Move over silicon. There’s a new electronic material in town, and it goes fast.
That material, the focus of the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics, is graphene – a fancy name for extremely thin layers of ordinary carbon atoms arranged in a “chicken-wire” lattice. These layers, sometimes just a single atom thick, conduct electricity with virtually no resistance, very little heat generation – and less power consumption than silicon.
With silicon device fabrication approaching its physical limits, many researchers believe graphene can provide a new platform material that would allow the semiconductor industry to continue its march toward ever-smaller and faster electronic devices – progress described in Moore’s Law. Though graphene will likely never replace silicon for everyday electronic applications, it could take over as the material of choice for high-performance devices.
And graphene could ultimately spawn a new generation of devices designed to take advantage of its unique properties.
Since 2001, Georgia Tech has become a world leader in developing epitaxial graphene, a specific type of graphene that can be grown on large wafers and patterned for use in electronics manufacturing. In a recent paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, Georgia Tech researchers reported fabricating an array of 10,000 top-gated transistors on a 0.24 square centimeter chip, an achievement believed to be the highest density reported so far in graphene devices.
In creating that array, they also demonstrated a clever new approach for growing complex graphene patterns on templates etched into silicon carbide. The new technique offered the solution to one of the most difficult issues that had been facing graphene electronics.
“This is a significant step toward electronics manufacturing with graphene,” said Walt de Heer, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics who pioneered the development of graphene for high-performance electronics. “This is another step showing that our method of working with epitaxial graphene grown on silicon carbide is the right approach and the one that will probably be used for making graphene electronics.”
For de Heer, the story of graphene begins with carbon nanotubes, tiny cylindrical structures considered miraculous when they first began to be studied by scientists in 1991. De Heer was among the researchers excited about the properties of nanotubes, whose unique arrangement of carbon atoms gave them physical and electronic properties that scientists believed could be the foundation for a new generation of electronic devices.
Carbon nanotubes still have attractive properties, but the ability to grow them consistently – and to incorporate them in high-volume electronics applications – has so far eluded researchers. De Heer realized before others that carbon nanotubes would probably never be used for high-volume electronic devices.
But he also realized that the key to the attractive electronic properties of the nanotubes was the lattice created by the carbon atoms. Why not simply grow that lattice on a flat surface, and use fabrication techniques proven in the microelectronics industry to create devices in much the same way as silicon integrated circuits?
By heating silicon carbide – a widely-used electronic material – de Heer and his colleagues were able to drive silicon atoms from the surface, leaving just the carbon lattice in thin layers of graphene large enough to grow the kinds of electronic devices familiar to a generation of electronics designers.
That process was the basis for a patent filed in 2003, and for initial research support from chip-maker Intel. Since then, de Heer’s group has published dozens of papers and helped spawn other research groups also using epitaxial graphene for electronic devices. Though scientists are still learning about the material, companies such as IBM have launched research programs based on epitaxial graphene, and agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have invested in developing the material for future electronics applications.
Georgia Tech’s work on developing epitaxial graphene for manufacturing electronic devices was recognized in the background paper produced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences as part of the Nobel Prize documentation.
The race to find commercial applications for graphene is intense, with researchers from the United States, Europe, Japan and Singapore engaged in well-funded efforts. Since awarding of the Nobel to a group from the United Kingdom, the flood of news releases about graphene developments has grown.
“Our epitaxial graphene is now used around the world by many research laboratories,” de Heer noted. “We are probably at the stage where silicon was in the 1950s. This is the beginning of something that is going to be very large and important.”
A new electronics material is needed because silicon is running out of miniaturization room.
“Primarily, we’ve gotten the speed increases from silicon by continually shrinking feature sizes and improving interconnect technology,” said Dennis Hess, director of the National Science Foundation-sponsored Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) established at Georgia Tech to study future electronic materials, starting with epitaxial graphene. “We are at the point where in less than 10 years, we won’t be able to shrink feature sizes any farther because of the physics of the device operation. That means we will either have to change the type of device we make, or change the electronic material we use.”
