissions are due no later than Monday, February 20, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. to Erin Henderson.
Topics of Interest for Posters:
Henri Berestycki, Ph.D.
Professor
Centre d’analyse et mathématique sociales
CNRS and École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)
Paris, France
Zoom link for virtual participation
ABSTRACT
Including diffusion in the classical framework of SIR equations in epidemiology leads to reaction-diffusion systems. In epidemiology, diffusion arises under several guises. After reviewing some classical results, Prof. Berestycki will present recent works that deal with diffusion and were motivated by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. If time permits, he will talk about:
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“Automated Real-Time Detection of Infrequent Animal Behaviors in Naturalistic Environments Enables Functional Single-Cell Transcriptomics"
Tucker Lancaster, Ph.D. Graduate Student, Quantitative Biosciences – Patrick McGrath, Ph.D., Advisor Georgia Tech
“Insights from Structural Variant Analysis in Lake Malawi Cichlids"
Nikesh Kumar, Ph.D. Graduate Student, Quantitative Biosciences – Patrick McGrath, Ph.D., Advisor Georgia Tech
This is a great opportunity to:
Angel investors have a unique avenue to diversify and potentially increase their wealth with Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs). Instead of investing directly into companies, SPV investments are pooled funds invested through Limited Partnerships. Our Investor Workshop will guide you on how best to leverage these investment tools in order to optimize your portfolio.
This workshop will dive into the design, legal structure, expenses, and management of an SPV. These areas can be daunting at best and may require a professional wealth manager to execute effectively.
Join the Keiretsu Investor Academy to gain an understanding of all the components that make up a successful SPV and recognize that there are a number of legal structures that can be used but each may have a different impact on your tax situation. You will understand fully how and when it makes sense to invest via an SPV and when you should go direct.
REGISTER HERE for Participation Link. Registration is required before Monday, February 20, 2023.
Registration is free for Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic and South-East Members,
Sponsors, Partners, and Due Diligence Fellows. If you are a Georgia Tech student, faculty, employee you ARE a Keiretsu academic partner and the monthly meetings are FREE. GT spots are limited, so register ASAP!
Guests are welcome to attend. There is a registration fee of $250 which will be applied to a Keiretsu Forum membership if completed by March 22, 2023.
]]>*Register HERE to attend virtually (event will not be recorded)
ABSTRACT
Our immune system interacts with many diseases in a multidimensional manner involving substantial biological, chemical, and physical exchanges. Manipulating the disease-immunity interactions may afford novel immunotherapies to better treat diseases such as cancer. My lab aims to develop novel strategies to engineer the multidimensional immunity-disease interactions (or termed ‘immunoengineering’) to create safe and effective therapies against cancer. We leverage the power of metabolic and cellular bioengineering, synthetic chemistry and material engineering, and mechanical engineering to achieve controllable modulation of immune responses. In this talk, I will first discuss a new type of immune checkpoint with mechanical basis that is distinct from most know immune checkpoints of biochemical traits. We further developed a mechanical intervention to overcome the mechanical immune checkpoint for enhanced cancer immunotherapy. Next, I will share our recent discovery of IL-10-Fc as a metabolic reprogramming agent that reinvigorates the terminally exhausted CD8+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes and sustains their cytotoxic functions leading to eradication of established solid tumors and durable cures in a majority of treated mice when combined with adoptive T-cell transfer immunotherapies.
BIO
Li Tang received his B.S. in Chemistry from Peking University, China, in 2007, and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 2012, under the supervision of Prof. Jianjun Cheng. He was an CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Darrell Irvine at Massachusetts Institute of Technology during 2013-2016. He joined the faculty of Institute of Bioengineering, and Institute of Materials Science & Engineering, at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in 2016, and promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2022. His research focuses on developing multidimensional immunoengineering approaches for enhanced cancer immunotherapies. Dr. Tang is the recipient of Cancer Research Institute CLIP Award (2021), Anna Fuller Award (2021 and 2022), and named in the MIT Technology Review’s "Top 35 Innovators under Age 35" list of China region (2020), Materials Horizons Emerging Investigator (2020), Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator (2019), European Research Council (ERC) starting grant (2018), and Nano Research Young Innovator Award (NR 45 under 45) (2018).
REGISTER HERE for Participation Link. Registration is required before Monday, February 20, 2023 at 10:00 AM.
If you are a Georgia Tech student, faculty, employee you ARE a Keiretsu academic partner and the monthly meetings are FREE. GT spots are limited, so register ASAP!
Meetings are open to members, guests, sponsors, partners, and presenting entrepreneurs from any Keiretsu Forum global chapters and regions.
Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend.
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 283 921 419 127
Passcode: 4exYMp
Speakers include:
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 238 355 430 710
Passcode: KBRTat
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 279 118 319 522
Passcode: La75Fi
Panelists include:
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 271 261 921 478
Passcode: cvKbJD
Login to the Career Fair Plus (CF+) platform at https://www.careerfairplus.com/
Download the app, set up your profile, and upload your resume. The appointment booking window will open at 4pm on Jan. 30 for the Virtual BME Career Fair.
]]>AGENDA
ABSTRACT
As scientists and engineers, one of the earliest concepts we learn about is entropy. Entropy can be defined as the measure of randomness or disorder of a system, and there is a tendency in nature for systems to proceed towards disorder. Anti-racist practices, structures, and procedures can be built up and implemented through social movements, laws, willpower, and inputs of energy, but entropy and complacency will lead to those efforts being disbanded and disordered, becoming random aberrations correlating in time only with brief periods of social upheaval. Platt will highlight anti-racist improvements from the Institute of Bioengineering and Bioscience and associated community efforts and discuss the importance of sustained attention. More importantly, he will warn of the threat of entropy, because without additional energy inputs, things fall apart.
BIO
Manu Platt, Ph.D., is director of the NIH-wide Center for Biomedical Engineering Technology Acceleration (BETA Center), housed within the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) Intramural Research Program. The BETA Center serves as a model to bring a focused engineering approach for NIH researchers across disciplines to accelerate the development, validation and dissemination of cutting-edge technologies As the BETA Center director, Platt will work to expand opportunities for biomedical engineering training and professional growth, including supporting individuals from diverse backgrounds. In addition, Dr. Platt is NIBIB associate director for Scientific Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Formerly, Platt was professor and Associate Chair of Graduate Studies in the Walter H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. He also was Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Cancer Scientist and Deputy Director, Interdisciplinary Bioengineering Graduate Program at Georgia Tech Walter H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Fellow.
As a scientific investigator for cutting-edge biomedical research projects, Platt has received numerous grants and research support from NIH, the National Science Foundation, the International AIDS Society and the Georgia Cancer Coalition, among other public and private research institutions. He has served on numerous review committees at NIH, is a member the Biomedical Engineering Society board of directors and is a former member of the NIBIB National Advisory Council for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.
Platt earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Morehouse College in Atlanta and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University in Atlanta. He was a postdoctoral fellow in biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.
A nationally-recognized leader in expanding diversity and inclusion in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, Platt is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the NIH Director New Innovator award, an American Association for the Advancement of Science Mentor award, and the Biomedical Engineering Society Diversity Award. He co-founded Project ENGAGES: Engaging New Generations at Georgia Tech through Engineering and Science, which provides paid research lab experience for Atlanta area African American high school students, and directed the Georgia Tech Enhancing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Educational Diversity grant program, an NIH training program to increase and support diversity at the undergraduate level. Platt is a fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
This event is brought to you by the IBB Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee.
About the speaker: Leonel E Medina is an Assistant Professor at Universidad de Santiago de Chile. Trained in electrical engineering, Dr. Medina received a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University. His research seeks to advance electrical neuromodulation therapies by means of computational modeling and engineering techniques, as well as engineering tools and analyses to understand neural system function.
Date: Feb 17, 11 AM to 12 PM
Location: Emory-HSRB-1 (Room E160) and Zoom (see info below).
https://zoom.us/j/97421219805?pwd=b2ZUZElTQ044anlVbFRib2VIQk1IQT09
Meeting ID: 974 2121 9805
Passcode: 556677
Dial by your location
+1 470 381 2552 US (Atlanta)
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Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University
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Sandra D. Maher. M.S.
Independent Regulatory Affairs Consultant
To attend virtually via Zoom, register HERE.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to take a medical technology through the FDA? Join us for a discussion on Medical Devices and an IVD Regulatory Overview to help you better understand some of the considerations for determining a product's regulatory route to market. This introduction is for professionals new to medical device and IVD regulatory affairs and looking for an opportunity to learn more about regulatory requirements for bringing products to market.
Sandra D. Maher, M.S., Regulatory Affairs Consultant (Medical Devices and IVDs), will cover topics including defining a medical device and an IVD, reviewing basics about device classification, identifying different types of premarket submissions, and describing how to get a new product to market.
This event is the 5th session in the 2022-2023 Bench2Market Talks series, which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community.
]]>Minh Thu "Alice" Ma
Ph.D. Candidate (Lieberman lab)
Georgia Tech
ABSTRACT
Throughout biomedical research, antibodies that recognize well-characterized epitopes are key reagents in the reproducibility and interpretation of immunoassays. Over the past three decades and after the COVID-19 pandemic, monoclonal antibodies have also emerged as a major class of successful clinical drugs. However, no such treatment currently exists for the debilitating eye disease glaucoma, which is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide. The heritable subtype of the most common type of glaucoma, POAG, is associated with the misfolding of the protein myocilin: mutant myocilin aggregates within the eye tissue trabecular meshwork, leading to cell death, severe damage to the optic nerve, and vision loss. Here, we develop recombinant, conformational antibodies that specifically target myocilin for research and therapeutics applications. These novel antibodies supersede existing commercial reagents due to their quality control and biological insight gleaned. Importantly, our antibodies also enable degradation of aggressive disease mutants of myocilin through cellular mechanisms afforded by their unique structural interactions with the protein. These exciting results provide proof of concept that targeted antibodies that ameliorate the insult of mutant myocilin aggregation could be therapeutic, and represent a new paradigm for treating other diseases associated with protein misfolding.
The F. L. "Bud" Suddath and Frances "Lee" Gafford Suddath Fellowship Award was established by family and friends in recognition of Bud Suddath's contributions as a Georgia Tech faculty member and to support Bud and Lee's shared interest in graduate education in the fields of biology, biochemistry and biomedical engineering. The fellowship award is given annually to Georgia Tech Ph.D. students, typically within one year of graduation, who have demonstrated significant achievement in research of fundamental importance in the fields of biology, biochemistry, or biomedical engineering and are working in laboratories affiliated with Georgia Tech's Institute of Bioengineering and Biosciences (IBB).
"Startup Accelerator IndieBio Info-session"
Featured Speaker:
Michael W. Craige, MHS/MBA, Ph.D.
Venture Fellow, IndieBioNY, SOSV
REGISTER HERE for Zoom link
Looking for funding for your startup? IndieBio is a high-touchpoint accelerator that funds startups in the bio space. Find out about their program, eligibility requirements and how to apply during this information session.
This event in the series is co-hosted by Georgia Tech's Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB), VentureLab, and CMaT. For inquiries or suggestions about future seminars, contact Cynthia Sundell, Senior Director of Life Sciences, IBB, or Harold Solomon, Principal, VentureLab.
The event will include short lightning talks from the program teams that showcase their efforts and offer opportunities for follow-up connection engagements. Your subject matter expertise and interest in this space is highly valued by us, and we would be grateful for your attendance.
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Hear a Georgia Tech spinout's commercialization journey, find out what venture capitalists are looking for, and learn more about commercialization resources available to Georgia Tech innovators.
Register HERE for in-person attendance.
*Register HERE to attend virtually
Workshop Agenda
Panelists
Mary Albertson, CLP, RTTP, (Director of Technology Licensing, Georgia Tech)
Ashley Cornelison (VP of Venture Development, Georgia Research Alliance)
Sherry Farrugia (CEO, Global Center for Medical Innovation)
Siva Ragupathy, Ph.D. (VP of Commercialization, Georgia Tech)
James Stubbs, Ph.D.
Professor of the Practice
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Tech / Emory University
To attend in person at IBB, register HERE.
To attend virtually via Zoom, register HERE.
Join us for an interactive discussion to review the basics of equity negotiation, fundraising, and dilution for life science start-ups. Speaker, James Stubbs, Ph.D. has over 20 years of commercialization experience, has held senior executive roles in five medical device start-ups, teaches medical device design at Georgia Tech, and is an active private investor.
This will be a HYBRID event held at the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences at Georgia Tech, 315 Ferst Drive Northwest, (Suddath Seminar Room 1128), Atlanta, GA 30332.
This event is the 4th session in the 2022-2023 Bench2Market Talks series, which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community.
]]>Meike van der Heijden, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Associate
Sillitoe lab
Department of Pathology
Baylor College of Medicine
The cerebellum’s protracted developmental timeline makes its maturational program remarkably sensitive to genetic, mechanical, and environmental perturbations. Early cerebellar perturbations can cause diverse neurodevelopmental disabilities in infants, including motor, cognitive, affective, and social deficits. The postnatal cerebellar development of mice uniquely situates this model for in vivo investigation of the dynamics that orchestrate functional circuit maturation. My research goal is to define how the developing cerebellum becomes a functional circuit and to understand why early cerebellar perturbations cause diverse neurodevelopmental deficits. My previous work showed that neural signal maturation relies on the interaction between diverse developmental lineages, that cerebellar-dependent motor and non-motor behaviors differentially rely on distinct neural pathways, and that unique cerebellar neural signal signatures predict various motor impairments. In my lab, we will build on these findings by identifying how neural signals mature, how diverse cerebellar functions are anatomically segregated, and how disease-associated neural signals are propagated in the cerebellar circuit. By bridging developmental and systems neuroscience, this understanding will allow us to appreciate how developmental perturbations can cause diverse neurodevelopmental deficits. Next, we can use this basic knowledge to generate therapies that mimic natural developmental processes. Ultimately, we will employ this understanding to predict, prevent, and reverse neurodevelopmental deficits.
]]>“In Vivo Quantitative Imaging of Nanoparticles and Cells Using Magnetic Particle Imaging”
Carlos Rinaldi-Ramos, Ph.D.
Dean’s Leadership Professor and Chair of Chemical Engineering
Professor, J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering
Member, UF Health Cancer Center
University of Florida
ABSTRACT
Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) is a new molecular imaging technology capable of unambiguous and quantitative tomographic imaging of the distribution of superparamagnetic nanoparticle tracers in vivo. While the term MPI may be confused with that for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), the two rely on distinct physics. In MPI, a tomographic image of the distribution of superparamagnetic nanoparticles is constructed by scanning a so-called field free region (FFR) through the domain of interest. Outside the FFR there is a quasi-static bias field strong enough to saturate the magnetic moments of the nanoparticles. But inside the FFR the dipole moments of the nanoparticles respond to the superimposed alternating excitation field. The signal used to construct an image in MPI arises due to the non-linear dynamic magnetization response of the nanoparticle dipole moments to the excitation field inside the FFR. At the field amplitudes and frequencies used in MPI there is no appreciable attenuation in field or signal strength in tissue. Further, while there are magnetic species in the body (e.g., ferritin), they do not contribute an appreciable signal for MPI, allowing for unambiguous imaging of the distribution of one of the superparamagnetic nanoparticle tracers. In this talk I will explain the physics of image generation in MPI, discuss work to understand how imaging performance relates to physical and magnetic properties of the nanoparticles, and discuss our work developing tracers and using MPI to quantify biodistribution of iron oxide nanoparticles in vivo, in the context of tracking nanoparticles and cell therapies.
BIOGRAPHY
Carlos M. Rinaldi-Ramos is the Chair and Dean’s Leadership Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida. He is also a Professor in the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering. He received his bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, and completed degrees in Master of Science in Chemical Engineering, Master of Science in Chemical Engineering Practice, and Doctor of Philosophy in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to the University of Florida, Dr. Rinaldi-Ramos was a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez. Dr. Rinaldi-Ramos is a leading scientist in the areas of ferrohydrodynamics, biomedical applications of magnetic nanoparticles, and transport of nanoparticles in complex and biological fluids. His research spans theory and simulation of magnetic nanoparticle response to dynamic magnetic fields, nanoparticle synthesis and surface modification, and characterization of nanoparticle interactions with biological environments. In the field of ferrohydrodynamics, Dr. Rinaldi-Ramos has made fundamental contributions to understanding of suspension-scale flows of ferrofluids in time-varying and rotating magnetic fields. Through a combination of theoretical and experimental work, his group demonstrated that description of ferrofluid flows in rotating magnetic fields requires consideration of internal angular momentum transport through the so-called couple stress and spin viscosity, unique features in the description of flows of structured continua. In the field of nanomedicine, Dr. Rinaldi-Ramos has made outstanding contributions to harnessing localized nanoscale heating for magnetic nanoparticle thermal cancer therapy. His group was the first to demonstrate that receptor-targeted nanoparticles can kill cancer cells without a perceptible macroscopic temperature rise through disruption of lysosomes and activation of lysosomal death pathways. He has also contributed to understanding the synergistic interactions of nanoscale thermal therapy and traditional chemotherapeutics. Dr. Rinaldi-Ramos has pioneered development and application of new methods to evaluate nanoparticle stability and diffusion in complex and biological fluids. Based on non-invasive monitoring of nanoparticle response to oscillating magnetic fields, these methods permit quantitative measurements of nanoparticle aggregation state, hydrodynamic size, and diffusion in complex environments such as polymer melts, polymer solutions, highly-concentrated protein solutions, whole blood, and tissues. More recently, Dr. Rinaldi-Ramos has contributed to understanding the physics of magnetic nanoparticle response to alternating magnetic fields, enabling rational design of high-sensitivity and high-resolution tracers for magnetic particle imaging, an emerging biomedical imaging technology. Dr. Rinaldi-Ramos is committed to mentoring new generations of scientists and engineers seeking solutions to biomedical problems and to broadening participation of women and minorities in science and engineering.
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“Gene Representation in scRNA-seq is Biased by Motifs in 3’-UTR”
Xinling Li
Ph.D.Graduate Student, Bioinformatics
Peng Qiu, Ph.D., Advisor
Georgia Tech
This is a great opportunity to:
The Center for Integrative Genomics holds a monthly advanced research seminar (CIGars). These talks are directed to graduate students and post-docs but are open to anyone who is interested in the topics.
REGISTER HERE for Participation Link. Registration is required before Monday, December 12, 2022 at 10:00 AM.
If you are a Georgia Tech student, faculty, employee you ARE a Keiretsu academic partner and the monthly meetings are FREE. GT spots are limited, so register ASAP!
Meetings are open to members, guests, sponsors, partners, and presenting entrepreneurs from any Keiretsu Forum global chapters and regions.
Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend.
SPEAKER 1
"A Novel Pathway for Bacterial Biofilm Formation"
Devina Puri
Graduate Student
Allison Lab
SPEAKER 2
"Integration of Advanced Imaging & MultiOMICs to Elucidate Pro-Atherogenic Effects of Endothelial-to-Immune Cell-Like Transition (EndIT)"
Kyung Baek, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Jo Lab
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“Mechanical Information Processing in Adherent Cells”
Margaret Gardel, Ph.D.
Horace B. Horton Professor, Physics and Molecular Engineering
Director, James Franck Institute
University of Chicago
ABSTRACT
My lab studies how the movement and shape of living cells is controlled by living materials constructed by protein assemblies within the cell interior. In this talk, I will describe my lab’s recent efforts to understand the design principles of the active, soft materials that drive morphogenesis of epithelial tissue. In particular, we are interested in the design principles by which the cellular cytoskeleton senses, generates, and adapts to mechanical force. Here I will describe our current experimental to study the regulation of the shape and size of epithelial cells. If time allows, I will discuss how physical constraints govern cell size regulation in epithelial tissue.
BIOGRAPHY
Margaret Gardel is the Horace B. Horton Professor of Physics and Molecular Engineering at University of Chicago. She is a member of the Institute for Biophysics Dynamics and currently serves as Director of the James Franck Institute. She joined the University of Chicago in 2007 after earning her Ph.D. from Harvard University with David Weitz and completing postdoctoral research as a Pappalardo Fellow at MIT and at Scripps Research Institute with Clare Waterman. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Her awards include a Packard Fellowship, Sloan Fellowship, NIH Director’s Pioneer Award and Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics.
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Join us for a seminar on Intellectual Property (IP) strategy for academic entrepreneurs. Sarah Wilkening, Ph.D., and Rusty Close from Troutman Pepper will cover topics including ownership of IP, what makes an invention patentable, how to evaluate prior art, and what it means to have freedom to operate in a technology area. We will also be joined by technology transfer representatives from Georgia Tech and Emory during the Q&A session.
Panelists:
Sarah Wilkening, Ph.D. – Patent Agent, Troutman Pepper
Christopher “Rusty” Close – Partner, Troutman Pepper
Mary Albertson, RTTP, CLP – Director, GTRC OTL
Laura Fritts MPH, MBA, JD – Chief Intellectual Property Officer and Director of Patent and License Strategy, Emory University
This event is the 3rd session in the 2022-2023 Bench2Market Talks series, which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community.
]]>SPEAKER 1
"Light-Field Imaging Flow Cytometry for High-Throughput High-Resolution Multi-Color 3D Cell Screening"
Xuanwen Hua
Graduate Student
Jia Lab
SPEAKER 2
"Model-Driven Prediction of Novel Emergent Bioelectric Patterns in hiPSCs"
Andre Norfleet
Graduate Student
Kemp Lab
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Michelle LaPlaca, Ph.D.
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Tech / Emory University
VIRTUAL ATTENDEE LINK
Michelle LaPlaca's Translational Neurotrauma Laboratory studies traumatic brain injury (TBI) using preclinical model systems and novel clinical assessments. The goals are to determine thresholds for plasma membrane damage, probe for lipid biomarkers, determine biomarker efflux pathways from the brain to the blood, and introduce heterogeneity to study design. Clinical research includes development of multimodal concussion assessment tools and investigation of novel biomarkers.
Thinking about spinning your technology out of the lab? First-time academic entrepreneurs can be daunted by the dual pressures of starting a company while maintaining their research and teaching responsibilities – but you’re not alone!
Join us for a panel discussion with Emory University and Georgia Tech faculty and alumni entrepreneurs sharing their commercialization journey. Learn about their experiences and how they overcame barriers to bring their innovations out of academia and into the marketplace. We will also reserve time for networking with our panelists after the discussion.
Panelists:
Mason A. Chilmonczyk, Ph.D. - CEO, Andson Biotech
Tommy Cunningham - Co-founder, Arthroba, Inc.
Aaron Enten, PhD MBA - CEO, Insight Optics
Wilbur A. Lam, MD, Ph.D. - Chief Medical Officer, Sanguina, Inc.
