The program annually selects sets of researchers from the Petit Institute as co-principal investigators, providing early-stage funding opportunities that serve as a catalyst for bio-related breakthroughs.

The teams and their projects are:

Shu Jia (assistant professor, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University) and Alberto Stolfi (assistant professor, School of Biological Sciences) are working on a project called, “Super-Resolution Scanning Micros- copy for Studying Neuronal Cell Biology in vivo,” a new collaboration linking novel biological discovery and imaging technology. This project will transform existing imaging infrastructure, laying a critical intellectual foundation for broader science, engineering, and technology advances. 

Costas Arvanitis (assistant professor, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University) and Liang Han (assistant professor, School of Biological Sciences) submitted a project called, “Ultrasonic actuation of mechanosensitive ion channels.” This interdisciplinary team will explore new ways to balance and control sound and vibration and study how it interacts with cell membrane proteins. Their long-term goal is to advance research in the field of neurosciences through the discovery of new tools for noninvasive, focal, and at depth manipulation of brain activity.

The Petit Institute Seed Grants provide year-one funding of $50,000 with equivalent year-two funding contingent on submission of an NIH R21/R01 or similar collaborative grant proposal within 12 to 24 months of the year-one start date (July 1, 2021).