It’s a matter of physics. At the very small size scales needed to create ever more dense device arrays, silicon generates too much resistance to electron flow, creating more heat than can be dissipated and consuming too much power.
Graphene has no such restrictions, and in fact, can provide electron mobility as much as 100 times better than silicon. De Heer believes his group has developed the roadmap for the future of high-performance electronics – and it is paved with epitaxial graphene.
“We have basically developed a whole scheme for making electronics out of graphene,” he said. “We have set down what we believe will be the ground rules for how that will work, and we have the key patents in place.”
Silicon, of course, has matured over many generations through constant research and improvement. De Heer and Hess agree that silicon will always be around, useful for low-cost consumer products such as iPods, toasters, personal computers and the like.
De Heer expects graphene to find its niche doing things that couldn’t otherwise be done.
“We’re not trying to do something cheaper or better; we’re going to do things that can’t be done at all with silicon,” he said. “Making electronic devices as small as a molecule, for instance, cannot be done with silicon, but in principle could be done with graphene. The key question is how to extend Moore’s Law in a post-CMOS world.”
Unlike the carbon nanotubes he studied in the 1990s, de Heer sees no major problems ahead for the development of epitaxial graphene.
“That graphene is going to be a major player in the electronics of the future is no longer in doubt,” he said. “We don’t see any real roadblocks ahead. There are no flashing red lights or other signs that seem to say that this won’t work. All of the issues we see relate to improving technical issues, and we know how to do that.”
Since beginning the exploration of graphene in 2001, de Heer and his research team have made continuous improvements in the quality of the material they produce, and those improvements have allowed them to demonstrate a number of physical properties – such as the Quantum Hall Effect – that verify the unique properties of the material.
“The properties that we see in our epitaxial graphene are similar to what we have calculated for an ideal theoretical sheet of graphene suspended in the air,” said Claire Berger, a research scientist in the Georgia Tech School of Physics who also has a faculty appointment at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France. “We see these properties in the electron transport and we see these properties in all kinds of spectroscopy. Everything that is supposed to be occurring in a single sheet of graphene we are seeing in our systems.”
Key to the material’s future, of course, is the ability to make electronic devices that work consistently. The researchers believe they have almost reached that point.
“All of the properties that epitaxial graphene needs to make it viable for electronic devices have been proven in this material,” said Ed Conrad, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics who is also a MRSEC member. “We have shown that we can make macroscopic amounts of this material, and with the devices that are scalable, we have the groundwork that could really make graphene take off.”
Reaching higher and higher device density is also important, along with the ability to control the number of layers of graphene produced. The group has demonstrated that in their multilayer graphene, each layer retains the desired properties.
“Multilayer graphene has different stacking than graphite, the material found in pencils,” Conrad noted. “In graphite, every layer is rotated 60 degrees and that’s the only way that nature can do it. When we grow graphene on silicon carbide, the layers are rotated 30 degrees. When that happens, the symmetry of the system changes to make the material behave the way we want it to.”
Much of the world’s graphene research – including work leading to the Nobel – involved the study of exfoliated graphene: layers of the material removed from a block of graphite, originally with tape. While that technique produces high-quality graphene, it’s not clear how that could be scaled up for industrial production.
While agreeing that the exfoliated material has produced useful information about graphene properties, de Heer dismisses it as “a science project” unlikely to have industrial electronics application.
“Electronics companies are not interested in graphene flakes,” he said. “They need industrial graphene, a material that can be scaled up for high-volume manufacturing. Industry is now getting more and more interested in what we are doing.”
De Heer says Georgia Tech’s place in the new graphene world is to focus on electronic applications.
“We are not really trying to compete with these other groups,” he said. “We are really trying to create a practical electronic material. To do that, we will have to do many things right, including fabricating a scalable material that can be made as large as a wafer. It will have to be uniform and able to be processed using industrial methods.”
Among the significant technical issues facing graphene devices has been electron scattering that occurs at the boundaries of nanoribbons. If the edges aren’t perfectly smooth – as usually happens when the material is cut with electronic beams – the roughness bounces electrons around, creating resistance and interference.