Brennan Torstrick, Ph.D. - Co-founder, Huxley Medical, Inc.
This event is the 2nd session in the 2022-2023 Bench2Market Talks series, which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community.
The 2022-2023 Bench2Market Talks series which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community.
SPEAKER 1
"Diffuse Optical Spectroscopies for Monitoring Cerebral Hemodynamic Stress in Pediatric Sickle Cell Anemia"
Rowan Brothers
Graduate Student
(Buckley Lab)
SPEAKER 2
"Physics-Informed Transfer Learning to Enhance Sleep Staging"
Samuel Waters
Graduate Student
(Clifford Lab)
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*Lunch provided for in-person attendees
*To participate virtually, CLICK HERE
ABSTRACT
Assembly of inhibitory and excitatory neurons into networks represents a critical period in the development of the cerebral cortex during which early principles of circuit formation and function are established. This elaborate process, which involves GABAerrgic interneurons migrating long distances to integrate with glutamatergic neurons, is, when perturbed, often associated with various neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the lack of access to functional tissue precludes mechanistic insights into how early cortical circuits are wired in humans and miswired in disease. I will describe my work towards developing “forebrain assembloids”, a modular, hiPSC-based brain organoid platform that allows for the previously inaccessible aspects of human cortical assembly, such as human cortical migration and network integration, to be studied in vitro. Using hiPSCs derived from patients with a monogenic form of autism, I will demonstrate how the forebrain assembloid system can be used to uncover novel disease phenotypes at the cellular, molecular and network levels and point to novel therapeutic avenues.
BIO
Fikri was born in Nicosia, Cyprus. As a Fulbright Scholar, he received his BS in Biology with Honors from University of Kansas in 2008 and his Ph.D. in Genetics from Stony Brook University in 2014 on neuroglial interactions in stress-related disorders. He completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University in 2021 in the laboratory of Sergiu Pasca, where he developed the forebrain assembloid platform and applied it to understand how neurodevelopmental disorders emerge during human cortical development. Fikri started his own group in the Department of Human Genetics at Emory University early this year, where he combines stem cell-based models with a variety of cellular and molecular tools to better understand the guiding principles of how the human brain is assembled in health and disease.
Nabil Imam, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Computational Science and Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
*Lunch provided for in-person attendees
*To participate virtually, CLICK HERE
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HYBRID Event
In-person location - RSVP HERE by Oct. 25:
Krone Engineered Biosystems Building (EBB)
905 Atlantic Drive, CHOA Seminar Room
Atlanta, GA 30332
*lunch served @ 12:50 p.m.
To attend virtually, RSVP here for link.
ABSTRACT
Though micro-physiological systems have advanced rapidly in a short time span, the field remains a hotbed of innovation. Our aiming to enhance modeling for complex systems with micro engineering technology have created integrated multi-organ chips (Body-on-a-chips) that is better for studying diseases and discovering drugs. In this presentation, I will introduce Body-on-a-chip microdevices fabricated using three-dimensional microfabrication techniques and integration of transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER) measurement techniques onto the chip.
BIO
Yoshikazu Hirai received received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Ritsumeikan University, Japan, in 2002 and 2004, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Kyoto University, Japan, in 2007, all in mechanical engineering.
He was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University. In 2009, he joined the Advanced Biomedical Engineering Research Unit, Kyoto University. Since 2013, he has been an Assistant Professor with the Department of Micro Engineering, Kyoto University. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor with the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University, from 2014 to 2017.
His current research interests include (1) Fabrication and Packaging for Generic MEMS/NEMS, (2) Optical lithography for 3-Dimensional microstructuring, (3) Atomic MEMS device (e.g., CSAC: Chip Scale Atomic Clock, CSAM: Chip Scale Atomic Magnetometer), (4) Microfluidics, and (5) Bio-Microsystems for in vitro measurement (e.g., Organ/Body on a Chip). He is a Member of the IEEE, MRS, the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan (IEEJ), the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME), the Society for Chemistry and Micro-Nano Systems (CHEMINAS), and Japan Institute of Electronics Packaging (JIEP).
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"Imaging in Support of Therapy"
Katherine Ferrara, Ph.D.
Professor of Radiology
Division Chief, Molecular Imaging Program
Stanford University
ABSTRACT
Our laboratory develops strategies for ultrasound and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging and applies these strategies to monitor therapies. In this seminar, we will discuss the state-of-the-art in volumetric ultrasound imaging and ultrasound-mediated drug and gene delivery. In addition, we have developed strategies to radiolabel adeno-associated viruses that incorporate a PET reporter gene and the use of these strategies will be described. Finally, the landscape of translational molecular imaging and radiotheragnostics will be summarized.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Ferrara is Professor of Radiology and Division Chief of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford University. She previously served as the founding chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis. Dr. Ferrara is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Biomedical Engineering Society, Acoustical Society of America, World Molecular Imaging Society and American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. Her publications include 300 manuscripts at the intersection of molecular imaging and biology.
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"Engineering Phage to Grow and Assemble Materials for Energy, the Environment and Medicine"
Angela Belcher, Ph.D.
Department Head
James Mason Crafts Professor
Biological Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ABSTRACT
Organisms have been making exquisite inorganic materials for over 500 million years. Although these materials have many desired physical properties such as strength, regularity, and environmentally benign processing, the types of materials that organisms have evolved to work with are limited. However, there are many properties of living systems that could be potentially harnessed by researchers to make advanced technologies that are smarter, more adaptable, and that are synthesized to be compatible with the environment. One approach to designing future technologies which have some of the properties that living organisms use so well, is to evolve organisms to work with a more diverse set of building blocks. The goal is to have a DNA sequence that codes for the synthesis and assembly of any inorganic material or device. We have been successful in using evolutionarily selected peptides to control physical properties of nanocrystals and subsequently use molecular recognition and self-assembly to design biological hybrid multidimensional materials. These materials could be designed to address many scientific and technological problems in electronics, environmental remediation, medicine, and energy applications. Currently we are using this technology to design new methods for building batteries, fuel cells, solar cells, carbon sequestration and storage, environmental remediation, catalysis, and medical diagnostics and imaging. This talk will address conditions under which organisms first evolved to make materials and scientific approaches to move beyond naturally evolved materials to genetically imprint advanced technologies with examples in lithium and sodium ion batteries, lithium- air batteries, environmental clean-up and ovarian cancer imaging and treatment.
BIOGRAPHY
Professor Angela Belcher is the James Mason Crafts Professor of Biological Engineering, Materials Science and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and the head of the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. She is a biological and materials engineer with expertise in the fields of biomaterials, biomolecular materials, organic-inorganic interfaces and solid-state chemistry and devices. Her primary research focus is evolving new materials for energy, electronics, the environment, and medicine. She received her B.S. in Creative Studies from The University of California, Santa Barbara. She earned a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at UCSB in 1997. Following her postdoctoral research in electrical engineering at UCSB, she joined the faculty at The University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Chemistry. She joined the faculty at MIT in 2002. Some recent awards include 2022 NAS (National Academy of Science), 2018 NAE (National Academy of Engineers) Fellow, 2015 NAI (National Academy of Inventors) Fellow, the 2013 $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for her Inventions, 2012 AAAS (American Academy of Arts and Sciences) Fellow, a MacArthur Fellow, 2010 Eni Prize for Renewable and Non-conventional Energy, in 2009 Rolling Stone Magazine listed her as one of the top 100 people changing the country. She has founded five companies. She also holds 36 patents with many pending. In July 2019, she took over as the head of the Biological Engineering Department at MIT. In 2022 she joined the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology.
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Time: Doors open at 5:00pm and formal agenda begins at 5:30pm.
Location: The Hatchery, 1578 Avenue Place Suite 200 Atlanta, Georgia 30329.
Parking: Validated parking is available in the garage directly across from the Hatchery.
Logistics: This is primarily an in-person event, but it will be livestreamed for those that are not able to attend.
Learn more and register at: https://emorymedicine.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Ep4BAycZRBokYK?Q_CHL=qr
]]>SPEAKER 1
"Modulating Sphingosine-1-Phosphate Receptor Signaling as a Regenerative Immunotherapy for Volumetric Muscle Loss"
Lauren Hymel
Graduate Student
(Botchwey Lab)
SPEAKER 2
"Multiscale Computational Modeling of ROS-generating Chemotherapies in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma"
Andy Raddatz
Graduate Student
(Kemp Lab)
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Omer Inan, Ph.D.
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Tech
VIRTUAL ATTENDEE LINK
Omer Inan is a Professor for the College of Engineering with a focus in designing clinically relevant medical devices and systems, and translating them from the lab to patient care applications. One strong focus of Professor Inan's research is in developing new technologies for monitoring chronic diseases at home. Viewers can expect to learn about new wearable tech for pediatric bioengineering applications and team science focused on clinical problems. Collaboration opportunities, ideas for how to pursue new collaborations, and how to engage nurses and clinicians in the early stage design process are a few of the things viewers will be able to take away from this webinar.
This is a great opportunity to:
The Center for Integrative Genomics holds a monthly advanced research seminar (CIGars). These talks are directed to graduate students and post-docs but are open to anyone who is interested in the topics.
Hear from a panel of funders and programs across the country supporting commercialization. They will discuss their available resources for innovators and highlight the technology types and development stages most appropriate for their funding opportunities.
Speakers:
Rowan Cade (BARDA Ventures)
Nathan Sundheimer (Plug and Play)
Alexei Teague (M2D2)
The 2022-2023 Bench2Market Talks series which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community.
This 31st Annual Suddath Symposium aims to bring together thought leaders and various stakeholders from medicine, biology, data engineering, data science, industry, government, and young professionals to present the state-of-art progresses and emerging opportunities in advancing biomedical AI and intelligent reality for novel biological discoveries, for personalized, predictive, preventive, precision, and participatory medicine, and for digital health.
This will be the 31st presentation of IBB's highly-interactive Suddath Symposium which is held annually to celebrate the life and contribution of F.L. "Bud" Suddath by discussing the latest developments in the fields of bioengineering and bioscience. The speakers include leading researchers from across the world.
"Defining the Pathogenic Mechanisms of Calcific Aortic Valve Disease Through Single-Cell RNA Sequencing"
Nico Villa-Roel, M.S.
Graduate Student
(Jo Lab)
"3D-Bioprinted Platforms Leveraged to Study the Cellular & Molecular Mechanisms of Cardiovascular Disease"
Martin Lyubomirov Tomov, Ph.D.
Assistant Scientist
(Serpooshan Lab)
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We will present applications of Magnetic Resonance for a variety of fields:
This is the opportunity to learn about NMR and MRI and get started with new research using these techniques.
]]>“Translational Research in Interventional Radiology: Multimodality Stroke Treatment and Locoregional Chemotherapy”
Steven Hetts, M.D.
Professor, Radiology
UCSF School of Medicine
ABSTRACT
Image-guided therapies are rapidly becoming the standard of care for several diseases. Different modalities of imaging provide different types of information essential to treating physicians. Medical devices designed for minimally-invasive image-guided interventions offer excellent opportunities for engineering innovation and partnership with clinicians. Stroke and cancer will be used as illustrative cases in point.
BIOGRAPHY
Steven Hetts, MD is Chief of Interventional Neuroradiology at the UCSF Mission Bay Hospitals, where he provides cutting-edge, minimally invasive endovascular surgical therapy for children and adults with stroke, cerebrovascular disease and tumors. Dr. Hetts is also Co-Director of the UCSF Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia Center of Excellence where he cares for patients with vascular malformations of the brain and other organs. In 2017, Dr. Hetts was honored with an Exceptional Physician Award from UCSF Health for his clinical work. As Co-Director of the NIH-funded Interventional Radiology Research Laboratory, Dr. Hetts develops novel medical devices and techniques for the treatment of stroke, tumors, vascular malformations, and other conditions accessible through the blood vessels. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, has lectured on interventional neuroradiology clinical practice and research on six continents, and has been named a Distinguished Investigator by the national Academy of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research. In 2017, Dr. Hetts received an “I Am A UC Entrepreneur” award for ChemoFilter, a device to reduce the toxicity of chemotherapy that was developed in the UCSF Interventional Radiology Research Lab. Dr. Hetts earned his MD from Harvard Medical School and his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College. He completed a medical internship at Stanford and diagnostic radiology residency, diagnostic neuroradiology fellowship, and interventional neuroradiology fellowship at UCSF, where he joined the faculty in 2008.
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“Spaceflight and Space Biology”
Sharmila Bhattacharya, Ph.D.
Program Scientists for Space Biology
Biological and Physical Sciences Division
NASA
ABSTRACT
Space biology investigations help elucidate the effects of spaceflight on biological systems. Spaceflight exposes living organisms to environmental stressors that are not generally experienced on Earth. For instance, a stay on the International Space Station or a journey to the Moon or Mars results in a microgravity environment for an organism, while a stay on the Moon imposes a gravitational force that is one-sixth that of Earth’s gravity. Altered gravity environments are known to affect the physiology, behavior, and molecular responses of biological systems. In addition, the levels of ionizing radiation are significantly elevated in the spaceflight environment, and long-duration human spaceflight missions necessitate research on the biological consequences of exposure to radiation, especially in conjunction with altered gravity and other environmental stressors.
Dr. Bhattacharya will discuss the use of model organisms to elucidate the molecular, physiological, and behavioral changes experienced by biological systems during exposure to spaceflight and in ground-based analogs of spaceflight.
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Join the conversation at GA Tech and Emory's McCamish Blue Sky Forum. In this interactive session, clinicians, neuroscientists, engineers, and data scientists will converge to discuss freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease. Find out the latest developments and breakthroughs from our Blue Sky research teams. This forum will offer solutions, feedback, and answers to your burning questions.
Featured Presenters:
"Transcutaneous Spinal Cord Stimulation for Freezing of Gait"
Svjetlana Miocinovic, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Neurology
Emory University
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology
"Human Activity Recognition to Track Freezing of Gait in Parkinson’s Disease"
J. Lucas McKay, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology
Associate Director
Neuromechanics Laboratory
Emory University
Thanh Duc Nguyen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Institute of Materials Science
University of Connecticut
ABSTRACT
The ability to transform safe medical polymers (e.g. the ones used for resorbable surgical sutures) into desired 3D forms/shapes/structures at nano and micro scales with “smart” electrical functions, while sustaining the materials’ excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability, provides significant applications in different biomedical fields, ranging from tissue engineering and controlled drug/vaccine-delivery to medical implanted devices. In this talk, I will first present our recent research works to develop novel single-administration self-boosting vaccine microarray patch which can also be used to deliver other therapeutics like antibodies to replace traditional non-effective, painful, costly and inconvenient hypodermic injections. I will then present our recent works to create biodegradable piezoelectric polymers, which can generate electricity under deformation and vice versa, offering a variety of exciting applications in biodegradable implanted force sensors, bionic self-stimulated tissue scaffolds and medical brain-treatment ultrasound transducers.
BIO
Thanh Duc Nguyen is currently an associate professor of both Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Connecticut (UConn). He joined UConn since the beginning of 2016 after finishing his postdoctoral fellowship with Robert Langer at MIT. His research is highly interdisciplinary and at the interface of biomedicine, materials and nano/micro-technology. Nguyen invented a platform technology, so-called SEAL (StampEd Assembly of Polymer Layers), to create sophisticated 3D microstructures of safe medical polymers without using any potentially toxic additives, an advantage which can not be achieved by current high-resolution 3D printing. His research group at UConn has adapted and further improved the SEAL method to create a novel self-boosting microarray (MA) vaccine patch which can be applied on the skin at a single time to deliver multiple longitudinal does of thermally stabilized vaccines over a long period, simulating the effect of multiple injections in the traditional prime-boost vaccination regime. The MA patch is not only applicable to different vaccine types (e.g. protein, viral particles, nucleic acid like mRNA etc.) but also other therapeutics like antibodies to treat and prevent infectious diseases caused by pathogens like pneumococcal bacteria, SARS-COV-2 and HIV virus. The other theme of Nguyen research is the field of “biodegradable piezoelectrics” in which his lab pioneered new biodegradable piezoelectric materials which can self-produce electricity under applied force and vice versa. Using different piezo-biomaterials, derived from safe polymers like the ones used for surgical sutures, his lab developed bionic self-stimulated tissue scaffolds, implanted force-sensors and ultrasound transducers to respectively regenerate damaged tissues, monitor vital intra-organ pressures and enable the delivery of medicines through the blood-brain barrier. Nguyen’s works have been published in prestigious journals including Science, Nature Nanotech, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Biomedical Engineering, PNAS etc. He received several awards including the CRS (Controlled Release Society) Transdermal and Mucosal Delivery Focus Group Young Investigator Award (2021), ACell Young Investigator Award (2020), MIT top innovator under 35 for Asia Pacific (2019), NIH Trailblazer Award for Young and Early Investigators (2018), SPIE Rising Researcher Award (2019), Young Investigator Award in Biosciences and Bioengineering of Applied Sciences (2019), and the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award (2018) etc.
The Bioengineering Seminar Series is co-hosted by the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and they are open to all in the bio-community.
Tara Deans is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah. During her Ph.D. at Boston University, Deans focused on synthetic biology in mammalian cells. During her graduate research, she developed a tunable genetic switch coupling repressor proteins and a novel RNAi target design to control gene expression levels. After her graduate work, Deans went to Johns Hopkins University for her postdoctoral fellowship where she sought an area of research with the greatest opportunity for translating synthetic biology into therapeutic applications. Her postdoctoral work focused on interfacing synthetic biology with biomaterials, in addition to working with stem cells for tissue engineering applications.
Deans now runs an applied mammalian synthetic biology laboratory where her lab focuses on building novel genetic tools to study the mechanisms of stem cell differentiation for the purpose of directing cell fate decisions. Recently, Deans received four prestigious awards to support this area of research: 1. the NSF CAREER Award, 2. the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, 3. the NIH Trailblazer Award, and 4. the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. In addition to her research, Deans was named a STEM Ambassador in the STEM Ambassador Program (STEMAP) at the University of Utah to engage underrepresented groups in STEM fields.
The Bioengineering Seminar Series is co-hosted by the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and they are open to all in the bio-community.
Barclay Morrison and his laboratory study the biomechanics of brain injuries from common occurrences like motor vehicle accidents, falls, and sports-related concussions to reduce their socioeconomic toll by developing better safety systems to prevent injuries and understanding the pathobiology to better treat brain injuries.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) results in approximately 50,000 deaths and 85,000 permanently disabled persons per year in the United States with an estimated primary care cost of $76 billion per year. The clinical situation is quite dire as there are no drug treatments which target the underlying pathobiology of TBI. This profound need for improvements in the prevention and treatment of TBI is the driving force behind Morrison’s research. The long-term goal of his laboratory is to understand the consequences of mechanical forces on the most complex system of the human body, the brain, and to develop strategies to mitigate and perhaps reverse these injurious effects. His research explores the specific cellular, molecular, and metabolic effects of injury on brain cells in response to precisely controlled biomechanical stimuli. His research program has three main focus areas:
Improvement of prevention strategies through development of critical biomechanical data for the living brain Identification of novel treatment options by understanding the post-traumatic pathobiology in greater detail Engineering new research tools to enhance studies in the first two areas Morrison received a BS in biomedical engineering from John Hopkins University in 1992 and a MSE and PhD in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 and 1999, respectively.
The Bioengineering Seminar Series is co-hosted by the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and they are open to all in the bio-community.
ABSTRACT
Double strand breaks (DSB) are frequently generated, and researchers have discovered many proteins and processes needed to repair the breaks. However, relative timing of sub-stages of DNA repair or even their ordering has been difficult to determine due to the lack of method to synchronize the generation of well-defined breaks in living cells. Exposing cells to X-ray and UV can produce massive DNA damages at a defined time point, but the nature of the damage is ill-defined, and damages are made randomly. CRISPR-Cas systems allow the generation of breaks at specifically defined genome locations, but despite many attempts to develop ligand- or light-inducible CRISPR-Cas systems, the cleavage kinetics remains slow, leading to unsynchronized repair. We developed a very fast CRISPR-Cas9 can generate a DNA break at a defined locus at a well-define (within seconds) time point, allowing us to reveal the mechanisms of break recognition and study DSB repair and other cellular processes with an unprecedented spatiotemporal control.
BIO
Taekjip Ha is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, Biophysics, and Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He uses sophisticated physical techniques to manipulate and visualize the movements of single molecules to understand basic biological processes involving DNA and other molecules. His study is focused on pushing the limits of single-molecule detection methods to study protein–nucleic acid and protein-protein complexes and the mechanical basis of their interactions and functions – both in vitro and in vivo – that are important for genome maintenance.
Ha received his undergraduate degree in Physics, from Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea in 1990. He earned his Ph.D. In Physics from the University of Berkeley in 1996. After postdoctoral training at Stanford University, he was a Physics professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for fifteen years until 2015.
Ha serves as a member of Editorial Boards for Science, Cell, eLife, PRX, Structure, PCCP, Physical Biology and Cancer Convergence. He is a member of the National Academy of Science and an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The Bioengineering Seminar Series is co-hosted by the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and they are open to all in the bio-community.
In the Wittrup lab, we are interested in developing design principles for effective cancer biopharmaceuticals. We are particularly interested in cancer immunotherapy, the process of provoking a therapeutic immune response against tumors. Most of our projects include the following elements:
The Bioengineering Seminar Series is co-hosted by the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and they are open to all in the bio-community.
SPEAKER 1
"Multi-niche human bone marrow on-a-chip for studying the interactions of adoptive cell therapies with multiple myeloma"
Delta Ghoshal
Graduate Student
Roy Lab
SPEAKER 2
"In vivo photoacoustic monitoring of stem cell location and viability through cell nanoengineering"
Jinhwan Kim, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Emelianov Lab
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"Bringing Engineers & Clinicians Together To Explore Microchip Applications In Healthcare"
Farrokh Ayazi, Ph.D.
Regents Entrepreneur & Ken Byers Professor in Microsystems
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Tech
W. Hong Yeo, Ph.D.
Woodruff Faculty Fellow & Associate Professor
George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University
ABOUT THIS GLUE LECTURE
Please attend this session to learn about new technologies currently being developed by engineers, then join our discussion about potential new clinical applications. We will envision uses applicable to a wide variety of disciplines including cardiology, pulmonology, neurology, orthopedics, rheumatology, nephrology, urology, and ENT.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Farrokh Ayazi, PhD is the Regents Entrepreneur & Ken Byers Professor in Microsystems in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is the founder and managing director of StethX Microsystems, a spin-off of his research lab that is developing next-generation wearable devices for long-term monitoring of cardio- pulmonary diseases using a proprietary microchip sensor technology.
