The first award is sponsored by the Georgia Tech and Emory Center for Regenerative Medicine (GTEC) for a project to study new approaches for engineering multi-functional materials that control inflammation and infection to improve wound healing. The award provides funding for one year.

Dr. Champion’s study will focus on minimizing inflammation in severe wounds while preventing infection. Inflammation is a critical step in the wound healing response, not only in preventing infection, but also by providing some of the signals required for new tissue formation and remodeling. However, severe wounds, such as those seen in combat, often exhibit a prolonged inflammatory period and significant scar formation instead of regeneration of functional tissue. Scar tissue can prohibit movement and constrict further over time, requiring physical therapy and often, surgical intervention.

In order to control inflammation, Dr. Champion’s lab is designing materials that degrade inflammatory chemical signals called cytokines. They incorporate enzymes from bacteria that naturally destroy cytokines. The drawback of decreased inflammation is increased likelihood of infection. To avoid this possibility, antibiotics will be sequestered in the materials and released over time—thus providing the second functionality for wound healing.

The second award, a Broadening Participation Research Initiation Grant in Engineering (BRIGE), is sponsored by the Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET) Division of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The BRIGE funding, a two-year award, will be used to create protein nanoparticles that mimic the ability of human pathogens to control inflammation. The particles will have applications in autoimmune diseases such as arthritis. Proteins from viruses and bacteria will be linked together to create “cytokine sponges” that sequester inflammatory cytokines inside the body. The trick is to block cytokine signaling by immune cells without alerting them to the presence of foreign proteins. The Champion lab hopes to achieve this goal by altering the shape and surface chemistry of the particles. Equally important in this research are activities to encourage participation of underrepresented groups in engineering. For example, Dr. Champion is hosting middle school girls in her lab to design their own “drug delivery particles” when they visit campus for a week-long technology & engineering camp.

The third award is a joint project with Dr. Andy Neish of Emory University Medical School who studies inflammatory disorders of the intestine. The award is given by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation for one year. The project seeks to develop new therapeutics for inflammatory bowl disease by delivering a bacterial protein that interferences with inflammatory pathways inside the epithelial cells lining the intestine. For their contribution, the Champion lab is synthesizing nanoparticles capable of protecting the sensitive protein during its travel through the gastrointestinal tract to the inflamed regions of the gut and inside epithelial cells. Achieving this goal requires particles that change their properties in response to the many different environments to which they will be exposed en route.

Dr. Champion joined the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering in 2009 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at California Institute of Technology. She received her doctoral degree from University of California Santa Barbara in 2007 and her bachelor’s degree from University of Michigan in 2001.

The McDevitt Laboratory for the Engineering of Stem Cell Technologies is focused on the development and application of engineering principles to translate the potential of stem cells into viable regenerative therapies and in vitro diagnostics. Biomaterials-based approaches are used to engineer the microenvironment of stem cells in order to improve the efficiency and homogeneity of directed stem cell differentiation strategies. In addition, the McDevitt laboratory’s research focuses on development of novel regenerative molecular therapies from natural biomaterials produced by stem cells. The combination of directed stem cell differentiation and development of stem cell-derived biomaterials is expected to yield fresh insights into stem cell biology, facilitate new regenerative therapies, and create novel cell diagnostic platforms. The McDevitt laboratory research is supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, American Heart Association, and the Georgia Research Alliance, among others.

In addition to the being named the 2010 Society for Biomaterials Young Investigator, McDevitt was appointed as a Petit Faculty Fellow in the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience in September 2009 and named the Director of the new Stem Cell Engineering Center at Georgia Tech, which is scheduled to officially launch in 2010. The establishment of the first center of its kind in the United States will bring together expertise from different engineering disciplines to address key technical challenges that currently limit the translation of stem cells and to innovate new technologies that will enhance basic stem cell research. The center will include Georgia Tech faculty from the College of Engineering, College of Sciences, and Ivan Allen College, in addition to collaborative partnerships with stem cell researchers at the University of Georgia, Emory University and other partnering institutions throughout the state of Georgia.

Since August of 2004, McDevitt has been an Assistant Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology / Emory University. McDevitt graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) from Duke University in 1997 with a double major in Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Bioengineering in 2001 working in the laboratory of Patrick Stayton, Ph.D., on protein engineering, micropatterning and tissue engineering. From 2002-04, McDevitt conducted post-doctoral research in Chuck Murry's lab in the Department of Pathology at the University of Washington where he focused on mechanisms of stem cell growth and differentiation for myocardial repair.

The recipient of the SFB 2009 Young Investigator Award will receive complimentary travel, registration and hotel for the upcoming Annual SFB Meeting in San Antonio, Texas in April 2009. Furthermore, Dr. Murthy's paper that was submitted as part of your award nomination will be considered for publication in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research or Applied Biomaterials.

A training grant, entitled "Graduate Training for Rationally Designed, Integrative Biomaterials" or "GTBioMAT" was awarded by the National Institutes of Health to the Georgia Tech/Emory Biomaterials Research Team. Ravi Bellamkonda, PhD, Principal Investigator and Director and Julie Babensee, PhD, Co-Director, will be responsible for the overall management and implementation of the program

The Role of Aligned Polymer Fiber-based Constructs in the Bridging of Long Peripheral Nerve Gaps

Young-tae Kima, Valerie K. Haftelb, Satish Kumarc and Ravi V. Bellamkonda

Abstract

Peripheral nerve regeneration across long nerve gaps is clinically challenging. Autografts, the standard of therapy, are limited by availability and other complications. Here, using rigorous anatomical and functional measures, we report that aligned polymer fiber-based constructs present topographical cues that facilitate the regeneration of peripheral nerves across long nerve gaps. Significantly, aligned but not randomly oriented fibers elicit regeneration, establishing that topographical cues can influence endogenous nerve repair mechanisms in the absence of exogenous growth promoting proteins. Axons regenerated across a 17 mm nerve gap, reinnervated muscles, and reformed neuromuscular junctions. Electrophysiological and behavioral analyses revealed that aligned but not randomly oriented constructs facilitated both sensory and motor nerve regeneration, significantly improved functional outcomes. Additionally, a quantitative comparison of DRG outgrowth in vitro and nerve regeneration in vivo on aligned and randomly oriented fiber films clearly demonstrated the significant role of sub-micron scale topographical cues in stimulating endogenous nerve repair mechanisms.

Biological factors are not the only influence on stem-cell behaviour