To address that problem, de Heer and his team recently developed a new “templated growth” technique for fabricating nanometer-scale graphene devices. The technique involves etching patterns into the silicon carbide surfaces on which epitaxial graphene is grown. The patterns serve as templates directing the growth of graphene structures, allowing the formation of nanoribbons of specific widths without the use of e-beams or other destructive cutting techniques.
Graphene nanoribbons produced with these templates have smooth edges that avoid electron-scattering problems.
“Using this approach, we can make very narrow ribbons of interconnected graphene without the rough edges,” said de Heer. “Anything that can be done to make small structures without having to cut them is going to be useful to the development of graphene electronics because if the edges are too rough, electrons passing through the ribbons scatter against the edges and reduce the desirable properties of graphene.”
In nanometer-scale graphene ribbons, quantum confinement makes the material behave as a semiconductor suitable for creation of electronic devices. But in ribbons a micron or so wide, the material acts as a conductor. Controlling the depth of the silicon carbide template allows the researchers to create these different structures simultaneously, using the same growth process.
“The same material can be either a conductor or a semiconductor depending on its shape,” noted de Heer. “One of the major advantages of graphene electronics is to make the device leads and the semiconducting ribbons from the same material. That’s important to avoid electrical resistance that builds up at junctions between different materials.”
After formation of the nanoribbons, the researchers apply a dielectric material and metal gate to construct field-effect transistors. While successful fabrication of high-quality transistors demonstrates graphene’s viability as an electronic material, de Heer sees them as only the first step in what could be done with the material.
“When we manage to make devices well on the nanoscale, we can then move on to make much smaller and finer structures that will go beyond conventional transistors to open up the possibility for more sophisticated devices that use electrons more like light than particles,” he said. “If we can factor quantum mechanical features into electronics, that is going to open up a lot of new possibilities.”
Before engineers can use epitaxial graphene for the next generation of electronic devices, they will have to understand its unique properties. As part of that process, Georgia Tech researchers are collaborating with scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The collaboration has produced new insights into how electrons behave in graphene.
In a recent paper published in the journal Nature Physics, the Georgia Tech-NIST team described for the first time how the orbits of electrons are distributed spatially by magnetic fields applied to layers of epitaxial graphene. They also found that these electron orbits can interact with the substrate on which the graphene is grown, creating energy gaps that affect how electron waves move through the multilayer material.
“The regular pattern of magnetically-induced energy gaps in the graphene surface creates regions where electron transport is not allowed,” said Phillip N. First, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Physics and MRSEC member. “Electron waves would have to go around these regions, requiring new patterns of electron wave interference. Understanding this interference would be important for some bi-layer graphene devices that have been proposed.”
Earlier NIST collaborations led to improved understanding of graphene electron states, and the way in which low temperature and high magnetic fields can affect energy levels. The researchers also demonstrated that atomic-scale moiré patterns, an interference pattern that appears when two or more graphene layers are overlaid, can be used to measure how sheets of graphene are stacked.
In a collaboration with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a group of Georgia Tech professors developed a simple and quick one-step process for creating nanowires on graphene oxide.
“We’ve shown that by locally heating insulating graphene oxide, both the flakes and the epitaxial varieties, with an atomic force microscope tip, we can write nanowires with dimensions down to 12 nanometers,” said Elisa Riedo, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Physics and a MRSEC member. “And we can tune their electronic properties to be up to four orders of magnitude more conductive.”
Though graphene can be grown and fabricated using processes similar to those of silicon, it is not easily compatible with silicon. That means companies adopting it will also have to build new fabrication facilities – an expensive investment. Consequently, de Heer believes industry will be cautious about moving into a new graphene world.
“Silicon technology is completely entrenched and well developed,” he admitted. “We can adopt many of the processes of silicon, but we can’t easily integrate ourselves into silicon. Because of that, we really need a major paradigm shift. But for the massive electronics industry, that will not happen easily or gently.”