W. Hong Yeo, PhD is a Woodruff Faculty Fellow, Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, and the Director of the Center for Human-Centric Interfaces and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has published over 120 peer-reviewed articles, including many in top-quality journals, including Nature Materials, Nature Machine Intelligence, Nature Communications, and Science Advances. In addition, he is the founder and CTO of Wis Medical, Inc, which develops a wearable cardiac health monitor.
ABOUT THE GLUE LECTURE SERIES
General Lectures Uniting Everyone (GLUE) is the Atlanta Center for Microsystems Engineered Point-of-care Technologies (ACME POCT) flagship event series and serves as our primary venue to educate on the entrepreneurial pathway and product lifecycle. It provides a forum to pitch clinical problems and teach about the technologies most promising for meeting these clinical needs.
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The Interdisciplinary Health and Environment Leadership Development (IHE-LeaD) is a new program that connects scholars at GT to jointly work towards advancing the intersection of human and environmental health, and to discuss opportunities and challenges for translating scholarly work into actions with public impact and visibility. Our program runs a monthly seminar series that is open to the GT public. GT speakers will present their work on impact-driven research at the intersection of IHE. You can receive regular announcements about upcoming seminars via the IHE email list contact Gabi Steinbach.
To learn more information about the seminar series and the IHE-LeaD program, visit their website.
]]>The Interdisciplinary Health and Environment Leadership Development (IHE-LeaD) is a new program that connects scholars at GT to jointly work towards advancing the intersection of human and environmental health, and to discuss opportunities and challenges for translating scholarly work into actions with public impact and visibility. Our program runs a monthly seminar series that is open to the GT public. GT speakers will present their work on impact-driven research at the intersection of IHE. You can receive regular announcements about upcoming seminars via the IHE email list contact Gabi Steinbach.
To learn more information about the seminar series and the IHE-LeaD program, visit their website.
]]>He is Associate Dean for Research and Outreach in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and is also an Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech and a Guest Researcher in the Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a member of the leadership team for the NSF Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT), where he serves as Co-Director for Engineering Workforce Development and leads ethics and policy research for the center. His research focuses on the intersection between public policy and bioethics. Much of his work has examined the development of stem cell science, particularly research using human embryonic stem cells, and the translation of novel cell therapies.
The Interdisciplinary Health and Environment Leadership Development (IHE-LeaD) is a new program that connects scholars at GT to jointly work towards advancing the intersection of human and environmental health, and to discuss opportunities and challenges for translating scholarly work into actions with public impact and visibility. Our program runs a monthly seminar series that is open to the GT public. GT speakers will present their work on impact-driven research at the intersection of IHE. You can receive regular announcements about upcoming seminars via the IHE email list contact Gabi Steinbach.
To learn more information about the seminar series and the IHE-LeaD program, visit their website.
]]>The Interdisciplinary Health and Environment Leadership Development (IHE-LeaD) is a new program that connects scholars at GT to jointly work towards advancing the intersection of human and environmental health, and to discuss opportunities and challenges for translating scholarly work into actions with public impact and visibility. Our program runs a monthly seminar series that is open to the GT public. GT speakers will present their work on impact-driven research at the intersection of IHE. You can receive regular announcements about upcoming seminars via the IHE email list contact Gabi Steinbach.
To learn more information about the seminar series and the IHE-LeaD program, visit their website.
]]>The Interdisciplinary Health and Environment Leadership Development (IHE-LeaD) is a new program that connects scholars at GT to jointly work towards advancing the intersection of human and environmental health, and to discuss opportunities and challenges for translating scholarly work into actions with public impact and visibility. Our program runs a monthly seminar series that is open to the GT public. GT speakers will present their work on impact-driven research at the intersection of IHE. You can receive regular announcements about upcoming seminars via the IHE email list contact Gabi Steinbach.
To learn more information about the seminar series and the IHE-LeaD program, visit their website.
]]>To learn more information about the seminar series and the IHE-LeaD program, visit their website.
]]>Aliza Wingo, M.D. M.S., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Emory University
Thomas Wingo, M.D., Associate Professor of Neurology and Human Genetics, School of Medicine, Emory University
This is a great opportunity to:
The Center for Integrative Genomics (CIG) holds a monthly advanced research seminar (CIGars). These talks are directed to graduate students and post-docs but are open to anyone who is interested in the topics.
]]>DuPont is seeking new scientists (PhD) and engineers (MS/PhD) who are interested in a career in Research & Development across various businesses and locations in the following areas:
Position Open for Applications on CareerBuzz: 2022 Ph.D. Campus Graduate – Research & Development (ID: 213997)
Campus Interviews: August 30th – August 31st
]]>Paula T. Hammond is Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering. She is a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, the MIT Energy Initiative, and a founding member of the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology. The core of her work is the use of electrostatics and other complementary interactions to generate functional materials with highly controlled architecture. Her research in nanomedicine encompasses the development of new biomaterials to enable drug delivery from surfaces with spatio-temporal control. She also investigates novel responsive polymer architectures for targeted nanoparticle drug and gene delivery, and has developed self-assembled materials systems for electrochemical energy devices.
Professor Paula Hammond was elected into the National Academy of Science in 2019, the National Academy of Engineering in 2017, the National Academy of Medicine in 2016, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013. She is one of only 25 distinguished scientists elected to all three national academies. She won the ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science in 2018, and she is also the recipient of the 2013 AIChE Charles M. A. Stine Award, which is bestowed annually to a leading researcher in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of materials science and engineering, and the 2014 AIChE Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research. She was selected to receive the Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Teal Innovator Award in 2013, which supports a single visionary individual from any field principally outside of ovarian cancer to focus his/her creativity, innovation, and leadership on ovarian cancer research. By developing degradable electrostatically assembled layer-by-layer (LbL) thin films that enable temporal and even sequential controlled release from surfaces, Paula Hammond pioneered a new and rapidly growing area of multicomponent surface delivery of therapeutics that impacts biomedical implants, tissue engineering and nanomedicine. A key contribution is her ability to introduce not only controlled release of sensitive biologics, but her recent advances in actually staging the release of these drugs to attain synergistically timed combination therapies. She has designed multilayered nanoparticles to deliver a synergistic combination of siRNA or inhibitors with chemotherapy drugs in a staged manner to tumors, leading to significant decreases in tumor growth and a great lowering of toxicity. The newest developments from her lab offer a promising approach to messenger RNA (mRNA) delivery, in which she creates pre-complexes of mRNA with its capping protein and synthesized optimized cationic polypeptides structures for the co-complexation and stabilization of the nucleic acid-protein system to gain up to 80-fold increases in mRNA translation efficiency, opening potential for vaccines and immunotherapies. Professor Hammond has published over 320 papers, and over 20 patent applications. She is the co-founder and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of LayerBio, Inc. and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Moderna Therapeutics.
IBB welcomes all in Georgia Tech's bio-community to attend - lunch immediately following the lecture.
Peng Qui, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Emory University School of Medicine
Bio
Peng Qui, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland. His research interests are in the areas of bioinformatics and computational biology with a focus on statistical signal processing, machine learning, control systems and optimization.
Research
The Qui lab research is focused on Machine Learning and Bioinformatics. The overarching goal is to develop novel computational methods for advancing biological discoveries. Current research projects include machine learning analysis on single-cell data, multi-omics integration in cancer, experimental design and model reduction in systems biology.
The IBB Breakfast Club Seminar Series was started with the spirit of the Institute's interdisciplinary mission in mind to feature local IBB faculty member's research in a seminar format. Faculty are often asked to speak at other universities and conferences, but do not often present at their home institution - this seminar series is an attempt to close that gap. IBB Breakfast Club Seminars are open to anyone in the bio-community.
]]>"Promoting Tissue Healing and Regeneration Using Peptide-Modified Glycosaminoglycans"
Alyssa Panitch, Ph.D.
Wallace H. Coulter Department Chair & Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
at Georgia Tech and Emory University
ABSTRACT
Proteoglycans play an important role in extracellular matrix remodeling, homeostasis, and signaling. Due to their negatively charged glycosaminoglycan chains as well as distinct core protein structures, they interact with a variety of molecules, including matrix proteins, growth factors, cytokines and chemokines, pathogens, and enzymes. Here we focus on two bioconjugates that were designed to mimic features of existing proteoglycans. The first models the biological activity of the small leucine-rich proteoglycan, decorin. Like native decorin, our decorin mimetic plays a key role in collagen organization and wound healing. Recently, we have augmented the decorin mimetic with peptide ligands to the avb3 integrin receptor found on endothelial and endothelial progenitor cells. The avb3 ligand confers angiogenic activity to the decorin mimetic and supports wound healing in an ischemic environment in diabetic animals. The second mimetic is designed to target inflamed endothelium to restore physical barrier function of the endothelial glycocalyx. By restoring barrier function, the glycocalyx mimetic reduces intravascular thrombosis and inflammation thereby improving healing outcomes following ischemia reperfusion injury in animal models.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Panitch works on biomaterials with a specific emphasis on designing proteoglycan mimetics to control tissue healing. Her work has led to the foundation of three start up companies in the biotech and pharma space. She was awarded the NSF CAREER award and is a member and Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE) and the National Academy of Inventors. She also serves as an Editor for the Journal of Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces. She is currently Professor and Chair of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory.
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Bio
Simon Sponberg, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he studies neuromechanics and locomotor control. He received his joint honors Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Physics from Lewis and Clark College in 2002 before moving to complete his Ph.D. with Bob Full at the University of California, Berkeley. He then completed a postdoc at the University of Washington, with Tom Daniel and Adrienne Fairhall. Simon won a Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Neuroethology in 2014.
Research
A central challenge for many organisms is the generation of stable, versatile locomotion through irregular, complex environments. Animals have evolved to negotiate almost every environment on this planet. To do this, animals' nervous systems acquire, process and act upon information. Yet their brains must operate through the mechanics of the body’s sensors and actuators to both perceive and act upon the environment. Our research investigates how physics and physiology enable locomoting animals to achieve the remarkable stability and maneuverability we see in biological systems. Conceptually, this demands combining neuroscience, muscle physiology, and biomechanics with an eye towards revealing mechanism and principle -- an integrative science of biological movement. This emerging field, termed neuromechanics, does for biology what mechatronics, the integration of electrical and mechanical system design, has done for engineering. Namely, it provides a mechanistic context for the electrical (neuro-) and physical (mechanical) determinants of movement in organisms. We explore how animals fly and run stably even in the face of repeated perturbations, how the multifuncationality of muscles arises from their physiological properties, and how the tiny brains of insects organize and execute movement.
The IBB Breakfast Club Seminar Series was started with the spirit of the Institute's interdisciplinary mission in mind to feature local IBB faculty member's research in a seminar format. Faculty are often asked to speak at other universities and conferences, but do not often present at their home institution - this seminar series is an attempt to close that gap. IBB Breakfast Club Seminars are open to anyone in the bio-community.
]]>Bio
Gabe Kwong, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. His lab pioneers transformative biotechnologies to address frontier clinical challenges in cancer, organ transplant rejection, and infectious diseases. His work has published in leading scientific journals and featured by the media including The Economist, NPR, BBC, and WGBH-2, Boston’s PBS station.
Professor Kwong earned his B.S. with Highest Honors from UC Berkeley, his Ph.D. from Caltech with Professor James R. Heath, and conducted postdoctoral studies at MIT with Professor Sangeeta N. Bhatia. In recognition of his work, Dr. Kwong has been honored with selective distinctions including the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. Dr. Kwong co-founded Glympse Bio, and holds 25+ issued or pending patents in biomedical technology.
Research Interests
Human health has been transformed by our collective capacity to engineer immunity — from the pivotal development of the smallpox vaccine to the curative potential of recent cancer immunotherapies. These examples motivate our research program that is conducted at the interface of Engineering and Immunology, and where we develop biomedical technologies and applications that shape a diverse array of immunological systems.
The questions that are central to our exploration include: How do we begin to study an individual's repertoire of well over one billion immune cells when current technologies only allow us to study a handful of cells at a time? What are the biomarkers of immunological health as the body responds to disease and ageing, and how may these indicators trigger clinical decisions? And how can we genetically rewire immune cells to provide them with entirely new functions to better fight complex diseases such as cancer?
To aid in our studies, we use high-throughput technologies such as next-generation sequencing and quantitative mass spectrometry, and pioneer the development of micro- and nanotechnologies in order to achieve our goals. We focus on clinical problems in cancer, infectious diseases and autoimmunity, and ultimately strive to translate key findings into therapies for patients.
The IBB Breakfast Club Seminar Series was started with the spirit of the Institute's interdisciplinary mission in mind to feature local IBB faculty member's research in a seminar format. Faculty are often asked to speak at other universities and conferences, but do not often present at their home institution - this seminar series is an attempt to close that gap. IBB Breakfast Club Seminars are open to anyone in the bio-community.
]]>ABSTRACT
Microgels and hydrogels have expanded the field of soft matter. They have been built into materials for cosmetic products, biomaterials, food packaging and additives, and oil refinement. In our lab, we synthesize microgels and hydrogels to develop biomaterials from polymers that are highly sensitive to external stimuli, such as pH, temperature, or ionic solvent content. These external factors induce drastic changes to their phase behavior and cause them to reversibly change volume by absorbing and releasing the aqueous solvent that they are swollen in. Hair is a natural polymeric composite material and is one of the key characteristics that classify us as mammals. Much like our bodies, our hair tresses need water and nutrients to maintain hair health and appearance. The inner cortex of each of our hair fibers is composed of tight bundles of keratin protein. Very much like synthetic microgels and hydrogels, these natural protein keratin bundles are highly responsive to external stimuli, and they also absorb and expel water according to changes in the pH, temperature, and ionic solvent content. This presentation illustrates how our lab uses stimuli responsive microgels and collagen I hydrogels to create tunable 3D-biocomposite cell scaffolds to study malignant cell behavior. Initial qualitative results showed that fibroblasts formed large spheroids among a suspension of microgel particles, while fibroblasts appeared more circular and isolated among collagen I (0.5%) hydrogel films. This presentation will also include a discussion on how we use the principles that dictate the material properties of hydrogels to analyze the surface chemistry of textured hair. Recent experiments show that curly and straight hair can be accurately classified according to their geometric features, which will help better establish quantitative distinctions in curl pattern which dictate fiber mechanics. All research was and continues to be performed by our Spelman undergraduate students. The experience provides more opportunities to engage students in polymer science research, develop transferrable laboratory skills, promote scientific discovery, and advance the field of surface science.
RESEARCH
Soft materials. Interfacial chemistry. Biomolecular materials. Polymer microgel particles. Self-actuating polymers. Organic electronics. Block copolymers. Self-assembly. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Hydrogels. Biophysics of epithelial cell monolayers. Inorganic nanomaterials. Material properties of hair.
BIO
Michelle Gaines’s research is themed around designing and characterizing the surface chemical properties of synthetic and natural polymer systems. They will be used to develop multifunctional biomaterial substrates for regenerative medicine, cancer treatment, and personal care products. The goals of the Gaines Lab are achieved by marrying Polymer Synthesis, Materials Science, Cell Biology & Spectroscopy. Responsive biocompatible microgel polymer networks are the materials being developed into 3D biomimetic substrates that accurately match the indigenous 3D physical chemical properties of the microenvironment experienced by targeted cells and tissues. These new materials will have the potential to optimize cell culture output for tissue regeneration and probe malignant cell behavior in diseased tissues. Humans across the globe have small phenotypic variances reflected in our outer appearance, including skin tone, hair type, size, and body shape. Understanding the surface chemical properties that govern hair texture and curl pattern are of particular interest to the Gaines Research Lab because it will lead toward designing better personal care products for healthy textured hair maintenance. In addition to conducting original research on the material properties of hair, Gaines is developing courses for students to take and learn about the science that govern the unique material properties of their hair. The program will add to Spelman College’s legacy of being a global leader in producing culturally inclusive thought-leaders. The goals of the Gaines Lab are achieved by marrying Polymer Synthesis, Materials Science, Cell Biology & Spectroscopy.
The IBB Breakfast Club Seminar Series was started with the spirit of the Institute's interdisciplinary mission in mind to feature local IBB faculty member's research in a seminar format. Faculty are often asked to speak at other universities and conferences, but do not often present at their home institution - this seminar series is an attempt to close that gap. IBB Breakfast Club Seminars are open to anyone in the bio-community.
]]>
BIO
Maria Bedny, Ph.D. earned her B.A. in Cognitive Science at John Hopkins University and both her M.A. and Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed post doctoral fellowships at MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation Harvard Medical School (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center).
RESEARCH INTERESTS
How do nature and nurture contribute to the human mind and brain? Our lab investigates this age-old question using the methods of cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology. A key approach in the lab compares the minds and brains of people with different developmental experiences: sighted, congenitally blind and late-blind individuals. One direction of research examines how people who are born blind think about “visual” concepts, such as blue glow and stare. In what way are the cognitive and neural representations of these categories different and similar across sighted and blind people? Another line of work examines the function of “visual” cortices in blind individuals. What functions do visual cortices acquire in blindness and how similar are these new functions to the typical visual functions of occipital cortices? Is plasticity during childhood different than plasticity in adulthood and if so in what way?
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Jeffery Markowitz, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Tech and Emory University
*Lunch provided for in-person attendees
*To participate virtually, CLICK HERE
BIO
Jeffery Markowitz, Ph.D., received his Ph.D. at Boston University and his bachelor’s at Johns Hopkins University. He joined the faculty at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering in March 2022. His lab focuses on understanding how brain gives rise to action and his team seeks to understand this fundamental process in the lab using the mouse as a model organism.
Their primary approach is to perform 3D motion capture of a mouse as it freely explores a large arena using a variety of sensors – this is used to build a dense point cloud of the animal. Then, they use fully unsupervised probabilistic time-series models to segment the motion capture data into discrete behaviors, for instance running, rearing, grooming, or turning. At the same time, they read and write neural activity primarily using electrophysiology, functional imaging, and optogenetics.
]]>John Tuthill, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
University of Washington
*Lunch provided for in-person attendees
*To participate virtually, CLICK HERE
BIO
John Tuthill, Ph.D., received his B.A. in Biology and Anthropology from Swarthmore College in 2006. He then worked as a cabinetmaker in Montana and crab electrophysiologist in Argentina before completing a PhD in Michael Reiser’s lab at HHMI/Janelia in 2012. For his doctoral work, John studied the algorithmic implementation of visual motion detection in the miniature brain of the fruit fly, Drosophila. As a post-doc in Rachel Wilson’s lab at Harvard, he pioneered the study of touch processing in sensorimotor neural circuits of the fly. John is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington. His lab combines genetic tools with electrophysiology and optical imaging to understand how the fly brain senses the body and controls behavior. In 2017, John was named a Klingenstein-Simons Fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and Searle Scholar.
College of Science News - Celikel Appointed School of Psychology Chair
BIO
Tansu Celikel received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience at La Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) in Italy. After conducting postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Diego and the Max-Planck Institute for Medical Research, he set up his first laboratory at the University of Southern California in 2008. Four years later, Celikel moved to the Netherlands to establish the Department of Neurophysiology at the Radboud University, where he has since served as professor and chair. Celikel is also the director of the Donders Institute, a preeminent interdisciplinary institute in Europe devoted to the advancement of brain, cognitive, and behavioral sciences to improve health, education, and technology.
Anumantha Kanthasamy’s research program has been at the forefront in unraveling the cell signaling mechanisms underlying key pathophysiological processes of PD, including mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, dopaminergic therapy, aSyn protein aggregation, gut microbiota dysbiosis, exosome trafficking, neuroinflammation, and apoptosis. Furthermore he and his team recently adopted a highly sensitive RT-QuIC assay to successfully detect ultralow levels of pathologic αSyn aggregates from serum, plasma, CSF and submandibular and skin samples from PD and related Parkinsonian disorders. Kanthasamy’s lab translational research efforts also involve testing the efficacy of several small-molecule, peptide, and probiotic therapeutics against select targets in various experimental models of PD such as MPTP, 6-OHDA, MitoPark, and αSyn rodent models to advance them for further preclinical and clinical evaluations. The lab’s translational research efforts have resulted in several patent applications, including utility patent application 16/287,437, “L-Dopa Microbiome Therapy.” This knowledge is key to discovering new biomarkers and will advance the development of novel translational approaches for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases like PD. Kanthasamy’s program has been continuously supported by multiple NIH grants from NIEHS and NINDS for over 20 years, and he is currently funded by NIEHS, NINDS, NIBIB, MJFF, and DoD grants. He has trained over 30 Ph.D. students and his current research program employs over 25 researchers, largely comprising graduate students.
Overall his drive research projects in four major areas:
We have recently set up a paradigm where mice learn to associate sensory information (two different odors) to motor outputs (lick vs no-lick) under head-fixation. We combined this with two-photon calcium imaging, which can monitor the activity of a microcircuit of many tens of neurons simultaneously from a small area of the brain. Imaging the motor cortex during the learning of this task revealed neurons with diverse task-related response types. Intriguingly, different response types were spatially intermingled; even immediately adjacent neurons often had very different response types. As the mouse learned the task under the microscope, the activity coupling of neurons with similar response types specifically increased, even though they are intermingled with neurons with dissimilar response types. This suggests that intermingled subnetworks of functionally-related neurons form in a learning-related way, an observation that became possible with our cutting-edge technique combining imaging and behavior.
We are working to extend this study. How plastic are neuronal microcircuits during other forms of learning? How plastic are they in other parts of the brain? What are the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the microcircuit plasticity? Are the observed activity and plasticity required for learning? How does the activity of identified individual neurons change over days to weeks? We are asking these questions, combining a variety of techniques including in vivo two-photon imaging, optogenetics, electrophysiology, genetics and behavior.
BIO
Komiyama was a Postdoc at Janelia Farm, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, received his Ph.D. in Neurosciences at Stanford University (2006) and his BA in Biochemistry at University of Tokyo (2001). His Honors include: Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, Japan-Stanford Association Graduate Fellowship, Stanford Graduate Fellowship, Pew Scholars Program, Packard Fellowship and Sloan Research Fellowship. Komiyama is a NYSCF-Robertson Investigator.
Bio
Eva Dyer, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dyer’s research combines machine learning and neuroscience to understand neural circuits and computations, and build abstractions of biological organization and function that can be used to create more flexible AI systems. Eva completed all of her degrees in Electrical & Computer Engineering, obtaining her Ph.D. from Rice University and a B.S. from the University of Miami. Eva is the recipient of a Sloan Fellowship, a Next Generation Leader Award from the Allen Institute for Brain Science, a CISE Research Initiation Initiative Award from the NSF, a Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award from the McKnight Foundation, and is currently a CIFAR Global Scholar in the Learning in Machines & Brains Program.
Research
The Dyer lab, also known as the Neural Data Science (NerDS) Lab has diverse research interests spanning many areas of machine learning, neuroscience, and the intersection between the two. They both develop machine learning approaches to analyze and interpret complex neuroscience dataset and design new machine intelligence architectures inspired by the organization and function of biological brains.
The IBB Breakfast Club Seminar Series was started with the spirit of the Institute's interdisciplinary mission in mind to feature local IBB faculty member's research in a seminar format. Faculty are often asked to speak at other universities and conferences, but do not often present at their home institution - this seminar series is an attempt to close that gap. IBB Breakfast Club Seminars are open to anyone in the bio-community.
]]>The Fall 2022 Coulter BME Career Fair will be back in person on Tuesday, Sept. 20, with a second virtual day on Friday, Sept. 23.
To participate in our virtual Career Fair, download the Career Fair Plus App to register for virtual sessions with recruiters.
Download: Apple App Store | Google Play Store
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The Fall 2022 Coulter BME Career Fair will be back in person on Tuesday, Sept. 20, with a second virtual day on Friday, Sept. 23.
To participate in our virtual Career Fair, download the Career Fair Plus App to register for virtual sessions with recruiters.
Download: Apple App Store | Google Play Store
]]>
Learn how the Coulter BME Translational Research Advocate and the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) at Georgia Tech can help you:
Kashmira Kulkarni, Ph.D.
Licensing Associate
Georgia Tech Office of Technology Licensing
Adam McCallum, Ph.D.
Translational Research Advocate
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Coffee and bagels provided!
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REGISTER HERE for Participation Link. Registration is required before Monday, July 25, 2022 at 10:00 AM.
If you are a Georgia Tech student, faculty, employee you ARE a Keiretsu academic partner and the monthly meetings are FREE. GT spots are limited, so register ASAP!
Meetings are open to members, guests, sponsors, partners, and presenting entrepreneurs from any Keiretsu Forum global chapters and regions.
Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend.
Co-Moderators
Sonia Alvarez-Robinson, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Georgia Tech Strategic Consulting
Richard Barke, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Public Policy
Georgia Tech
This event is brought to you by the IBB Diversity Equity & Inclusion Committee: Edward Botchwey (BME, committee Chair), Andrés García (ME, IBB Director), María Coronel (ME, Postdoctoral Representative), Nettie Brown (BME, Pre-doctoral Representative), Lakeita Servance (Staff Representative, IBB), Milan Riddick (BME, Undergraduate Representative)
REGISTER HERE for Participation Link. Registration is required before Monday, June 20, 2022 at 10:00 AM.
If you are a Georgia Tech student, faculty, employee you ARE a Keiretsu academic partner and the monthly meetings are FREE. GT spots are limited, so register ASAP!
Meetings are open to members, guests, sponsors, partners, and presenting entrepreneurs from any Keiretsu Forum global chapters and regions.
Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend.
"AI Research: From Arrogant and Ignorant to Accountable and Inclusive"
Leo Celi, M.D.
Principal Research Scientist
Clinical Research Director, Laboratory of Computational Physiology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ABSTRACT
For those in the exciting field of medical artificial intelligence (AI), we need to remind ourselves that real-world data are heavily influenced by long-standing social, cultural, and institutional biases, as well as provider subjectivity in decision-making. How do we create AI when the ground truth is not fair? In addition, algorithms designed with perspectives that under-represent most of the world are bound to maintain the status quo. We should not only invest in storage and compute technologies, federated learning platform, GPTs, GRUs and NFTs. Our goal should be to build capacity across populations and diversity of perspectives in research. This is the biggest investment we can make to prioritize equity.
BIOGRAPHY
Leo Anthony Celi is a research scientist at MIT, where he directs the research at the Laboratory for Computational Physiology. He completed medical studies at the University of the Philippines, a master's degree in biomedical informatics at MIT and a master's degree in public health (clinical effectiveness) from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In his work around the world, he contributes to strengthening the connection between data science and clinical medicine in order to improve healthcare delivery. Celi heads MIT Critical Data, a global consortium that puts data and learning at the front and center of healthcare. His group is behind the publicly available Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC) - a huge electronic health record database that has more than fifty thousand users from around the world.
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Registration Required with GTID Credentials
If you receive an error message when registering, please login at gatech.zoom.us with your GT credentials, then retry registration.
Georgia Tech Pediatric Technologies Center brings clinical experts together with Georgia Tech scientists and engineers to develop technological solutions to problems in the health and care of children. GTPT Center provides extraordinary opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration in pediatrics, creating breakthrough discoveries that often can only be found at the intersection of multiple disciplines. These collaborations also allow us to bring discoveries to the clinic and the bedside, thereby enhancing the lives of children and young adults.
Please join M.G. Finn, James A. Carlos Family Chair for Pediatric Technology, and Leanne West, Chief Engineer, Pediatric Technologies for an information session as they share opportunities on campus to collaborate in pediatric research. Julia Kubanek, Vice President for Interdisciplinary Research, will provide brief opening remarks. Drs. Finn and West will then give a short presentation followed by plenty of time for Q&A/discussion.
"Autonomous Medical Robots Guided by Real-Time 3D Imaging"
Mark Draelos, M.D., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Associate
Entrepreneurial Postdoctoral Program
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University
ABSTRACT
Modern surgical procedures require delicate tissue interactions and thus benefit greatly from the precise manipulations offered by medical robots. Similarly, live 3D imaging modalities (e.g., optical coherence tomography, ultrasound) offer rich clinical data streams useful for guiding surgical instruments. Patients see few advances, however, that leverage both domains to deliver medical robots guided in real-time by live intraprocedural imaging. In this seminar, I report on my translational work with optical coherence tomography and ophthalmic applications to bridge medical robotics and live imaging. This work spans autonomous eye imaging of freestanding subjects, image-guided needle insertions for superficial cornea transplantation, and a robotic surgery framework for maximizing surgeon efficiency when using live volumetric imaging for guidance. In addition, I discuss early results in breaking the framerate-resolution barrier for scanned imaging modalities with online algorithms for adaptive acquisition.
BIOGRAPHY
Mark Draelos, MD, PhD, is a surgically-trained physician and engineer who develops novel applications of medical robotics and imaging to improve patient care. After studying at North Carolina State University as a Park Scholar and earning an MS in electrical engineering, he entered Duke University’s Medical Scientist Training Program to study biomedical engineering under Prof. Joseph Izatt. There, he developed image-guided robotic techniques for surgical navigation with intraoperative 3D imaging, corneal transplantation, and autonomous eye examination. His work received recognition with a National Institutes of Health F30 pre-doctoral fellowship and as a finalist in the KUKA Innovation Award. He is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, and Biomedical Optics Express. Mark is a licensed physician in the state of North Carolina, having completed an internship in general surgery at Duke University Medical Center. He is currently a postdoctoral associate in Duke University’s Entrepreneurial Postdoctoral Program.
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Securing funding for your early stage startup can be one of the most challenging aspects of entrepreneurship. In addition to providing funds for your startup to develop and grow, investors often play a key role in company management and strategy. Join us for an interactive panel discussion with investors from a variety of firms to learn what they look for in a startup company and how to position yourself for fundraising success.
Speakers:
Justin Burns, Investment Professional, Morningside Technology Advisory
Michelle Ho, Senior Associate, 5AM Ventures
Preetha Ram, Senior Managing Partner, and General Partner, INpact Fund, Pier 70 Ventures
The 2021-2022 Bench2Market Talks series which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. Click here for more details on the full series.
"Light and Sound: Integrating Photonics with Ultrasonics"
Matt O’Donnell, Ph.D.
Frank and Julie Jungers Dean Emeritus
Professor of Bioengineering
University of Washington
ABSTRACT
Coherent light and sound have become essential tools in modern medicine. Lasers are routinely used for both therapeutic and diagnostic applications, and real-time ultrasound scanning has become the dominant biomedical imaging modality in the world. Starting over thirty years ago, scientists and engineers have combined these modalities for applications ranging from non-contact sensing to novel molecular imaging techniques. In this talk, I will explore the history of integrated photonic-ultrasonic systems, focusing on examples where light generates sound, light detects sound, and sound “tickles” light. I will also present specific applications of integrated photonic-ultrasonic techniques, including photoacoustics for molecular imaging, non-contact laser ultrasound systems for medical and non-medical applications, and optical coherence elastography (OCE) in which air-coupled ultrasound stimulates propagating shear waves in the eye and skin tracked with real-time, 3-D optical coherence tomography (OCT). The talk will conclude by discussing current barriers to clinical translation of these systems and possible ways to overcome the obstacles.
BIOGRAPHY
Following undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral training at Notre Dame and Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. O’Donnell joined General Electric Corporate Research and Development Center in Schenectady, NY in 1980, where he worked on medical electronics, including MRI and ultrasound imaging systems. In 1990, he moved to University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI where he held appointments in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and in Biomedical Engineering. In 1998, he was named the Jerry W. and Carol L. Levin Professor of Engineering. From 1999-2006 he also served as Chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department. In 2006 he moved to the University of Washington in Seattle, WA where he was the Frank and Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering from 2006-2012. He is now Frank and Julie Jungers Dean Emeritus and a Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington. His most recent research has explored new imaging modalities, including elasticity imaging, in vivo microscopy, optoacoustic devices, photoacoustic contrast agents for molecular imaging and therapy, laser ultrasound systems, and catheter-based devices. He has won numerous awards, including the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Notre Dame, the Achievement and Rayleigh Awards from the IEEE-UFFC Society, the William J. Morlock Award for Excellence in Biomedical Technology from the IEEE-EMBS Society, and the IEEE Biomedical Engineering Award. He is a fellow of the IEEE and AIMBE and is an elected member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
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Due to high predicted heat on Wednesday, May 18, and an issue with Silverbell Pavilion central air conditioning, the Emory Conference Center has moved the retreat to the Lullwater Ballroom (same address). Please use the North Parking deck for complimentary parking.
Join us for the Regenerative Engineering and Medicine Center's annual retreat, hosted by Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and University of Georgia.
"Bringing New Medicine and Medical Technology to Georgians"
REGISTRATION is now closed.
The agenda will focus on entrepreneurial activities that bring promising technologies for drug development and drug delivery into clinical studies, along with opportunities to meet and collaborate with PIs who will apply to the 2022 grant RFA on this topic. RFA details (July 1, 2022 submission deadline)
AGENDA
9:45 a.m. Continental breakfast
10:15 a.m. Welcome and Introduction by Edmund K. Waller, M.D., Ph.D., Emory University
10:30 a.m. Keynote Presentation - "MERTK Drug Development: Target Discovery to Clinical Trials"
Douglas K. Graham, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Pediatrics, William G. Woods, M.D. Chair, Chief, Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Division Chief, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/BMT, Emory University School of Medicine
11:00 a.m. Seed grant awardee presentations - Hosted by Susan Thomas, Ph.D., Georgia Tech:
11:50 a.m. Poster session (Silverbell Pavilion) and lunch buffet (Main Dining Room)
1:15 p.m. Presentations - hosted by Steven Stice, Ph.D., University of Georgia:
Arriving by ride-sharing service (Uber/Lyft)?:
GPS address: 1615 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30329
Exit car at Conference Center Hotel entrance and follow walking path sign to Lullwater Ballroom.
Parking Guests: Follow signs to North Parking Deck. After parking, walk to deck entrance and follow sign to Lullwater Ballroom. When departing at end of retreat, deck gate will be open for free exit.
REM Center Website
REM Vision
The integration of engineering technologies, biological discoveries, and clinical expertise and infrastructure will establish Georgia as leader in developing and delivering clinical therapies
REM Mission
To fundamentally transform the treatment of human diseases and injuries through the development and delivery of molecular and biological therapeutics that will that enhance the body’s ability to heal itself.
“Quantitative Imaging of Blood Flow and Microvasculature with Light”
Andrew Dunn, Ph.D.
Professor, Director of Center for Emerging Imaging Technologies
Edward S. Hyman Endowed Chair in Engineering
Department of Biomedical Engineering
University of Texas at Austin
ABSTRACT
This talk will describe recent advances in real-time imaging of cerebral blood flow and microvasculature using laser speckle contrast imaging and multiphoton fluorescence microscopy. Technical developments in laser speckle imaging have enabled visualization of blood flow in humans during neurosurgery. In addition, new methods for three-dimensional visualization of microvasculature and neurons now enable longitudinal tracking of vascular morphology down to the single capillary level over several months in preclinical animal models.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Dunn's research is focused on developing novel optical imaging techniques for imaging brain function. We seek to integrate innovative photonics and computational techniques and to apply them to research questions in areas such as stroke, migraine, functional mapping during neurosurgery, and Alzheimers disease. In addition we are developing imaging techniques that aid in furthering our understanding of basic neurophysiological mechanisms. One of the techniques we have developed is laser speckle contrast imaging of blood flow, which we have used to dynamically image the cerebral blood flow changes during stroke, migraine and normal brain activation. We collaborate closely with neuroscientists, neurologists and neurosurgeons in the application of these imaging techniques to various problems related to brain function.
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REGISTER HERE - submit complimentary lunch requests by May 20
11:00 AM - Welcome
11:10—11:50 AM
“Commercialization of microfluidic technologies to enable manufacturing of safer, more precise, more cost-effective cell therapies” - Todd Sulchek, Ph.D., Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech
11:50—12:30 PM
“Path to commercialization for CMOS-MEMS sensor and actuator microsystems” - Farrokh Ayazi, Ph.D., Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech
12:30 - 1:10 PM - Lunch Break
1:10—1:50 PM
“Microneedles, patches, and STARS: translating technology from the lab into commercialization” - Mark Prausnitz, Ph.D., Regents` Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech
1:50—2:30 PM
“Starting a company is hard: lessons learned as a (new) biotech startup founder” - Mason Chilmonczyk, Ph.D., CEO, Andson Biotech and an Affiliate at the School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech
2:30 - 3:00 PM - IEN Cleanroom / MCF Tour (Optional)
SPEAKER 1
“Quantifying the Clusterness and Trajectoriness of Single-cell RNA-seq Data”
Hong Seo Lim
Graduate Student
Qiu Lab
SPEAKER 2
“Controlled Release Systems to Treat Rotator Cuff Muscle”
Joseph Pearson
Postdoctoral Fellow
Temenoff Lab
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This interactive webinar will review the basics of equity negotiation, fundraising, and dilution for life science start-ups. Our speaker, James Stubbs, Ph.D. has over 20 years of commercialization experience, has held senior executive roles in five medical device start-ups, teaches medical device design at Georgia Tech, and is an active private investor.
The 2021-2022 Bench2Market Talks series which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. Click here for more details on the full series.
"MR Engineering for Biomedical Research"
Christoph Juchem, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Department of Radiology
Columbia University
ABSTRACT
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) provide powerful tools to non-invasively access human anatomy, physiology and biochemistry in health and disease. To date, however, the potential of MRI and MRS in both research and clinical diagnostics has not been fully realized, at least in part, due to methodological and technical challenges.
Reliable extraction of biochemical information with in vivo MRS critically relies on optimal experimental conditions and procedures as well as processing and quantification strategies. In the first part of my talk, I will discuss commonly encountered challenges along with specific solutions developed in my laboratory. I will present a comprehensive framework of 1) methods for B0 homogenization (i.e. shimming), 2) MRS sequences, 3) spectral processing strategies and 4) quantification functionalities that allowed us to establish in vivo MRS as a reliable tool for clinical research at 3T and 7T. Emphasis will be given to the various freeware MRS sequences and software tools that we have made available to the community.
In the second part of my talk, I will introduce the dynamic multi-coil technique (DYNAMITE) for B0 magnetic field control invented in my laboratory. DYNAMITE B0 shimming outperforms conventional methods based on spherical harmonic functions and provides unrivaled B0 field homogeneity in rodent and human brain. I will present MRI results, including concomitant imaging and B0 shimming, in which all fields are purely DYNAMITE-based and conclude with the first realization of DYNAMITE MRI of the in vivo human brain. The obtained image fidelity is comparable to MRI with conventional gradient coils, paving the way for full-fledged DYNAMITE imaging systems and accessible MRI.
BIOGRAPHY
Christoph Juchem is Associate Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at Columbia University. In his research, he develops novel magnetic resonance methods for neuroscientific and clinical applications. His goal as a physicist is to realize the full potential of magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy as diagnostic tools. His clinical goal is to understand the role that neurochemicals play in the protection of the human central nervous system or, alternatively, how dysfunction promotes vulnerability towards neurodegenerative, neuroimmunological and psychiatric disorders.
Dr. Juchem has 20 years of experience in developing and conducting in vivo MR experiments at 3.0-11.7 Tesla in humans and animal models. He has demonstrated his scientific expertise in 50+ publications, book chapters and patents, as reviewer for 20+ scientific journals and as grant reviewer for 9 national research societies. He served as System Manager of Yale University’s Human 7T MR Scanner and as Co-Director of Yale’s 7T Brain MR Spectroscopy Core (2010-2016), Chair of the ISMRM Engineering Study group, member of the ISMRM Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC), and he serves on the editorial board of NMR in Biomedicine. He is Vice-Chair of the ISMRM MR Spectroscopy Study Group, to be Chair in 2023.
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"Advancing Next-Generation MR Instrumentation Will Pave the Way for High-Field MRI Applications in the New Era of Precision Medicine"
Hui Han, Ph.D.
Director, MR Engineering
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
ABSTRACT
Our overall research objective is to develop new tools and technologies to improve precision imaging by overcoming the challenges in high-field MRI (from 3T to 11.7T). Since the advent of MRI in the 1970s, major leaps in image quality have come via persistent increases in static magnetic field (B0) strengths: first from 0.5 Tesla and 1.5 Tesla in the 20th century, and now to 3.0 Tesla (3T) and 7.0 Tesla (7T) in the 21st century. One of the major objectives is to deliver improved visualization of brain microstructure changes that may arise in neurological disorders such as epilepsy, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. However, an increased B0 field also comes with proportionally increased B0 field inhomogeneity that is more difficult to correct, whereas a homogeneous B0 is imperative for correct spatial representation of the imaged object. Inhomogeneous B0 field, induced by subject-specific magnetic susceptibility changes across organs, remains a tough and fundamental limitation that can compromise the fidelity, sensitivity, resolution, and speed of MRI, especially advanced and quantitative MRI techniques.
Hardware-based B0 shimming is the most direct approach to rectifying B0 inhomogeneity. Modern MR scanners are equipped with low-order shim coils outside the magnet bore (Figure), distant from and incapable of performing high-order shimming of human organs. This setup has remained essentially unchanged for decades. Meanwhile, the same period has seen major advances in RF coil technology, primarily the introduction of multichannel RF phased array. The phased array replaced the volumetric coil with multiple RF surface coils closely surrounding the target organ, enabling high sensitivity and fast ‘parallel imaging’ acquisition. An analogous move from distant, low-order coils to the surface, high-order arrays is long overdue for B0 shim coils as well, but practical solutions have eluded developers. This talk summarizes our work in breaking the convention by combining shim coils into standard RF coils (Figure), thereby maximizing both RF sensitivity and shim efficacy. The development of these tools will pay the way for high-field MRI applications for both animal and human high-field studies for which excellent field homogeneity and high RF sensitivity are a prerequisite.
BIOGRAPHY
Hui Han is the Director of MR Engineering who has established an MRI Engineering Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. His research has a longstanding focus on novel MRI hardware and methodologies. His engineering experiences involve a systematic array of MRI hardware components including RF array coil, B0 shim, magnetic field and gradient monitoring, and MR-compatible devices. His research outcome has led to several U.S. patents on MRI instrumentation under licensing negotiations with vendors such as GE Healthcare. In particular, he spearheaded the development of the integrated RF/shim coil technology, known as iPRES (integrated Parallel Reception, Excitation, and Shimming). This is a new concept for combining B0 shimming and RF into a single array coil (i.e., AC/DC coil). It has received considerable attention from the community, highlighted in several plenary lectures, including those hosted by major vendors such as Siemens and GE Healthcare. His research aims to develop new tools and technologies to improve precision imaging by overcoming the challenges in high-field MRI (from 3T to 11.7T).
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SPEAKER 1
"Comparison of Methods to Assess Cerebrovascular Reactivity in Healthy Adults Using Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy"
Kyle Cowdrick, MSE
Graduate Student
Buckley Lab
SPEAKER 2
"Novel High-Throughput Contraction Cytometer to Probe Pericytes Nanomechanics in Microvascular Pathologies"
Md. Mydul Islam, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Myers Lab
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“Advancing Neuroimaging to Extract Neural and Physiological Dynamics”
Jingyuan Chen, Ph.D.
Instructor
Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging
Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School
ABSTRACT
The past decade has witnessed rapid advancements of non-invasive functional neuroimaging techniques, which have enabled new insights into our brain’s function and physiology. How can we best acquire and analyze the data to optimize these cutting-edge techniques? And how can we integrate multi-faceted information gathered from different modalities to achieve a holistic view on our brain’s function and physiology in health and disease? This talk will discuss several projects centered around these themes. First, I will share my explorations into the opportunities and pitfalls of extracting maximal information from fMRI data collected at high spatiotemporal resolutions. Second, I will present my past and ongoing studies that integrate fMRI with simultaneously acquired physiological, EEG or functional PET signals to elucidate the vascular, functional and metabolic correlates of intrinsic brain activity across wake and sleep. Finally, I will highlight exciting directions that my lab will pursue in both the short- and long-term.
BIOGRAPHY
I am an Instructor at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School. I received my PhD from Stanford University, with a major in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Statistics. My thesis work focused on advancing general fMRI methodology and characterizing the temporal dynamics of brain spontaneous fluctuations. Excited by the continuing technical advances in human neuroimaging, I sought for further postdoc training in multi-modal methods (EEG-fMRI, functional PET-MRI) and 7T high-field fMRI at MGH. Supported by an NIH K99/R00 award, my current and future research will focus on integrating various cutting-edge neuroimaging techniques to probe the neuronal, vascular, energetic and neuromodulatory mechanisms underlying brain functional dynamics.
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“Teasing Apart the 'Target' of Brain Stimulation for Depression with Computation”
Bryan Howell, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University
ABSTRACT
Depression is a condition characterized by persistent negative mood and has become the leading cause of disability worldwide. About one third of people with depression fail to respond to standard treatments, and 1−2% of depressed individuals have a severe unremitting form that requires surgical intervention. One evolving surgical option for depression is subcallosal cingulate (SCC) deep brain stimulation (DBS). Good outcomes in SCC DBS are achieved when placing the stimulating electrode within the confluence of nearby white matter, but it’s still unclear which fiber tracts and what proportions need to be activated to produce an optimal antidepressant response. Additionally, activation of SCC white matter produces no immediately adjustable behaviors, so dosing must be monitored under expert psychiatric care. Without a behavioral readout, computational modeling has served a role in defining candidate targets for stimulation, and our working hypothesis is that activation of forceps minor and the cingulum bundles by SCC DBS are sufficient to produce a therapeutic response. Detailed MR-based head models of SCC DBS were used to tailor energy delivery to each target tract in 7 subjects undergoing SCC DBS, and we studied potentials evoked by 2 Hz stimuli using 256-sensor EEG. In 6 of the 7 subjects, we observed a two-state response. Each cingulum bundle drove a lateralized, quasi-static response approximately 30 ms in duration when 50% or more of the pathway was activated, but this response was terminated or subdued when less than 10% of forceps minor was co-activated. With co-activation, a state shift occurred, propagating a bilaterally symmetric wave from anterior to posterior over 150 ms. If reproducible over a larger population, these bioelectronic signatures of connectomic engagement could provide a cost-effective method for target confirmation in studies of future and past cohorts. Lesson learned from developing SCC DBS inspire a new frontier of data-driven, personalized strategies of neuromodulation for depression.
BIOGRAPHY
Bryan Howell (PhD) is a graduate from the University of Michigan with broad experience in prosthetic devices used for brain stimulation. He completed his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Duke University in 2015, with work focused on developing new electrode designs for neuromodulation, and undertook fellowships in deep brain stimulation for depression at Case Western Reserve University and Emory University. He is now a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University.
Dr. Howell’s research focuses on applications of neuromodulation for depression, namely with deep brain stimulation (DBS) and transcranial electrical stimulation (tES). These two experimental techniques show promise as an alternative treatment option and adjunct when standard approaches fall short, but their clinical outcomes are still too variable for widespread adoption. By combining computation, neuroimaging, and electrophysiology, we study these techniques at multiple scales, translating theory into new strategies by understanding how applied electromagnetic fields interact with the neural milieu. We currently have funding to study the bioelectronic signatures of connectomic perturbations in DBS for depression, and are running a feasibility study in humans that combines tES with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to test interferential and combinatorial approaches for noninvasive brain stimulation.
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“Imaging Inflammation and Metabolic Abnormalities in the Diseased Brain using PET and MRI”
Caroline Guglielmetti, Ph.D.
Assistant Professional Researcher,
Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science &
Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging
University of California, San Francisco
ABSTRACT
Metabolic alterations are central to many neurological disorders, where they relate to neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, or other components of disease manifestation. Yet, despite this prominent involvement and potentially high therapeutic relevance, a lot remains unknown regarding the temporal dynamics and cellular substrates of metabolic changes during disease pathogenesis. Studying metabolic alterations in the in vivo brain can thus importantly help us gain novel insights into disease onset and progression, develop novel biomarkers, and aid with the evaluation and development of disease-modifying therapies.
In this talk, I will present the use of hyperpolarized 13C magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) imaging to detect neuroinflammatory processes and metabolic alterations in preclinical models of multiple sclerosis (MS) and traumatic brain injury (TBI), as well as its ability to monitor immunomodulatory therapy responses. Hyperpolarized 13C magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging is an emerging method that can be used to image metabolic fluxes in real-time with high sensitivity. It has seen application to a variety of disorders and organs, with proven utility in both rodent and human subjects, highlighting its strong translational relevance. I will further discuss our most recent work using novel positron emission tomography (PET) tracers to detect activated T-cells in preclinical models of MS. Importantly, across these studies, I used conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approaches together with molecular biology methods to relate the novel hyperpolarized 13C MRS and PET imaging phenotypes to their metabolic and cellular substrates.
Altogether, I show that with these novel brain imaging tools we can now specifically track metabolic alterations in innate immune cells as well as infiltration of activated T-cells, throughout disease progression and in response to therapy. Through these innovations, we have gained fundamental new insight into MS and TBI in rodent models, and have contributed importantly to validate new imaging strategies that can now be translated into the clinical setting.
BIOGRAPHY
I am an Assistant Professional Researcher in the departments of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, and Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at the University of California San Francisco. My research primarily focuses on developing and validating novel imaging tools to detect neuroinflammation using preclinical metabolic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. My goal is to determine the role of the immune system in the progression of cerebral diseases, particularly multiple sclerosis, and identify clinically relevant MR and PET biomarkers of progression and therapeutic response.
I obtained a BS and MS in Biology/Neurosciences from the University of Toulouse-III (France) and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Antwerp (Belgium). As a PhD candidate, I used optical imaging and MRI to untangle inflammatory and demyelination processes, while testing new ways to modulate inflammation in multiple sclerosis models. In my postdoctoral studies, I demonstrated the ability of metabolic hyperpolarized (HP) 13C MR spectroscopy to detect pro-inflammatory macrophages in the brain of multiple sclerosis models. I also have a strong interest in promoting these methodological advances to other neurological diseases, including traumatic brain injury and cognitive impairment.
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"Real-Time, Phase-Dependent Reactivation of Memories in the Mammalian Brain"
John A. White, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering,
Boston University
President, Biomedical Engineering Society
ABSTRACT
Memory processing in the mammalian brain is a dynamic cognitive task requiring coordination between various brain regions. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the theta rhythm, a 4-12 Hz population oscillation, is important for memory function in a variety of species, including rodents and humans. The SPEAR (separate phases for encoding and retrieval) model, a computational model based on in-vitro electrophysiological and anatomical data, proposes that different phases of theta (peak versus trough) separate recall of stored memories from encoding of new experiences. Using real-time optogenetic stimulation of memory-encoding neurons, we tested the hypothesis that recall-phase drive is more behaviorally effective. Our results support this model: appropriately phased driven activity drives more robust recall and shows other hallmarks of normal memory processing. Our results suggest that real-time processing will be an important component of memory prostheses in the future.
BIOGRAPHY
John A. White, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University and President of the Biomedical Engineering Society. He has joint appointments in the Program in Neuroscience and the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. He is PI and Program Director for BU BME’s long-standing NIGMS training grant in Quantitative Biology and Physiology. Prof. White received his BS in BME from Louisiana Tech University (1984) and his PhD in BME from Johns Hopkins University (1990).
Dr. White’s research group uses engineering and computational approaches to study computation in single neurons and networks. He is known for describing the biophysical bases of neuronal oscillations and the factors that limit signal-to-noise in neurons and neuronal networks. He is author of over 100 peer-reviewed publications and has given over 150 invited lectures. White is a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering.
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Fredrick Bulondo
Graduate Student, Babensee Lab
"Optimization of IL-10 Incorporation for Dendritic cells Encapsulated in PEG-4MAL Hydrogel"
Biomaterials and immunoengineering research has enabled the development of advanced therapies to treat cancer, autoimmunity, and other immune-related pathologies. While much effort has been contributed to biomaterials for immunostimulatory applications such as vaccines and cancer, there has been far less focus on biomaterials that promote tolerance and regulatory mechanisms. Here, we seek to develop a biomaterial construct system for delivery of Dendritic cells (DCs) as therapies against Multiple Sclerosis, an autoimmune inflammatory disease that causes demyelination of the neurons in the Central Nervous System (CNS).
This biomaterial system is comprised of a poly(ethylene glycol)- 4 arm maleimide (PEG-4MAL) hydrogels conjugated with the immunosuppressive cytokine, interleukin, IL-10, which is injectable, in situ crosslinkable and degradable system for localized delivery of immunosuppressive DCs. Henceforth, it important to incorporate IL-10 with hydrogels encapsulating DCs because this immunosuppressive cytokine provides a tolerogenic environment that keeps DCs in their immature phenotype which consequently enhances cell viability and optimizing the system’s immune modulatory functionality. The amount of IL-10 incorporated in hydrogel is expected to maintain incorporated DC viability, immunosuppressive phenotype and protection against pro-inflammatory insult as compared to hydrogel-incorporated DCs without IL-10. Furthermore, released IL-10 from implanted hydrogels is expected to promote DC phenotypic stability and mute the in vivo inflammatory response due to the foreign body response or the autoimmune environment.
Based on preliminary results previously conducted in the laboratory, hydrogels loaded with 50 ng of IL-10 exhibited an effect on DC viability, phenotype and resistance to pro-inflammatory stimulus compared to DCs incorporated in hydrogels without IL-10. The benefit of IL-10 presence in the hydrogel was apparent as far as attenuating the increase in CD86 expression upon addition of a maturation stimulus but the effect was moderate.
In the current studies, we seek to optimize this system by identifying the optimal initial loading amount of IL-10 to incorporate in the hydrogel and controlling the degradability of the hydrogel to control the release rate of IL-10 from the gel. Therefore, I anticipate identifying the amount of IL-10 and the release rate profile that is optimal for immunosuppressive viability and functionality for incorporated DCs for expected in vitro and in vivo function.
Upcoming Seminars:
** This is the last seminar for Spring 2022. Seminars will resume in the fall. If you are interested in being a speaker please reach out to the organizers.
The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University is proud to announce the Symposium on Health Disparities, featuring the 2022 Academy of Medicine Distinguished Lecture:
"Diminishing Racial Disparities in Healthcare and Biomedical Research"
by Cato T. Laurencin M.D., Ph.D.
University Professor and Albert and Wilda Van Dusen Distinguished Endowed Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Chief Executive Officer, Connecticut Convergence Institute
University of Connecticut
SYMPOSIUM AGENDA
11 a.m. – 11:05 a.m.
Welcome and Introduction
11:05 a.m. – 11:50 a.m.
Symposium Lecture
11:50 a.m. – 12:05 p.m.
Coulter BME Seed Grant: “Phenotyping a Novel Mouse Model of Glaucoma in Individuals of African Ancestry”
12:05 p.m. – 12:20 p.m.
Coulter BME Seed Grant: “Research Tools for Studying Alopecia Areata as a T-cell Mediated Autoimmune Disease”
12:20 p.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Coulter BME Seed Grant: “A Preclinical Model of Allostatic Load in Traumatic Brain Injury”
12:35 p.m. – 12:50 p.m.
Coulter BME Seed Grant: “Investigating a Metabolic Link Between Obesity and Epigenetics in Triple Negative Breast Cancer”
12:50 p.m. – 2 p.m.
Lunch
2 p.m. – 3 p.m.
"Diminishing Racial Disparities in Healthcare and Biomedical Research"
3 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Panel Discussion: Diminishing Racial Disparities in Healthcare and Biomedical Research
4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Reception
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"Systems-level Analyses of the Human Gut Microbiome"
Ilana Brito, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Cornell University
ABSTRACT
How do our most intimately associated microbiota affect human health? In this talk, I will present a suite of systems-level approaches that we have developed to address this fundamental question. My lab has pioneered methods that leverage protein-protein interactions to implicate bacterial proteins in human pathways linked to disease. I will present novel methods that that enable deeper insight into the transcriptome of organisms within our guts and their spatial localization. Finally, I will shift to the problem of the spread of antibiotic resistance, in which the gut microbiota are implicated. Pathogens become multi-drug resistance by acquiring resistance traits carried by the gut microbiota. Studying this process in microbiomes is inherently difficult using current methods. I will present several methods that enable tracking of genes within the microbiome and computational tools that predict the network of gene transfer between bacteria. Overall, these systems-level tools provide data to build, engineer and refine methods to alter the microbiome for health benefits.
BIOGRAPHY
Ilana Brito is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University. Ilana received a BA from Harvard and a PhD from MIT. She received an Earth Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship from Columbia University where she launched the Fiji Community Microbiome Project (FijiCOMP), a study aimed at tracking endogenous commensal microbes and their genes between individuals and their proximal environments. She continued her postdoc work at MIT in the laboratory of Eric Alm, during which, she developed computational approaches to genome assembly, strain classification and the detection of mobile genetic elements. In her lab at Cornell, Ilana and her team are developing a suite of experimental systems biology tools to probe functions in a robust, high-throughput manner. They also have developed new technologies to track the spread of mobile genetic elements, to understand the spread of antibiotic resistance between members of the human gut microbiota. Ilana has received numerous accolades for her work, including a Sloan Research Fellowship, Packard Fellowship, a Pew Biomedical Research Scholarship and an NIH New Innovator Award.
“Remodeling Chromatin in Cancer”
Emily Bernstein, Ph.D.
Professor, Oncological Sciences
Professor, Dermatology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
ABSTRACT
Chromatin remodelers are frequently mutated in cancer, and our understanding of the cellular and physiological consequences of these mutations is beginning to emerge. Melanoma is the most lethal form of skin cancer with rising incidence, and disseminated disease is clinically challenging to treat. ARID2 is the most recurrently mutated SWI/SNF complex member in melanoma, however its tumor suppressive mechanisms in the context of the chromatin landscape remain to be elucidated. Studies will be presented of our ongoing efforts to understand the consequences of chromatin remodeling mutations in cancer, including melanoma and neuroblastoma.
BIOGRAPHY
Emily Bernstein, PhD, Professor of Oncological Sciences and Dermatology, is Co-leader of the Cancer Mechanisms Research Program at The Tisch Cancer Institute. As such, Dr. Bernstein facilitates basic research on genetic, epigenetic, biochemical, and developmental pathways that drive cancer initiation and progression, and fosters intra- and inter-program collaborations that accelerate the development of novel, targeted therapies for cancer. Dr. Bernstein studies epigenetic regulation of gene expression in cancer and development, with the long-term goal of understanding the chromatin changes that take place at the molecular level during the transformation process of normal cells to cancer cells. Her team studies melanoma, breast cancer, and neuroblastoma. Dr. Bernstein regularly teaches courses on cancer biology and serves on numerous PhD thesis committees at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is permanent member of the Cancer Genetics Study Section of the NIH Center for Scientific Review and serves as a reviewer for additional grant foundations.
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SPEAKER 1
"MR-Tracked Stylets for Gynecologic Brachytherapy"
Anthony Gunderman
Graduate Student
Chen Lab
SPEAKER 2
"Lens-induced Myopia Alters Visual ON and OFF Pathway Response Balance in the Mouse Retina"
Reece Mazade, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Pardue Lab
To-go refreshments will be served after the seminar!
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Kelly J. Cross, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Engineering Education
Chemical and Materials Engineering Department
University of Nevada, Reno
ABSTRACT
Over the past few years, we witnessed several examples of social injustice and social unrest. As human beings and engineers, we must decide how we want to respond to what happened and how we want to move forward. Calls to improve our approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have coincided with the call to update our overall engineering curriculum. Over the years, several initiatives have been launched to address such issues, which primarily attempt to address perceived inadequacies in underrepresented students. However, scarce efforts have been developed to address the engineering culture that has limited the full participation of women and people of color in engineering. Furthermore, few of us in engineering have the knowledge, skills, or ability to productively engage with issues leading to the marginalization and social unrest. Rarely do we dare to apply our problem-solving or critical thinking approaches to improving DEI. As a result, the goal of the first part of the talk is to provide engineers with language to have an honest conversation about our individual and collective response to the inequity in engineering and realign our actions to improve engineering education. This impactful workshop will provide definitions and practical examples of key DEI concepts in engineering based on holistic interdisciplinary research.
The second part of the talk will focus on Dr. Cross CAREER grant. The field of engineering has realized marginal success in achieving diversity goals regardless of investments of money, research, and time. The Gaming Intervention for Values Engineers Need (GIVEN) project will create a new efficient approach to training engineering faculty about diversity in STEM. An important outcome for the GIVEN project is to increase faculty engagement and expand diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts beyond faculty from underserved and marginalized groups. Engineering faculty, despite being aware of diversity issues, generally lack knowledge and have limited resources to intervene or make change to engage with DEI efforts. The GIVEN project is a foundation to provide engineering faculty with the needed resources to meaningfully engage with DEI concepts and could revolutionize DEI training and engineering faculty professional development. This project will measure engineering faculty beliefs about DEI and the research team will assess the impact of the gaming tool with both surveys and individual interviews. This project will encourage engineering faculty to engage with campus diversity efforts through reflection of their role and provide information resources to develop personalized strategies to contribute to local DEI efforts. The project aligns with NSF Broadening participation funding program by developing an innovative method and project to significantly impact the recruitment and retention of engineering faculty by transforming the engineering culture to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Kelly J. Cross is a data-informed, transformational mission-focused culturally responsive practitioner, researcher, and educational leader. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University in 2007 and Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2011. Cross completed her doctoral program in the Engineering Education department at Virginia Tech in 2015 and worked as a post-doctoral researcher with the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Dr. Cross worked in the Department of Bioengineering working to redesign the curriculum through the NSF funded Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant. She is a member of the ASEE Leadership Virtual Community of Practice (LVCP) that organizes and facilitates Safe Zone Training workshops. Dr. Cross has conducted workshops on managing personal bias in STEM, online and in-person, in addition to faculty training on power and privilege. Her research interests include diversity and inclusion in STEM, intersectionality, teamwork and communication skills, assessment, and identity construction. Her teaching philosophy focuses on student centered approaches such as problem-based learning and culturally relevant pedagogy. Dr. Cross’ complimentary professional activities promote inclusive excellence through collaboration. She is an NSF CAREER awardee, delivered multiple distinguished lectures, and has received a national mentoring award.
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Rafael V. Davalos, Ph.D.*
L. Preston Wade Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics
Virginia Tech
ABSTRACT
Irreversible Electroporation (IRE) is a minimally invasive surgical therapy we invented to treat unresectable tumors using low-energy microsecond pulses. IRE is unique among tissue ablation techniques in affecting only the cell membrane while tissue molecules, everything encompassing collagen structures to proteins; remain intact, thereby making treatment near critical structures such as major blood vessels and nerves possible. This form of cancer therapy received the Expedited Pathway Designation in 2018 and has been used to help thousands of patients worldwide. We are developing an advanced form of the technology, high frequency irreversible electroporation (HFIRE) for the treatment of glioblastoma (GBM). This new therapy preferentially targets cancer cells over healthy cells, transiently disrupts the blood-brain barrier for delivery of therapeutics, and induces a positive immune response. Our preclinical work focuses on helping canine patients with naturally occurring GBM, which are excellent translational models of human GBM. Results of our ongoing trials have been extremely positive, supporting that HFIRE is effective for the treatment of GBM, including tumors refractory to surgery, radio- and chemotherapies. Additionally, I will discuss our use of biotransport principles to develop licensed technologies with applications in rare cell isolation, medical device design, and focal cancer therapy.
BIOGRAPHY
Rafael V. Davalos is an Endowed Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Virginia Tech. He is also Director of the Virginia Tech ICTAS Center for Engineered Health and Co-Leader of the Signaling and Biotechnology Program within the Wake Forest Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research interests are in microfluidics for personalized medicine and developing technologies for cancer therapy. Davalos has authored 137 peer-reviewed articles and 17 book chapters, and has 37 issued patents. He has been a plenary speaker for several prestigious venues including the International Symposium of the Bioelectrochemistry Society, the World Congress on Electroporation, and the Society of Cryobiology Annual Meeting. Davalos is an ASME and AIMBE Fellow and recipient of the 2021 ASME Van C. Mow Medal. Dr. Davalos received his bachelor’s from Cornell University and doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.
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SPEAKER 1
"Improving the Accuracy of Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy Measurements of Cerebral Blood Flow"
Hongting Zhou
Graduate Student
Buckley Lab
SPEAKER 2
"Engineering Gene Expression in Breast Cancer Cells"
Isioma Ijeoma Enwerem, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Haynes Lab
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"Transcriptional Regulation of Cardiomyocyte Cell Cycle: From Mechanism to Therapeutics"
Hesham Sadek, M.D., Ph.D.
J. Fred Schoellkopf, Jr. Chair in Cardiology
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Sadek is a physician-scientist and a Professor of Cardiology, Molecular Biology and Biophysics at UT Southwestern Medical Center, where he holds the J. Fred Schoellkopf, Chair in Cardiology. Dr. Sadek’s research focuses on mechanisms and therapies for heart failure, including heart regeneration and structural correction for genetic cardiomyopathies. Dr. Sadek’s lab was the first to discover the endogenous regenerative capacity of the mammalian heart, and to identify regulators of heart regeneration in both animal models and humans. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Gilead Sciences Research Scholar in Cardiovascular Disease, the Douglas P. Zipes Distinguished Scientist Award, the American Heart Association Established Investigator Award, and was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Dr. Sadek is the Associate Editor of Circulation, the world’s leading cardiovascular disease journal. The Sadek Lab is funded by awards from the National Institute of Health, the American Heart Association, and the Leducq Transatlantic Network of Excellence among others.
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Nicole Morris, J.D.
Professor of Practice
Emory University School of Law
Director, TI:GER Program
Have you ever wondered what legal contracts are required to spin out a technology from the university? This seminar will provide an overview on contract law and licensing strategies for academic technology.
Speaker, Nicole Morris, is a member of the faculty at Emory University School of Law, as well as a professor of practice and director of the TI:GER program at Georgia Tech. Prior to joining the Emory faculty, Morris was the managing patent counsel at The Coca-Cola Company, and previously represented clients in patent and trademark litigation matters, as well as patent prosecution matters for large and mid-sized law firms. Morris also worked as an engineer for six years with 3M and Eli Lilly and has over twenty years of experience working with consumer products and technology commercialization.
The Bench2Market Talks series which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. Click here for more details on the full series.
Center for Integrative Genomics Advanced Research Seminar—CIGars
The Center for Integrative Genomics (CIG) holds monthly advanced research seminars (CIGars) with two presentations given by graduate students and post-docs. Each presentation is approximately 25 minutes with five minutes for questions. These talks are directed to graduate students and post-docs but are open to anyone who is interested in the topics.
“Recent Advances with Silk Protein Biomaterials”
David Kaplan, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Biomedical Engineering
Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering
Distinguished University Professor
Tufts University
ABSTRACT
Silk have emerged as a new family of protein-based biomaterials for a range of medical needs. Recent advances have continued to evolve the science and engineering of silks into new areas of biological impact. One topic to be discussed is the use of chemically modified silks for cell and tissue coatings as temporary protective shields to support the broader utility of these coated cells and tissues. The other topic is focused on how to bring silk-based manufacturing into the world of commodity plastics, to empower broader accessibility and utility for this material.
BIOGRAPHY
David Kaplan is the Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering at Tufts University, a Distinguished University Professor, and Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. His research focus is on biopolymer engineering, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and cellular agriculture. He has published over 1,000 peer reviewed papers, he is editor-in-chief of ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering and he serves on many editorial boards and programs for journals and universities. He has received awards for his research and teaching and is an elected Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and the National Academy of Engineering.
Faculty Host: Felipe Quiroz, Ph.D.
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Interpreter of Maladies: AI for Precision Medicine
Anant Madabhushi, Ph.D.
Donnell Institute Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Director, Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics
Case Western Reserve University
ABSTRACT
Traditional biology generally looks at only a few aspects of an organism at a time and attempts to molecularly dissect diseases and study them part by part with the hope that the sum of knowledge of parts would help explain the operation of the whole. Rarely has this been a successful strategy to understand the causes and cures for complex diseases. The motivation for a systems based approach to disease understanding aims to understand how large numbers of interrelated health variables, gene expression profiling, its cellular architecture and microenvironment, as seen in its histological image features, its 3 dimensional tissue architecture and vascularization, as seen in dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) MRI, and its metabolic features, as seen by Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) or Positron Emission Tomography (PET), result in emergence of definable phenotypes. At the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD) at Case Western Reserve University, we have been developing computerized knowledge alignment, representation, and fusion tools for integrating and correlating heterogeneous biological data spanning different spatial and temporal scales, modalities, and functionalities. These tools include computerized feature analysis methods for extracting subvisual attributes for characterizing disease appearance and behavior on radiographic (radiomics) and digitized pathology images (pathomics). In this talk I will discuss the development work in CCIPD on new radiomic and pathomic approaches for capturing intra-tumoral heterogeneity and modeling tumor appearance. I will also focus my talk on how these radiomic and pathomic approaches can be applied to predicting disease outcome, recurrence, progression and response to therapy in the context of prostate, brain, rectal, oropharyngeal, and lung cancers. Additionally, I will also discuss some recent work on looking at use of pathomics in the context of racial health disparity and creation of more precise and tailored prognostic and response prediction models.
BIOGRAPHY
Anant Madabhushi, PhD, is the Donnell Institute Professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland and director of the university’s Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD). He is also a Research Scientist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center and has affiliate appointments both at University Hospitals and Cleveland Clinic. He holds secondary appointments in the departments of Biomedical Engineering, Urology, Radiology, Pathology, Radiation Oncology, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Gen Med Sciences at CWRU.
Madabhushi’s team at CCIPD is developing and applying novel Artificial Intelligence and machine learning approaches for the diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of therapy response for a variety of diseases including several different types of cancers, cardiovascular disease, kidney and eye disease. The Center is located in Cleveland’s unique medical ecosystem, an extensive clinical network within which it boasts numerous successful collaborations including with the Cleveland Clinic and the Cole Eye Institute, University Hospitals, the VA Louis Stokes Medical Center, MetroHealth, and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at CWRU.
Madabhushi has more than 100 patents either issued or pending in the areas of medical image analysis, computer-aided diagnosis, and computer vision, more than 75 of which are issued. He was responsible for more than 10 percent of all patents awarded to Case Western Reserve University, every year, since 2017.
The author of more than 450 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers, Madabhushi is a sought after lecturer who has delivered more than 350 talks around the world. His efforts as a professor and researcher have gained international attention in the field of biomedical engineering, garnering him several awards. Most notably, Madabhushi is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biomedical Engineering (AIMBE), a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). In 2015, he made Crain’s Cleveland Business magazine’s “Forty under 40” list. In 2019, 2020, and 2021 Madabhushi was named to The Pathologist's Power List, a list of 100 most inspiring professionals in pathology and laboratory medicine. In 2020, he received the Diekhoff Award for Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring at CWRU. In 2021 he was honored as one of Crain’s Cleveland Business Notable Entrepreneurs of the year and also was conferred a Faculty Distinguished Research Award by CWRU.
Madabhushi’s work on developing “smart computers for identifying lung cancer patients who will benefit from chemotherapy” was ranked as one of the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2018 by Prevention Magazine. In 2019, Nature Magazine called him out as one of five scientists pursuing truly offbeat and innovative approaches in cancer research. His work on using AI for addressing health disparities, especially in identifying differences in appearance of prostate cancer between black and white men, received national attention in 2020.
Madabhushi has secured almost $80 million in grant funding and co-founded two companies, Vascuvis Inc. (now Elucid Bioimaging) and IbRiS Inc., which was acquired by Inspirata in 2015. He has been involved in several sponsored research and industry partnerships with medical imaging and pharmaceutical companies. In addition, more than 30 technologies developed by Madabhushi’s team have been licensed.
Katherine Hekman, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Surgery
Division of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy
Department of Surgery
Emory University School of Medicine
Dr. Katherine Hekman earned her bachelor's degree at Johns Hopkins University, followed by her MD and PhD at the University of Chicago. She then completed her vascular surgery residency at Northwestern University in 2021. She has also earned certification in interpreting vascular ultrasound (RPVI).
Dr. Hekman runs a basic science laboratory with a primary research focus on stem cell-based regenerative medicine for treating vascular disease. Her clinical research interests include reducing surgical site infections, optimizing the care of venous thromboembolism, and promoting wellness in surgical training.
Her clinical practice includes the vascular surgery services at Emory University Hospital and the Atlanta VA Healthcare System.
To attend virtually, register here.
The IBB Breakfast Club Seminar Series was started with the spirit of the Institute's interdisciplinary mission in mind to feature local IBB faculty member's research in a seminar format. Faculty are often asked to speak at other universities and conferences, but do not often present at their home institution - this seminar series is an attempt to close that gap. IBB Breakfast Club Seminars are open to anyone in the bio-community.
Dr. Green’s relationship with the Institute began long before his appointment as director. He served as the Institute’s scientific director (2002 - 2009), chief of the NHGRI Genome Technology Branch (1996 - 2009) and founding director of the NIH Intramural Sequencing Center (1997 - 2009). Prior to that, he played an integral role in the Human Genome Project.
Throughout his career, Dr. Green has authored and co-authored over 375 scientific publications.
NHGRI leadership
As NHGRI director, Dr. Green leads the Institute's research programs and other initiatives. Under his guidance, the Institute has completed two major cycles of strategic planning to ensure that its research investments in genomics effectively advance human health. The first effort yielded the highly cited 2011 NHGRI strategic vision, “Charting a course for genomic medicine from base pairs to bedside” (Nature 470:204-213, 2011); the second yielded the 2020 paper ”Strategic vision for improving human health at The Forefront of Genomics” (Nature 586:683-692, 2020).
These two strategic planning processes have guided a major expansion of NHGRI’s research portfolio, highlights of which include the design and launch of major new programs to accelerate the application of genomics to medical care, to catalyze the growth of genomic data science, to continue leading efforts to unravel the functional complexities of the human genome and to enhance the building of a robust and diverse genomics workforce of the future.
With the rapidly expanding scope of genomics research, Dr. Green has also led NHGRI’s close coordination with other NIH components, agencies and organizations.
Dr. Green has played an instrumental leadership role in developing many high-profile efforts relevant to genomics. These efforts include multiple NIH Common Fund Programs — such as the Undiagnosed Diseases Network, Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa), and the Human Microbiome Project — the Smithsonian-NHGRI exhibition Genome: Unlocking Life's Code, several trans-NIH data science initiatives, the NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy, and the U.S. Precision Medicine Initiative and NIH All of Us Research Program.
Early life and education
Born and raised in St. Louis, Dr. Green comes from a scientific family. His father, Maurice Green, Ph.D., was a virologist at St. Louis University School of Medicine where he directed the Institute for Molecular Virology for over five decades. His brother, Michael Green, M.D., Ph.D., is a molecular biologist at the University of Massachusetts - Worcester where he serves as chair of the Department of Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology; vice provost for strategic research initiatives; director of the university’s Cancer Center; and co-director of the Li Weibo Institute for Rare Diseases Research. As a St. Louis native, Dr. Green is a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan.
Dr. Green received his B.S. degree in bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1981, and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Washington University in 1987. Coincidentally, 1987 was the same year that the word “genomics” was coined. During residency training in clinical pathology (laboratory medicine), Dr. Green worked in the laboratory of Dr. Maynard Olson, which is where he launched his career in genomics research. As a physician, he was drawn to genomics because of the potential of using patients’ genomic information for improving their medical care.
In 1992, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Pathology and Genetics as well as a co-investigator in the Human Genome Center at Washington University. In 1994, he joined the newly established Intramural Research Program of the National Center for Human Genome Research, later renamed the National Human Genome Research Institute.
Research contributions
While directing an independent research program for just over two decades, Dr. Green was at the forefront of efforts to map, sequence, and understand mammalian genomes. His work included significant, start-to-finish involvement in the Human Genome Project. These efforts eventually blossomed into a highly productive program in comparative genomics that provided important insights about genome structure, function and evolution. His laboratory also pursued human genetics studies and identified and characterized several human disease genes, including those implicated in certain forms of hereditary deafness, vascular disease and inherited peripheral neuropathy.
Honors and awards
Dr. Green has earned the following honors and awards:
Dr. Green has also been honored extensively as an alumnus. In 2012, his high school gave him the Ladue Horton Watkins High School Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2017, his undergraduate university honored him for his role in the Human Genome Project through a feature in the University of Wisconsin Alumni Park. He has received three awards from his medical and graduate school, Washington University: the School of Medicine Alumni Achievement Award in 2005, the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2010, and an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 2018.
Dr. Green is a founding editor of the journal Genome Research (1995 - present) and a series editor of Genome Analysis: A Laboratory Manual (1994 - 1998), both published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. He is also co-editor of Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics (since 2005).
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“Robotically Steerable Guidewires for Minimally Invasive Endovascular Surgery”
Sharan Ravigopal & Achraj Sarma
Graduate Students
Desai Lab
SPEAKER 2
“Thermal Control of T cells to Enhance Anti-tumor Immunity”
Ali Zamat
Graduate Student
Kwong Lab
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This interactive workshop will guide you through the process of setting commercialization milestones and determining your critical next steps for a “killer” experiment. Speaker, Brian Walsh, is an industry leader with more than 30 years of experience successfully taking technologies from ideas to the market.
This event is the sixth session in the 2021-2022 Bench2Market Talks series which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. For more details on the series and to view the full schedule visit https://biolocity.gatech.edu/bench2market/.
The 2021-2022 Bench2Market Talks series which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. Click here for more details on the full series.
Please click here to join via BlueJeans.
WHY MINDSET MATTERS: REDEFINING ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR ENGINEERS
Hear from three undergraduate seniors and one alum as they describe their academic and work experiences and how they’ve leveraged the entrepreneurial mindset outside of the Tech classrooms. Learn how all engineers can benefit from entrepreneurship, whether you start a company or not. Discuss where curiosity, connections, and creating value can intersect with your personal and professional stories.
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Please click here to join via Teams.
COULTER BME ALUMNI PANEL
Guests:
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Please click here to join via Teams.
GORE: A DAY IN THE LIFE
Associates listed will give introductions to their engineering roles at Gore, talk about how they entered that role, and discuss how background in BME or experience at GT prepared them for that industry role.
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The week will consist of virtual employer tabling (one-on-one interviews), company info sessions, a Best Major Ever Alumni Career Panel on non-traditional BME careers, and professional development workshops for all student levels.
To participate in virtual info sessions and virtual tabling appointments where you meet one-on-one with recruiters, please download the Career Fair Plus app and upload your resume.
Career Fair Plus - Apple App Store
Career Fair Plus - Google Play Store
Workshops Schedule
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Building an Intestine on a Micro-Scale: Simplicity Is Elegance
Nancy L. Allbritton, M.D., Ph.D.
Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering
Professor of Bioengineering
University of Washington
ABSTRACT
Biomedical microdevices, which include miniaturized assay systems and microphysiological systems, have undergone rapid advances in recent decades. This innovation is driven by a range of needs including automated, high-though put assay of ultra-small-sized samples and recapitulation of cellular or organ physiology with a precisely controlled microenvironment. A critical aspect in microdevice development is not only the engineering specifications and principles that guide construction but also the need to ensure that the devices are scalable, manufacturable, reproducible, and accurate. Simple yet elegant designs create platforms that are readily adopted by non-engineering experts facilitating widespread usage and ultimately commercialization. A micro-scale intestine that embody this “simple yet elegant” design strategy will be presented. These and other advances in biomedical microdevices are paving the way for rapid discoveries in basic and pharmaceutical sciences, as well as personalized medicine.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Nancy L. Allbritton joined the University of Washington as the Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering in November 2019. In that capacity, she serves as the chief academic officer of the college and provides leadership to over 279 faculty and more than 8,000 students. The College of Engineering is a top-15 nationally ranked public university program with annual research expenditures exceeding $159 million.
Allbritton is an international expert on multiplexed single-cell assays, microfabricated platforms for high-content cytometry combined with cell sorting, and microengineered stem-cell-based systems for recapitulating human organ-level function. Four companies have been formed based on her research discoveries: Protein Simple (acquired by Bio-Techne in 2014), Intellego, Cell Microsystems, and Altis Biosystems. Allbritton holds an appointment in the UW’s Department of Bioengineering. She has been nationally recognized for her research and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering and the National Academy of Inventors.
Prior to joining the UW, Allbritton led the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University which spans two universities and three colleges.
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Mario Penzo, Ph.D.
Investigator
National Institute of Mental Health
Bio:
Mario Penzo is a tenure-track investigator in the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He received his Ph.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed his postdoctoral training at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. His group at NIMH investigates the molecular, cellular, and neural circuit mechanisms underlying emotional and motivational processes. Specifically, they are investigating how emotional signals are represented in the brain to yield specific effects on behavior, physiology, and cognition. Current efforts are centered on the contributions of the midline thalamus to these processes.
Abstract:
Fear learning is associated with the expression of defensive behaviors upon fear memory retrieval. In rodents, these behaviors range from reactions such as freezing, to instrumental responses like active avoidance. Notably, while decades of research on Pavlovian conditioning have yielded profound knowledge of the brain mechanisms that regulate conditioned freezing behavior, the processes that shape active avoidance behavior are far less understood. During my presentation, I will discuss recent work from our group demonstrating that the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) – a midline thalamic structure previously linked to fear processing – is critical for the expression of active avoidance behavior. Currently, we are investigating how cortical and subcortical inputs to the PVT regulate avoidance behavior.
Illuminating Biomarkers of Stroke with Diffuse Optical Spectroscopies
Erin Buckley, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Tech & Emory University
Department of Pediatrics, Emory University
ABSTRACT
Our research group specializes in the development and application of diffuse optical spectroscopies to study the brain. These non-invasive, light-based tools enable real-time bedside monitoring of microvascular hemodynamics. In this seminar, I will focus on our recent work that uses these tools to identify biomarkers of stroke risk in two high-risk patient populations; subarachnoid hemorrhage and pediatric sickle cell disease. Moreover, I will talk about how we have advanced the techniques to account for the confounding influences of hematocrit in the sickle cell cohort.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Buckley received her Ph.D. in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011 under the supervision of Dr. Arjun Yodh. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Neurology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia with Dr. Daniel Licht, followed by a second postdoc at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Department of Radiology with Maria Angela Franceschini, funded by the MGH Fund for Medical Discovery. Her research has focused on the use of two complementary, non-invasive optical techniques, namely diffuse correlation spectroscopy and near-infrared spectroscopy, for quantification of cerebral blood flow, oxygenation, blood volume, and oxygen metabolism. In addition to developing and validating these techniques, her main goal has been to investigate unique clinical applications in pediatric cohorts using both clinical subjects as well as animal models.
Ming-fai Fong, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Additional details and registration coming soon!
]]>Ming-fai Fong, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Additional details and registration coming soon!
]]>Featured Speaker: Teresa Wilson
DHHS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
OPOLE Innovation & Financial Management Group
Learn about establishing a viable business model through reimbursement. Teresa Wilson will present The Reimbursement Riddle: How to transform a device into dollars.
Topics will include Insurance Coverage, Coding, and Insurance Payment.
The 2021-2022 Bench2Market Talks series which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. Click here for more details on the full series.
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Bioinformatics, Imaging, and Distributed Data Management: Big Data Science Challenges and Perspectives
Tony Pan, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist
Assistant Director of Data Infrastructure, Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS)
Georgia Tech
ABSTRACT
High content data such as radiology and pathology images and bulk and single cell sequence data are accumulating at an ever-increasing rate. Extracting meaningful information from diverse and high-volume datasets, for example gene-gene interactions from RNAseq data and morphometric features in pathology images, present complex challenges and opportunities for data access, algorithm design, and computational optimization. Concurrently, muti-site collaborations and data repository efforts are increasingly the norm with critical requirements in distributed data management, computation, and security and privacy. NSF’s Engineering Research Center for Cell-based Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT) spans 7 core universities as well as academic and industrial partners with the goal of improving manufacturing processes for cell therapy. Shriner’s Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita (AMC) Registry seeks to establish an international consortium and a distributed data repository for this rare disease, to enable better understanding of the mechanism, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease. NCI’s The Cancer Imaging Archive similarly supports radiology and digital pathology imaging-based research through its public data repository and analytics services.
In this talk, I will present some recent work in optimizing bioinformatic algorithms and implementations on multi-core and multi-node architectures, and accelerating image analysis in HPC and cloud environments. Through efficient algorithm design and implementation, we have significantly reduced the computation time for bulk and single cell sequence analysis, genome assembly, and gene regulatory network reconstruction. Using high performance clusters, GPUs, and cloud computing, our work has accelerated feature extraction in microscopy images. For large data sets, the improvements are enabling. Finally, I will discuss past and on-going experiences and challenges faced in supporting heterogeneous data management for geographically distributed partners including NCI’s The Cancer Imaging Archive, NSF’s CMaT Center, and Shriner’s AMC Registry.
BIOGRAPHY
Tony Pan is the Assistant Director of Data Infrastructure and a Senior Research Scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) Interdisciplinary Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS). Dr. Pan’s research interests center around developing data science methods to enable large scale biomedical and bioinformatic studies, namely through flexible and extensible data management, high performance computing (HPC) approaches, and efficient sequential and parallel algorithms. Currently, Dr. Pan is leading the data management infrastructure definition and implementation to support the NSF Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT) at GT, and the development of data management infrastructure and gene association studies for the Arthrogryposis Registry at Shriner’s Hospitals for Children. In the areas of HPC and bioinformatics, he has been developing efficient algorithms for genomic sequence analysis, gene regulatory network reconstruction and single cell sequencing data analysis. His prior experiences include middleware and applications development for large scale data management in distributed environments, including in NCI’s Cancer Bioinformatics Grid (caBIG) project, a multi-institutional effort to create a data sharing. He has also made significant contributions in the areas of large-scale microscopy image and genomic sequence data analysis, leveraging HPC and parallel algorithms and machine learning methods.
Interneurons as a Gatekeeper of New Goals
Nuri Jeong
Graduate Student
Prausnitz Lab
Long-acting Contraception by Microneedle Patch: Surface Science of Microneedle Fabrication Process
Derek Jang
Graduate Student
Brooks Lab
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Additional details coming soon! Join the talk virtually here.
]]>Christopher Rozell, Ph.D.
Professor
Department Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
This meeting will be hosted as a hybrid event. Attendees have the option to join in-person at the EBB CHOA room or virtually. Join the talk virtually here.
]]>Toward Therapeutic Targeting of Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation Dynamics in Skin
Alexa Regina Avecilla
Graduate Student
Quiroz Lab
Multivalent Immune Cell-Redirecting Therapies for Leukemia
Priscilla Do, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dreaden Lab
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ABSTRACT
Adenosine is a small molecule that counteracts inflammation. Under normal conditions, adenosine calms immune cells to allow healing following trauma or infection. Yet unlike normal cells, cancer cells generate abnormally high levels of adenosine that keep immune cells from destroying them. Additionally, the inflamed tumor landscape supports increased expression of adenosine receptors on both cancer and immune cells. In tumors, high adenosine concentrations coupled with increased adenosine receptor density result in the following: 1) suppressed immune cells are unable to attack tumors, and 2) adenosine signaling encourages cancer cells to make more adenosine. I report the development of a human enzyme, Homo sapiens adenosine deaminase I (HsADA1), to reduce adenosine concentrations in tumors. HsADA1 degrades adenosine so efficiently that the process is limited by how quickly adenosine can diffuse into the enzyme rather than the enzyme’s ability to act upon it. When administered to mice with tumors, HsADA1 slows tumor growth and extends the lifespan of treated mice relative to mice provided placebo. Following resolution of HsADA1’s structure, we mutated the enzyme for enhanced stability at conditions like those in the body. I will further discuss ongoing efforts to better HsADA1 functionality as a cancer therapeutic and the subsequent impact on tumor mouse models. From a 30,000-foot view, I intend to demonstrate the efficacy of adenosine depletion as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of solid cancers through my work with HsADA1.
Upcoming Immunoengineering Trainee Seminars - Spring 2022
March 4 - Maggie Brown & Erin Connolly (Gibson Lab) and Grazia Marsico (Singh Lab)
April 15 - Maggie Manspeaker (Thomas Lab) and Fredrick Bulondo (Babensee Lab)
The goal of this series is to enhance our Immunoengineering community here at Georgia Tech and to include involvement from Emory participants at regular intervals. Seminars will feature one or two research presentations by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, followed by lively discussion.
If you have any questions or are interested in being a speaker, please contact Karen Martin, Abir Muhuri, or Belinda Joseph. Thanks!
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B.J. Casey, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Psychology
Yale University
]]>
Anqi Wu, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE)
Georgia Tech
Abstract
Computational neuroscience is a burgeoning field embracing exciting scientific questions, a deluge of data, an imperative demand for quantitative models, and a close affinity with artificial intelligence. These opportunities promote the advancement of data-driven machine learning methods to help neuroscientists deeply understand our brains. In particular, my work lies in such an interdisciplinary field and spans the development of scientifically-motivated probabilistic modeling approaches for neural and behavior analyses. In this talk, I will first present my work on developing Bayesian methods to identify latent manifold structures with applications to neural recordings in multiple cortical areas. The models are able to reveal the underlying signals of neural populations as well as uncover interesting topography of neurons where there is a lack of knowledge and understanding about the brain. Discovering such low-dimensional signals or structures can help shed light on how information is encoded at the population level, and provide significant scientific insight into the brain. Next, I will talk about probabilistic priors that encourage region-sparse activation for brain decoding. The proposed model provides spatial decoding weights for brain imaging data that are both more interpretable and achieve higher decoding performance. Finally, I will introduce a series of works on semi-supervised learning for animal behavior analysis and understanding. I will show that when we have a very limited amount of human-labeled data, the semi-supervised learning frameworks can well resolve the scarce data issue by leveraging both labeled and unlabeled data in the context of pose tracking, video understanding, and behavioral segmentation. By actively working on both neural and behavioral studies, I hope to develop interpretable machine learning and Bayesian statistical approaches to understanding neural systems integrating extensive and complex behaviors, thus providing a systematic understanding of neural mechanisms and biological functions.
Bio
Anqi Wu is an Assistant Professor at the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE), Georgia Institute of Technology. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. degree in Computational and Quantitative Neuroscience and a graduate certificate in Statistics and Machine Learning from Princeton University. Anqi received USC Chevron Fellowship and was selected for the 2018 MIT Rising Star in EECS. Her research interest is to develop scientifically-motivated Bayesian statistical models to characterize structure in neural data and behavior data in the interdisciplinary field of machine learning and computational neuroscience. She has a general interest in building data-driven models to promote both animal and human studies in the system and cognitive neuroscience.
2022 KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Joni L. Rutter, Ph.D.
Acting Director
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
National Institutes of Health
]]>
Yvonne Shyntum, J.D., Ph.D., partners with clients in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries to help protect, enforce and realize the value of intellectual property.
To this end, she provides creative counsel that aligns with her clients’ business goals and delivers immediate results.
Shyntum brings a sophisticated understanding of complex science and technology subjects to her work, aided by her Ph.D. in pharmacology as well as training in molecular biology, animal models of human disease, redox biology and toxicology. She combines a passion for discovery with savvy for finding the most innovative, practical, and efficient legal solutions for her clients.
Shyntum works primarily with universities, medical device companies and cutting-edge startups, counseling on all aspects of patent portfolio management, patent procurement and prosecution and due diligence. She regularly drafts and prosecutes U.S. patent applications; drafts invalidity, freedom to operate, and non-infringement opinion letters; and represents clients in pre-grant appeals. Yvonne also partners with a select group of lawyers around the globe to help clients prosecute patent applications in foreign jurisdictions.
Clients call on Shyntum to secure patents that add value to their business and protect against competitors. She is an “outside the box” thinker who is proactive about finding solutions that capture the broadest commercial scope for her clients’ innovations. A strong negotiator who won’t take “no” for an answer, Yvonne is not afraid of challenging patent examiners and their scientific assumptions in order to obtain the best outcome.
Shyntum's strong record of success is rooted in productive, longstanding client relationships. She places a premium on individualized attention and service, and clients appreciate her thorough preparation, constructive communication, technical know-how and budgetary sensitivity.
Shyntum is a member of the State Bar of Georgia and actively involved in peer organizations such as the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM).
Select Awards
This event in the series is co-hosted by Georgia Tech's Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB), VentureLab, and CMaT. For inquiries or suggestions about future seminars, contact Cynthia Sundell, Senior Director of Life Sciences, IBB, or Harold Solomon, Principal, VentureLab.
“All-optical Super-resolution Imaging of Molecules in their Nanoscale Cellular Context”
Joerg Bewersdorf, Ph.D.
Professor of Cell Biology and of Biomedical Engineering
Yale School of Medicine
ABSTRACT
Super-resolution optical microscopy has become a powerful tool to study the nanoscale spatial distribution of proteins of interest in cells over the last years. Imaging these distributions in the context of other proteins or the general cellular context is, however, still challenging. I will present recent developments of our lab which tackle this challenge: 4Pi-SMS microscopy simultaneously localizes up to three species of proteins with sub-10 nm localization precision in 3D. A new fluorogenic DNA-PAINT probe enables fast, 3D whole-cell imaging without the need for optical sectioning, adding a versatile tool to the toolbox of single-molecule super-resolution probes. Labeling proteins and other cellular components in bulk in our recent pan-Expansion Microscopy method provides ultrastructural context to the nanoscale organization of proteins, replacing complex correlative light/electron microscopy by an all-optical imaging approach.
BIOGRAPHY
Joerg Bewersdorf is a Professor of Cell Biology and of Biomedical Engineering at Yale University. He received his Master's degree (Dipl. Phys., 1998) and his doctoral degree in physics (Dr. rer. nat., 2002) training with Dr. Stefan W. Hell at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen, Germany. After 4 years at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, he relocated his research group to Yale University in 2009. An optical physicist/biophysicist by training, Dr. Bewersdorf has been a long-time contributor to the field of super-resolution light microscopy development and the application of these techniques to cell biological questions.
Faculty Host: Shu Jia, Ph.D.
]]>"Droplet Microfluidics Enables Diagnostics and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing"
Jeff T. H. Wang, M.D., Ph.D.
Louis M. Sardella Professor
Whiting School of Engineering
Johns Hopkins University
ABSTRACT
The talk describes droplet microfluidic-based platforms for pathogen detection and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). I will first introduce droplet magnetofluidics, a technology that eliminates the need for large, complex instrumentation and fluidics typically associated with clinical laboratory nucleic acid amplification testing. Droplet magnetofluidics facilitates facile extraction and purification of nucleic acid targets from clinical samples and concentrates them into a small volume for amplification detection. The assay miniaturization helps maximize the thermocycling speed and minimize reagent consumption, thereby enabling a molecular test with a short turnaround time of 15 minutes and a low assay cost of ~$2. The magnetofluidic diagnostic platforms have demonstrated clinically relevant sensitivity and specificity for Hepatitis C viral infections, sexually transmitted diseases, and, recently, COVID-19. Meanwhile, I will also present a microfluidic single-cell biosensing platform that employs droplet microfluidics to enable pathogen detection without performing nucleic acid amplification via hybridization detection of 16S rRNA from single bacterial cells captured in picolitre droplets. In-droplet quantitative measurements of genetic contents from single bacterial cells also provide a surrogate for accelerating AST. When applied to urinary tract infections, the droplet-based single-cell platform achieved both pathogen identification and AST from urine samples in 30 minutes, as opposed to 2-3 days by conventional culture-based methods.
BIOGRAPHY
Tza-Huei (Jeff) Wang is a professor in mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, where he has served as faculty since 2002. He earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering from UCLA in 2002. His research focuses on the development of innovative micro- and nano-biotechnologies for molecular analysis and biomedical research. His vision is a healthier and more equitable world that is realized through new molecular analysis and diagnostic technologies that not only have unprecedented performances in sensitivity, specificity, speed, multiplexity, and temporal and spatial resolution, but are also affordable and accessible to the public.
A major area of Wang’s research is advancing the detection of genetic and epigenetic biomarkers for cancer and related diseases, which will enable clinicians to identify patients at high cancer risk, to detect cancer at earlier stages, and to develop personalized treatments and improve patient outcomes. To do this, he leverages micro- and nano-scale sciences to create new biomolecular analysis and sensing technologies. For example, Wang created ultra-sensitive DNA nanosensors that use quantum dot-fluorescence resonance energy transfer (QD-FRET) to detect a variety of cancer biomarkers, including point mutations, DNA methylation, and gene copy variations in clinical laboratories. He also engineered a powerful single-molecule detection instrument called CICS (cylindrical illumination confocal spectroscopy) to enable precise direct measurements of circulating DNA in human blood serum—a promising surrogate marker for cancer and prenatal diseases that could not be precisely measured by PCR or sequencing due to sampling error and extraction-induced damage of DNA. In addition, Wang combined high-resolution melt curve analysis and microfluidics to develop a platform called HYPER-Melt (high-density profiling and enumeration by melt) for ultrasensitive detection of DNA methylation—an epigenetic marker for cancer. HYPER-Melt was capable of detecting as low as one methylated variant in 2 million unmethylated templates (0.00005%) while revealing epigenetic heterogeneity that had been challenging to detect by traditional methods. According to Wang, these technologies have great potential for realizing the full promise of genetics and epigenetics in improving the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and related diseases.
Faculty Host: David Myers, Ph.D.
]]>Yi-Yen Chen, Ph.D. is the Managing Director at Echo Investment Capital. She has over 10 years of healthcare-related experience. Prior to joining Echo, she oversaw the US healthcare investment and portfolio management at WI Harper Group in San Francisco. She also worked in business development and drug licensing at Microbio Group in Taiwan. Chen was the R&D project head and led the development of the world’s biggest antibody portfolio for the zebrafish research community at GeneTex.
Chen completed her Ph.D. in developmental biology from Nobel Laureate Professor Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard’s lab at the Max-Planck Institute in Germany. Her postdoctoral training was in molecular biology at the Institute of Molecular Biology in Mainz, Germany, and in cancer immunotherapy at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam.
The series is hosted by Georgia Tech's Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB) and VentureLab. For inquiries or suggestions about future seminars, contact Cynthia Sundell, Senior Director of Life Sciences, IBB, or Harold Solomon, Principal, VentureLab.
]]>SPEAKER 1
Development of a forward-viewing ultrasound guidewire for peripheral revascularization
Graham Collins
Graduate Student
(PI: Brooks Lindsey)
SPEAKER 2
Lung-on-a-chip models small airway injury during mechanical ventilation
Hannah Viola
Graduate Student
(PI: Shu Takayama)
The Coulter BME Seminar Series alternates between the Emory and Georgia Tech campuses each Friday. Trainees present on the first and second Fridays of the month; invited guests and principal investigators present on the third and fourth Fridays.
]]>The development and application of physical and computational approaches has led to great strides in our understanding of the chemistry that sustains biology. The 2022 Suddath Symposium honors the life and work of our late friend and colleague, Professor Bridgette Barry, who was a true pioneer and practitioner of developing and applying the tools of physical chemistry to probe the most fundamental and challenging problems in biochemistry. In honoring Bridgette's legacy, we will bring together physical chemists, chemical biologists, and cell biologists to discuss the latest tools and approaches toward probing complex biochemical phenomena. Themes will include some of Bridgette's favorite areas of biochemistry, such as photosynthesis, ribonucleotide reduction, protein design, and the latest biological applications of spectroscopy.
This will be the 30th presentation of IBB's highly-interactive Suddath Symposium which is held annually to celebrate the life and contribution of F.L. "Bud" Suddath by discussing the latest developments in the fields of bioengineering and bioscience. The speakers include leading researchers from across the world.
Join us for a lively exploration of the math-bio interface.
The Symposium will host daily panel discussion about important issues in math-bio research and traineeship. How can we productively embed ourselves in a second discipline? What paths have led to successful math-bio careers in academia? In industry?
Support the next generation of math-bio researchers.
Following each panel, the Symposium will spotlight work being done by junior researchers from all 4 NSF-Simons MathBioSys research centers. Come support these young scientists who are forging new connections at the interface between mathematics and the bio-sciences!
Featuring plenary lecture by Belinda Akpa, Ph.D.
SCMB is happy to feature Belinda Akpa, senior scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as the Symposium's plenary speaker. Akpa, who holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at UTK, will speak on "Making the most of 'tiny data' in systems biomedicine" in the 12 noon plenary session on Thursday 12/16.
Contribute your own work to our poster session.
Following the plenary session, the Symposium will host a poster session via spatial conferencing platform spatial.chat. Enhace the scientific reach of our event by contributing your own work!
Poster presenters are also invited to contribute a 90 second pre-recorded "microtalk". The microtalks will run on loop in our spatial.chat coffee break space, serving as an advertisement for your work in the lead up to the poster session.
SCMB, a National Science Foundation-Simons MathBioSys Research Center, is a collaborative partnership of seven institutions united in advancing the mathematics of complex biological systems and expanding communities at the math-bio interface.
Learn about the differing regulatory pathways for devices, therapeutics, diagnostics, and digital health technologies. We’ll review the many variables in cost and timeline and what they mean to you and your technology. Come ready with questions for featured speaker, Grace Powers.
Grace Powers is an independent regulatory affairs consultant. She founded Powers Regulatory Consulting in 2015 to help clients with regulatory strategies and submissions. Her clients have included universities, investors, start-ups and mid-size medical device companies. She has fifteen years of industry experience in medical devices including research and development. She has previously worked at Brookhaven Medical, Bard Medical, CardioMEMS and Novoste, all in the Atlanta area. She has leadership experience with managing regulatory affairs responsibilities related to all pre- and post- marketing regulatory activities and submissions. Her RA submission experience includes 510(k), Pre-Submissions, IDE, PMA, EU Technical Files and Design Dossiers. She has also managed an International RA team which including Canadian licensing, TGA, Japan, China, Russia, Latin America and other country submissions. Grace holds an BE in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, an MS in Biomedical Engineering from UCLA and an MBA from Georgia Tech. She is RAC US, RAC Europe, and RAC Global certified.
The 2021-2022 Bench2Market Talks series which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. Click here for more details on the full series.
]]>"Linking computation and neurobiology in control of reaching"
Matthew Kaufman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy
Division of the Biological Sciences
University of Chicago
ABSTRACT
The ability to make rapid, accurate movements is critical for survival and is a key function of the mammalian brain. My lab aims to understand how mammalian cortex generates motor commands, at two levels. First, we wish to identify the computations that convert a high-level representation of a motor goal into coordinated, precisely timed commands to the muscles. Using data from reaching monkeys, we demonstrate a new way of understanding the neural dynamics that perform this command generation. Second, we wish to understand how the diversity of cell types and connectivity in neural circuits supports these computations. To approach this problem, much greater biological access is required. We therefore use calcium imaging to record from large numbers of neurons in reaching mice. We show that mouse cortex reflects fine details of arm, paw and digit movements that were not previously known, in a system where we can identify or perturb specific neurons based on their genetic profile or projection target. Together, these approaches lay a path for closer ties between the theory and biology of mammalian motor control.
Faculty Host: Chethan Pandarinath, Ph.D.
]]>"Ranking-based Artificial Intelligence: from Clinical Decision Support to Precision Medicine"
Xia Ning, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Biomedical Informatics
Associate Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
Ohio State University
ABSTRACT
Due to the rapid growth of information available about individual patients, most physicians suffer from information overload and inefficiencies when they review patient information in health information technology systems. To address this issue, we developed ranking-based AI/ML systems to improve information retrieval from electronic health records (EHRs) and to facilitate clinical decision support. Our systems leverage the key ideas from Recommender Systems for prioritizing patient information based on various similarities among physicians, patients and information items. The need for information prioritization/selection is not unique only in EHR systems; for example, selecting the right drugs for the right patients is a primary goal of precision medicine. With similar ranking-based AI/ML techniques, we also tackled the problem of cancer drug selection in a learning-to-rank framework and formulated the cancer drug selection problem as to accurately predicting the ranking positions of sensitive drugs for each patient. In this talk, I will be presenting our ranking-based AI/ML methods for clinical decision support and for precision medicine and showcase the effectiveness of ranking-based AI/ML techniques for information prioritization in general application scenarios.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Xia Ning is a tenured Associate Professor in the Biomedical Informatics Department and Computer Science and Engineering Department, The Ohio State University. She co-directs the Computational Health and Life Sciences Community of Practice at the Translational Data Analytics Institute (TDAI) at OSU. Dr. Ning received her Ph.D. from University of Minnesota, Twin cities, in 2012. From 2012 to 2014, she worked as a research staff member at NEC Labs, America. From 2014 to 2018, she was an Assistant Professor in the Computer and Information Science Department, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis. She joined OSU in July 2018. Ning’s research is on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning with applications in Biomedicine. In specific, Ning’s research focuses on developing scalable AI/ML models and computational methods to derive knowledge from heterogeneous Big Data via modeling, ranking, classification and prediction, etc., and ultimately to solve critical and high-impact problems. Specific research topics include information retrieval from electronic medical records, drug candidate prioritization for drug discovery, cancer drug selection for precision medicine, etc. Dr. Ning is a fellow of American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA).
]]>
"Responsive polymer nanoplexes for gene therapy and wound healing applications"
Thomas H. Epps III, Ph.D.
Allan & Myra Ferguson Distinguished Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Director, Center for Research in Soft matter & Polymers (CRiSP), and Center for Hybrid, Active, & Responsive Materials (CHARM)
Joint Professor, Materials Science & Engineering,
Affiliated Professor, Biomedical Engineering
University of Delaware
ABSTRACT
Vascular bypass grafting is a routine treatment for cardiovascular diseases; however, nearly 50% of bypass grafts fail within a few years following surgery due to cellular inflammatory responses at the suture sites. To overcome this problem, we synthesized novel diblock polymers to deliver nucleic acid therapeutics capable of promoting healing in a spatiotemporal manner. A key component of our design is a monomer containing photocleavable o-nitrobenzyl moieties linking cationic groups to the polymer backbone so that light irradiation can induce polymer hydrolysis and charge reversal. The polymers self-assemble with anionic nucleic acids in solution to form nanoparticle complexes with a PEG “stealth” coating. Application of a photo-stimulus disrupts the electrostatic interactions to trigger the release of bound nucleic acids, such as siRNA, from the nanocomplexes. More significantly, our soft nanoparticles maintained stability in serum, exhibited robust cellular uptake, facilitated nanocarrier imaging, and were capable of photo-responsive on/off control over gene expression. These formulations enabled the knockdown of two key functional genes, IL1β and CDH11, that are implicated in inflammatory responses in human aortic adventitial fibroblasts. The complete knockdown of both genes, in combination, resulted in significant attenuation of TGF-β1-triggered fibroblast proliferation and differentiation into myofibroblasts, two of the primary hallmarks of fibrosis. Further attenuation over clinically relevant time scales was achieved by modulating the polyplex dosing regimen by taking input from a recently developed kinetic model, whose creation was enabled by our polymer design. Finally, we have very recently expanded our kinetic modeling to link in vitro experiments and in vivo delivery results.
BIOGRAPHY
Prof. Epps is the Director of the Center for Research in Soft matter & Polymers and the Thomas and Kipp Gutshall Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware (UD) with a joint appointment in Materials Science & Engineering and an affiliated appointment in Biomedical Engineering. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 1998 and an M.S. from Chemical Engineering from MIT in 1999. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 2004. Prof. Epps was a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at NIST from 2004-2006, prior to joining UD in the Fall of 2006.
His research interests include nanostructured soft materials from biobased feedstocks, nanotemplating of polymer films and coatings, polymeric materials for ion-conduction membranes (batteries and fuel cells), polymer/MOF composites, and nanostructured assemblies for targeted drug delivery and gene therapy. Prof. Epps has received several honors and awards including: the John H. Dillon Medal from APS (2016); the Owens-Corning Early Career Award from AIChE (2015); named a Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences (2014); the Sigma Xi Young Investigator Award (2014); the Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professorship at MIT (2012); the Thomas & Kipp Gutshall Professorship at UD (2012); the UD Alison Society, Gerard J. Mangone Young Scholars Award (2011); the DuPont Young Professor Grant Award (2010); the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) (2009); the Air Force Young Investigator Award (2008); the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) Lloyd N. Ferguson Young Scientist Award (2007), and a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award (2007) among others. Prof. Epps also is active in the American Chemical Society (ACS Board of Directors Development Advisory Board), American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Physical Society (Polymers Division), and Sigma Xi. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2017 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2018. He is a member of the Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC) and an associate editor for Science Advances.
Faculty Host: Dr. Maysam Nezafati
As part of the Coulter BME Seminar Series, these talks recognize excellence in science, community, diversity, and inclusion.
]]>SPEAKER 1
Design and Development of Combination Nanomedicines for the Treatment of Pediatric Leukemias
James Kelvin, B.S.
Graduate Student
(PI: Erik Dreaden)
SPEAKER 2
Comparison of Resting-state fMRI Methods for Characterizing Brain Dynamics
Eric Maltbie, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
(PI: Shella Keilholz)
The Coulter BME Seminar Series at Emory is held on the first and third Friday of the month. Trainees present seminars on the first Friday.
]]>The December 8 seminar on Intellectual Property (IP) strategy for academic entrepreneurs will cover ownership of IP, what makes an invention patentable, how to evaluate prior art, and what it means to have freedom to operate in a technology area. Register here.
Speakers:
- Sarah ML Wilkening, Ph.D. (Patent Agent, Troutman Pepper)
- Christopher C. "Rusty" Close Jr. (Partner, Troutman Pepper)
The 2021-2022 Bench2Market Talks series was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. Click here for more details on the full series.
Like the ASH conference, the BMT Workshop will be a hybrid event with the option to attend in-person in Atlanta, Georgia or via a virtual format. The Georgia Tech venue is 1.5 miles from the Georgia World Congress Center, the location for the ASH annual meeting.
AGENDA
Free registration required by by all participants - deadline December 6.
The BMT Cell Therapy Winter Workshop was created by co-chairs Dr. Marcel van den Brink, Head of the Division of the Hematologic Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Dr. Edmund K. Waller, Director of the Center for Regenerative Engineering and Medicine at Emory University. Since its inception in 2012, the annual workshop has provided a catalytic forum that has helped facilitate the communication and application of new technologies to old and new challenges in the field of stem cell transplantation and cellular immunotherapy. The workshop will continue to build on progressive and innovative research with topics covering unpublished clinical and pre-clinical data pertinent to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and cell therapy.
On Twitter? Use #BMTWorkshop
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Symposium Agenda
If you cannot attend in-person, please join us virtually on BlueJeans with this link.
M-CELS Seed Fund Competition Guidelines
What is M-CELS @ GT-Emory?
Multi-cellular engineered living systems (M-CELS) are purpose-driven living systems with multiple interacting living components. They are engineered for specific goals or functions but take emergence into account during the design process, allowing the final system to emerge through natural and non-natural biological processes. Principles and mechanisms derived from investigating developmental systems are used to enhance or harness multicellular form and function. M-CELS research is intended to provide a fundamental engineering understanding that enables a quantitative approach bridging between single cells and organs or organisms.
The purpose of this seed grant is to promote interdisciplinary collaborations between researchers. We view this as a stepping stone for larger scale proposals from the M-CELS @ GT-Emory community and a practical follow-up from the December 3rd Kickoff Meeting.
Where do the funds come from?
The NSF Science and Technology Center Emergent Behavior of Integrated Cellular Systems (EBICS) existed between GT, MIT, and UIUC and other partner institutions from 2010-2020.
EBICS is using programmatic funds in its final year of no cost extension to catalyze a larger footprint of related research activity beyond the 5 EBICS funded researchers at GT.
How can I use the money?
We expect to support approximately 10 grants for $10,000 direct cost each to be spent from January – June 2022. Due to constraints associated with the source of the funds, we can only provide Materials and Supplies costs.
What is the selection criteria?
What do I need to do now?
We request that only participants of the kick off meeting can apply, and investigators will become members of the new M-CELS @ GT-Emory center. The proposal must include an interdisciplinary team with new collaborations. Please submit no more than a 1 page proposal with a clear hypothesis, approach, and a plan for future funding by Sunday, December 12, 2021 to Melissa Kemp. Please provide a separate brief budget page indicating M&S costs. The proposals will be reviewed by selected external experts.
What do I need to do in the future?
Please use this unique opportunity to get a new collaborative idea going! Be sure you spend the
money within the dates provided. We may ask your team to present at a future M-CELS@GTEmory event.
This is a virtual event. To attend, join on BlueJeans.
Frank Tong Ph.D.
Centennial Professor of Psychology
Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
Vanderbilt University
Tong Research
It has been claimed that convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have now achieved human-level performance at object recognition tasks. However, modest changes to the object stimuli or to the viewing conditions can sometimes cause state-of-the-art CNNs to fail, raising questions as to whether they truly process visual information in a manner that mimics the human visual system. Here, I will present behavioral and neuroimaging data demonstrating the robustness of human vision when tasked with recognizing objects in severe levels of visual noise. Our functional MRI studies demonstrate the powerful role of top-down attentional feedback in dampening neural responses to visual noise, clutter, and competing overlapping objects. In experiments that directly pit human observers and CNNs, we find that humans outperform CNNs by a large margin and that they are affected by white noise and spatially correlated (‘pink’) noise in qualitatively different ways. We developed a noise-training procedure, generating noisy images of objects with low signal-to-noise ratio, to investigate whether CNNs can acquire robustness that better matches human vision. After noise training, CNNs could outperform human observers while exhibiting more similar qualitative patterns of performance. Moreover, noise-trained CNNs provided a better model for predicting human recognition thresholds on an image-by-image basis. Layer-specific analyses revealed that the contaminating effects of noise were dampened, rather than amplified, across successive stages of the noise-trained network. Our findings suggest that CNNs can learn noise-robust representations that better approximate human visual processing, though it remains an open question as to how the incorporation of top-down attention mechanisms might further improve the correspondence between artificial and biological visual systems.
"Biomedical Innovations to Address Global Cancer Inequities"
Nimmi Ramanujam, Ph.D.
Robert W. Carr Jr. Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University
ABSTRACT
The latter half of the 20th century witnessed major reductions in infant and childhood deaths in developing countries. The upshot is that many more people are living to adulthood and old age. Ironically, however, cancer is rapidly out pacing the incidence of infectious diseases. The cancer statistics are staggering. More than two-thirds of the 10 million annual cancer deaths occur in developing countries and this number is expected to double by 2040.Yet, the allocated cancer resources are less than one-third that in developed countries. With rapid advances in low cost, high performance health care innovations, we have the opportunity to leapfrog from entrenched models of cancer care that have been a mainstay in affluent settings to innovative modalities of care - analogous to the demise of landlines in favor of modern cell phones. This is an exciting and realistic prospect. In my talk I will provide examples of specific technologies we are developing to address global cancer inequities, a challenging task given the limited resources available to adopt models that are currently in place in high income countries.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Ramanujam is the Robert W. Carr Professor of Engineering and Professor of Cancer Pharmacology and Global Health at Duke University and co-program leader of the Radiation Oncology and Imaging Program (ROIP) at the Duke Cancer Institute. She founded the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies (GWHT) in 2013 where she empowers trainees to create impactful solutions to improve the lives of women and girls globally. This center, since inception, has catalyzed new research activities and the development and commercialization of several technologies that advance prevention and treatment of cervical and breast cancer.
Dr. Ramanujam’s work has led to low-cost and efficient health care and home-based technology innovations that provide surveillance of cancer and its recurrence. To complement her translational efforts, Dr. Ramanujam’s work exploits the dynamic changes in tumor metabolism that allow cancers to go under the radar and recur in a stealth mode when conditions are favorable. She is also creating a liquid-based ablative therapy with dual roles - (1) to address the pressing issue of cancer control in environments where access to surgery is scarce, and (2) enhance tumor kill through a combination of necrosis and T cell infiltration occurring as a result of tumor antigen presentation following ablation.
Dr. Ramanujam has built several global initiatives. The most notable is a consortium to impact cervical cancer prevention in low resource settings. Her MacArthur Foundation 100&Change proposal, Women-Inspired Strategies for Health: A Revolution against Cervical Cancer (WISH) was recognized as one of the Top 100 of the 755 proposals submitted to this $100M grant competition (Macarthur 100&Change). In addition to her cervical cancer prevention initiative, she has also created a global women’s education program that intersects design-thinking, STEM concepts, and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals to promote social justice awareness (IGNITE). She has launched an arts and storytelling initiative to raise awareness of sexual and reproductive health inequities (The (In) Visible Organ).
She has created two companies, Zenalux and Calla Health, to commercialize her technologies.
Faculty Host: Dr. Erin Buckley
]]>Fairhall Research
The Fairhall lab uses mathematical and statistical methods to study the relationship between neuronal circuitry and functional algorithms of computation. Through collaborations with experimental labs we develop analysis and modeling to understand how: single neurons transform their inputs; what rules govern adaptation in different sensory modalities; how the properties of single neurons contribute to their role in network dynamics; how algorithms of learning, memory and motor control are instantiated in the dynamics of neural circuits in birdsong, invertebrate models and primates.
To attend in-person, register here.
To attend virtually, join on BlueJeans.
]]>"Understanding cell-cell particle-cell interaction in blood: Implication in the design and clinical translational of vascular-targeted drug carriers"
Lola Eniola-Adefeso, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Graduate & Professional Education, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor of Chemical Engineering
University of Michigan
ABSTRACT
Vascular-targeted particle therapeutics offer the possibility of increased drug effectiveness while minimizing side effects often associated with systemic drug administration. Factors that influence the likelihood of targeted particle therapeutics to reach the vascular wall are the ability to identify: 1) a disease-specific target, 2) the appropriate drug carrier type and geometry for efficient interaction with the vascular wall, and 3) a drug-carrier combination that allows for the desired release of the targeted therapeutics. Our work focuses on probing the role of particle geometry, material chemistry, and blood rheology/dynamics on the ability of vascular-targeted drug carriers to interact with the blood vessel wall - an important consideration that will control the effectiveness of drug targeting regardless of the targeted disease or delivered therapeutically. This presentation will highlight the carrier-blood cell interactions that affect drug carrier binding to the vascular wall and alter critical neutrophil functions in disease. The talk will present the material design parameters for optimal drug carriers' design for active and passive use in treating many inflammatory diseases.
Faculty Host: Dr. Maysam Nezafati
As part of the Coulter BME Seminar Series, these talks recognize excellence in science, community, diversity, and inclusion.
]]>"Personal Rehabilitation Informatics using Mobile Technologies"
Ivan Lee, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science and of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Massachusetts Amherst
ABSTRACT
Each year, nearly 800,000 individuals in the United States suffer from a stroke, a major cause of severe disability. Almost 80% of stroke survivors experience chronic motor and cognitive impairments, which significantly affect their performance of activities of daily living and health-related quality of life. The use of mobile technologies, such as smartphones and wearable devices, has emerged as an effective tool to collect important personal data relevant to functional conditions and performance levels in stroke survivors. In this talk, I will introduce my research team's recent efforts to (1) understand patients' motor, cognitive, and/or behavioral health conditions outside the clinical setting and (2) provide information-driven technological interventions to promote self-management of rehabilitation.
BIOGRAPHY
Ivan Lee is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMass Amherst. He received his PhD in Computer Science, MS in Computer Science, and MS in Electrical Engineering, all from the University of California Los Angeles in 2010, 2013, and 2014, respectively. From 2014 to 2016, he was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School.
Ivan is a recipient of the NSF CRII Award and NIH Trailblazer Award for young investigators. He is currently an Editor of the International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC) and an Associate Editor of the ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare (HEALTH) and the IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology (OJEMB). He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and an elected Member of the Technical Committee on Wearable Biomedical Sensors and System of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS). Ivan has served as an organizing committee member for several flagship conferences in the area of wearable computing and health informatics. He is a recipient of the Armstrong Research Award, Lilly Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, and ADVANCE Fellowship for Faculty Equity at UMass Amherst.
]]>An anesthetized model will be available along with GCMI personnel and surgical equipment. GCMI’s personnel includes veterinary surgeons, veterinary technicians, surgical technicians and program leaders with expertise in 11 therapeutic areas. The event will take place with investigators being assigned 1-2-hour time slots throughout the day. Investigators will be matched with appropriate technical staff for support as needed. Equipment includes, but is not limited to: digital x-ray, fluoroscopy, ultrasound, endoscopes, cautery, power injector, drills and microCT. In addition to animate models, cadaveric models may be available based on timing and demand. Applicants will be determined based on the appropriate match with GCMI’s capabilities and the ability to maximize the use of the model for other investigators.
GCMI Pilot Research Request Form
GCMI, a non-profit 501(c)(3), is the world’s leader in driving efficient medical product innovation.
Using our proven high-quality processes, our expert staff serves Fortune 500, start-up, academic and government funded innovators. We work in over 11 therapeutic areas and a wide-array of medical products (Class I, II and III) including drugs and biologics. We are a fee-for-service provider with in-house expertise for successfully executing the medical product value-chain including the following service lines:
GCMI is a non-profit 501(c)(3) affiliate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, a member of the University System of Georgia. GCMI is also a member of the GA Bio and the Southeastern Medical Device Association (SEMDA).
]]>SPEAKER 1
"Single Cell Force Cytometry Reveals a Clinically Relevant Immuno-modulated Biophysical Biomarker"
Oluwamayokun Oshinowo, B.S.
Graduate Student
(PI: David Myers)
SPEAKER 2
"C/EBPß, a master-regulator, triggered by d-flow"
Aitor Andueza, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
(PI: Hanjoong Jo)
The Coulter BME Seminar Series is held on the first and third Friday of the month. Trainees present seminars on the first Friday.
]]>Join the November 17th for a panel discussion with Emory University and Georgia Tech faculty and alumni entrepreneurs sharing their commercialization journey. Learn about their experiences and hurdles to bring their innovations out of academia and into the marketplace. Register Here
This event is the third session in the 2021-2022 Bench2Market Talks series which was created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. For more details visit https://biolocity.gatech.edu/bench2market/.
]]>Frank Hammond, III, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Tech / Emory University
REGISTER HERE for Participation Link
On Wednesday, November 17, Frank Hammond and the Chief Engineer of Pediatric Technology at Georgia Tech, Leanne West, will discuss some of the work being performed in robotics as it relates to pediatric healthcare. He will share his experience with robotic devices, particularly of a halo traction device for kids with severe scoliosis and a Wearable Pediatric Sensory Transfer Device for Improved Neuromotor Control of Impaired Limbs and Powered Prostheses and Orthoses.
Frank L. Hammond III, Ph.D., joined George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering in April 2015. Prior to this appointment, he was a postdoctoral research affiliate and instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and a Ford postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in 2010 from Carnegie Mellon University.
]]>In this seminar we will discuss IP strategies and best practices for filing patent applications including considerations around Platform versus Product Technologies and its ramifications for technology commercialization.
The classical paradigm of tissue engineering involves the integrated use of human stem cells, biomaterials (providing a structural and logistic template for tissue formation) and bioreactors (providing environmental control, dynamic sequences of molecular and physical signaling, and insights into the structure and function of the forming tissues). This biomimetic approach results in an increasingly successful representation of the environmental milieu of tissue development, regeneration and disease. Living human tissues are now being tailored to the patient and the condition being treated. A reverse paradigm is emerging in recent years, with the development of the “organs on a chip” platforms for modeling of integrated human physiology, using micro-tissues derived from human iPS cells and functionally connected by vascular perfusion. In all cases, the critical questions relate to our ability to recapitulate the cell niches, using biomaterials, molecular and physical regulatory factors. To illustrate the state of the art in the field and reflect on the current challenges and opportunities, this talk will discuss: (i) anatomically correct bone regeneration, (ii) bioengineering of the lung, and (iii) the use of “organs on a chip” for patient-specific studies of human physiology, injury, healing and disease.
About the Speaker
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic is University Professor, the highest academic rank at Columbia University and the first engineer at Columbia to receive this distinction. The focus of her lab is on engineering functional human tissues for use in regenerative medicine and patient-specific “organs-on-a-chip” for studies of human physiology in health and disease. She is well published and highly cited, has mentored over 150 trainees, and launched four biotech companies from her lab. She is serving on the Council of the NIBIB, the HHMI Scientific Review Board, and on numerous editorial and scientific advisory boards. She was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame, received the Clemson Award of the Biomaterials Society, Pritzker Award of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Shu Chien Award of the AIChE, Pierre Galletti award of the AIMBE, and was elected Fellow of several professional societies. She was decorated by the Order of Karadjordje Star - Serbia’s highest honor, and elected to the Academia Europaea, Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Inventors, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the International Academy for Medical and Biological Engineering.
About the Speaker
Jeffrey Malins is an assistant professor in Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience and Developmental Psychology. He is also affiliated faculty with the Center for Research on the Challenges of Acquiring Language and Literacy, the Neuroscience Institute, and the Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS). Prior to joining the faculty at GSU, he was an Associate Research Scientist in Pediatrics at Yale University. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Haskins Laboratories, where he remains a Research Affiliate. His work has been supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Manton Foundation, and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Chen Research
Environmental experiences can have a powerful impact on the development of synapses and circuits in the brain. Understanding the physiological basis of brain plasticity is a question of significant interest both for basic neuroscience and improving our understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders. Our hope is that the knowledge gained from our studies will inform new therapeutic approaches for these devastating disorders. The Chen lab seeks to understand the mechanisms that underlie synaptic plasticity in the young and mature mammalian central nervous system. Our studies have focused on the thalamus, a brain region that regulates consciousness, sleep, alertness and the integration of sensory information. One area of deep interest is the establishment and optimization of thalamic circuits during development in this region. We have identified and characterized processes important for the refinement of the retinogeniculate synapse, the connection between neurons in the eye and the visual thalamus, during development as multiple inputs are eliminated and remaining synaptic inputs strengthened. In addition, we have uncovered a critical period at this synapse during which wiring of connections can be influenced by experience. In another line of research, we are interested in understanding the logic of how specific visual features (information lines) are constructed, integrated and organized in the mature thalamus, and how experience influences this process during development. Our research may have significant implications for our understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities, epilepsy and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Research Interests
Developing Diagnostics and Therapies for Neurotrauma including Traumatic Brain Injury and Spinal Cord Injury
Blue Sky Groups are unstructured meetings that provide a unique opportunity for attendees to drive the agenda and catalyze future collaborations and research opportunities.
Discussion topics may include, but are not limited to:
Share your experience, learn from others, enjoy opportunities for interdisciplinary networking and find potential collaborators!
Sponsored by Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance (GCTSA), Emory University, Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia Tech, University of Georgia.
]]>"Microbes in Orthopaedic Biomechanics"
Christopher J. Hernandez, Ph.D.
Professor, Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Cornell University
ABSTRACT
In orthopaedics, microbes are considered a major threat to the patient health and the success of orthopaedic surgery. However, findings over the past decade have demonstrated that commensal microbes – those that reside in the body naturally, play a major role in human health. The microbiome consists of the microbial organisms that colonize the human body, the vast majority of which occupy the gut. Here I provide an introduction to the microbiome including the state of the art in the field and current concepts related to how the gut microbiome could influence distant organs such as bones and joints. I review recent preclinical and clinical studies linking the gut microbiome to rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. Additionally, I discuss a preclinical model of periprosthetic joint infection and review recent work from our group showing that modulation of the gut microbiome can influence susceptibility to periprosthetic joint infection. Although much of the work done to date has focused on the effects of the microbiome on disease pathogenesis, the gut microbiome contains over 5 million bacterial genes, each a potential drug target with the potential to be a novel, inexpensive, and innocuous treatment or preventive intervention for musculoskeletal disorders.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Hernandez is a Professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and an Adjunct Scientist at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Dr. Hernandez's research in biomechanics examines the musculoskeletal system and microscopic organisms. Current projects include understanding how the microbiome influences bone, arthritis and infection of total joint replacements and how bacteria are influenced by mechanical stress and strain.
Faculty Host: Dr. Maysam Nezafati
As part of the Coulter BME Seminar Series, these talks recognize excellence in science, community, diversity, and inclusion.
]]>"Genomics and Stem Cells for Precision Cardiovascular Medicine"
Joseph C. Wu, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, Stanford Cardiovascular Institute
Simon H. Stertzer, M.D., Professor of Medicine & Radiology
Stanford University School of Medicine
BIO
Joseph C. Wu, MD, PhD is Director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute (http://cvi.stanford.edu/) and the Simon H. Stertzer, MD, Professor of Medicine and Radiology. Dr. Wu received his medical degree from Yale. He completed his medicine internship, residency and cardiology fellowship training at UCLA followed by a PhD (Molecular & Medical Pharmacology) in the UCLA STAR program. His clinical interests involve adult congenital heart disease and cardiovascular imaging.
His lab works on biological mechanisms of patient-specific and disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The main goals are to (i) understand mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases, (ii) accelerate drug discovery, (iii) develop “clinical trial in a dish” concept, and (iv) implement precision medicine for cardiovascular patients. His lab uses a combination of stem cells, genomics, epigenetics, cellular & molecular biology, physiological testing, and molecular imaging technologies. Dr. Wu has published >450 manuscripts with H-index of 108 on Google scholar. He is listed as top 1% highly cited researchers in Web of Science (2018, 2019 & 2020). Among his trainees, >35 of them are principal investigators in the US or abroad (http://med.stanford.edu/wulab.html).
Faculty Host: Dr. Sun Jin Park
Meeting ID: 974 2121 9805
Passcode: 556677
Ingo Chakravarty
VP/GM Rapid Diagnostics Solutions
Thermo Fisher Scientific
Come learn from a seasoned entrepreneur on best practices and lessons learned in developing point-of-care devices.
GLUE Lecture Series: General Lectures Uniting Everyone
This lecture series is co-sponsored by the NIH-funded Atlanta Center for Microsystems Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies (ACME POCT) and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Tong Research
The goal of Frank Tong's research is to investigate, characterize, and model the neural mechanisms that mediate human visual perception and cognition. What allows us to detect the presence of a clump of weeds in a lawn, to recognize an animal hiding behind a bush, or to remember the precise hue and texture of an ocean surface during sunset? A core assumption in his work is that early visual representations have a powerful but under appreciated role in higher cognitive operations, and that higher-level mechanisms of attention and working memory serve to modulate processing at early visual sites to select and maintain task-relevant visual information. Characterizing and modeling the interplay between early visual representations and higher order representations represents a long-term goal of this work. The work relies on behavioral and psychophysical methods, high-resolution fMRI, and advanced computational approaches for both data analysis and modeling. The lab has developed novel methods for decoding feature-selective responses from patterns of fMRI activity in the human visual cortex (Kamitani & Tong, Nature Neuroscience, 2005; Current Biology, 2006; Tong & Pratte, Annual Review of Psychology, 2012), and shown how these approaches can be used to characterize the neural bases of visual working memory (Harrison & Tong, Nature, 2009; Pratte et al., 2014) and object-based attentional selection (Pratte et al., J Neurophysiology, 2013; Cohen & Tong, Cerebral Cortex, 2015). In ongoing work, the Tong lab is developing, training, and testing deep convolutional neural networks as potential models for understanding the neural bases of human visual processing.
The "TOP 10" Funding Opportunities from the K4-DealRoom.com site are pre-screened and invited to the monthly Screening Meeting. Deal Flow Silo Chairs, Due Diligence Fellows, Members, and Invited Guests interested in the K4 "Entry to Exit" investment process convene to screen the companies invited to present here to reach the finalists for our Monthly Forum Meetings. K4-MA Members may request remote access attendance.
]]>SPEAKER 1
"Infraslow Brain Dynamics Entrained by Visual Stimulation in Human Brains"
Nan Xu, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
(PI: Shella Keilholz)
SPEAKER 2
"DNA-based Shear Stress Nanoreporter"
Luyao Shen, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
(PI: Yonggang Ke)
The Coulter BME Seminar Series is held on the first and third Friday of the month. Trainees present seminars on the first Friday.
]]>“Characterization of a Novel Variable Lymphocyte Receptor-based Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell for Targeting Plasma Cell Malignancies”
Sam McCachren, M.D./Ph.D. Graduate Student, Biomedical Engineering
Melissa Kemp, Ph.D., Advisor
Emory University / Georgia Tech
“Bioelectric Spatial Patterning of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells”
Andre Norfleet, Ph.D. Graduate Student, Bioenginering
Melissa Kemp, Ph.D., Advisor
Georgia Tech
If you cannot attend in person, please join us virtually via BlueJeans.
This is a great opportunity to:
"New Tools for Multi Modal Precision Measurement of Single Cells”
Aaron Streets, Ph.D
Assistant Professor, Bioengineering
University of California, Berkeley
BIO
The Streets lab is interested in applying lessons from mathematics, physics, and engineering, to invent tools that help us dissect and quantify complex biological systems. Our goal is to uncover laws that govern the interactions of molecules inside the cell and the interactions between cells in a tissue or organism, by making precision measurements on single cells. In pursuit of this goal, we exploit three core technologies; microfluidics, microscopy, and genomics.
Faculty Host: Dr. Maysam Nezafati
As part of the Coulter BME Seminar Series, these talks recognize excellence in science, community, diversity, and inclusion.
]]>Dr. Atala was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences (now the National Academy of Medicine), to the National Academy of Inventors as a Charter Fellow, and to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Dr. Atala is a recipient of the US Congress funded Christopher Columbus Foundation Award, bestowed on a living American who is currently working on a discovery that will significantly affect society; the World Technology Award in Health and Medicine, for achieving significant and lasting progress; the Edison Science/Medical Award; the Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award; the R&D Innovator of the Year Award; and the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award.
Dr. Atala’s work was listed twice as Time Magazine’s top 10 medical breakthroughs of the year, and as one of 5 discoveries that will change the future of organ transplants. Dr. Atala’s work was ranked in 2019 by the Project Management Institute as one of the top 10 most impactful biotech projects from the past 50 years. Dr. Atala was named by Scientific American as one of the world’s most influential people in biotechnology, by U.S. News & World Report as one of 14 Pioneers of Medical Progress in the 21st Century, by Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review as one of 50 key influencers in the life sciences intellectual property arena, and by Nature Biotechnology as one of the top 10 translational researchers in the world.
Dr. Atala has led or served several national professional and government committees, including the National Institutes of Health working group on Cells and Developmental Biology, the National Institutes of Health Bioengineering Consortium, and the National Cancer Institute’s Advisory Board. He was a Founder of the Tissue Engineering Society, the Regenerative Medicine Society, the Regenerative Medicine Foundation, the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, the Regenerative Medicine Development Organization, the Regenerative Medicine Manufacturing Society, and the Regenerative Medicine Manufacturing Consortium.
Dr. Atala works with several journals and serves in various roles, including Editor-in-Chief of: Stem Cells- Translational Medicine; Therapeutic Advances in Urology; and BioPrinting. He is the editor of 25 books, has published more than 800 journal articles and has applied for or received over 250 national and international patents.
]]>InQuBATE 411