He draws an analogy to steamships and passenger trains at the dawn of the aviation age. At some point, it became apparent that airliners were going to replace both ocean liners and trains in providing first-class passenger service. Though the cost of air travel was higher, passengers were willing to pay a premium for greater speed.
“We are going to see a coexistence of technologies for a while, and how the hybridization of graphene and silicon electronics is going to happen remains up in the air,” de Heer predicted. “That is going to take decades, though in the next ten years we are probably going to see real commercial devices that involve graphene.”
In 2008, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded an $8 million Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) to a team of universities headed by Georgia Tech. Dennis Hess, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, directs the center – which is focusing on future electronic materials – with graphene its first target.
“Our goal is to develop both the science and technology, and supply the education, outreach and training needed for the new kinds of scientists and engineers who will work with these new electronic materials,” said Hess. “We want to link all of these things together to create a new platform for integrated circuits.”
Beyond the knowledge of epitaxial graphene for electronics – which was developed at Georgia Tech – the MRSEC will also tap Georgia Tech’s broad experience with microelectronics and nanoelectronics. “It will take both the knowledge of the material and a deep understanding of the electronics to make this work,” he added.
Beyond Georgia Tech, the MRSEC involves the University of California – Berkeley, the University of California – Riverside, and the University of Michigan.
For more information on the MRSEC, please visit (www.mrsec.gatech.edu).
]]>Georgia Institute of Technology
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]]>The Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) was chartered in its original form in 1960 to help the state’s industry and began its existence as the Industrial Extension Service of the Engineering Experiment Station, which is now the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). Building on that foundation, Georgia Tech now serves a broad range of companies with a goal of helping them compete better in world markets.
“We have a brick tower here at Georgia Tech, not an ivory tower,” said Stephen Fleming, Georgia Tech vice president and executive director of the Enterprise Innovation Institute. “We use Georgia Tech’s expertise in science, technology and innovation to support Georgia businesses around the state.”
The Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) in EI2 was chartered in its original form in 1960 to help the state’s industry. It began its existence as the Industrial Extension Service of the Engineering Experiment Station, which is now the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI).
The GaMEP provides a broad set of services for improving the competitiveness of Georgia manufacturing companies. It offers direct technical and engineering assistance, as well as continuing education courses and networking opportunities.
GaMEP’s staff of 30 engineers and other professionals work from nine Georgia Tech regional offices throughout the state. They offer broad expertise to client companies, and can also tap the extensive resources and expertise at the main campus.
“In fiscal 2009, EI2’s Manufacturing Extension team helped manufacturing companies reduce operating costs by $67 million, increase sales by $143 million, and create or save 1,150 jobs,” said Chris Downing, P.E., a mechanical engineer who directs of EI2’s Industry Services unit.
“In addition to providing direct expertise, we take advantage of academic and research units such as the Georgia Tech Research Institute and the Manufacturing Research Center,” Downing added. “That helps us improve Georgia companies’ competitiveness through innovative solutions.”
Lean enterprise techniques can help Georgia companies achieve major savings, said Larry Alford, director of the Georgia Tech Lean Consortium, a service of the GaMEP.
“A lean enterprise focuses on eliminating waste throughout the business – waste that costs time and money but adds no value for your customers,” Alford said.
Building flexible, predictable and capable processes increases the resources that can be redirected into growth and innovation strategies.
“When you’re sure of your ability to meet customers’ needs, it’s amazing how much time you have to be creative,” he added.
Rotary Corp., a Glennville, Ga., manufacturer, employs 450 people and recently turned out its 150 millionth lawnmower blade. Working with Robert Wray of EI2, the company participated in an initiative to identify new ideas and approaches to help the company grow.
Rotary was able to evolve new product ideas and improve its ordering system. Ed Nelson, Rotary’s president, credits the process with substantial benefits including $1.5 million in increased sales, $2 million in retained sales and 50 retained jobs. He adds that the company avoided $262,000 in unnecessary investments as a result of Georgia Tech’s assistance.
Collaboration between Georgia companies is an important new direction that can translate into waste-eliminating process improvements, Alford said. He points to Kason Industries Inc. of Newnan, which is working with other Georgia enterprises through the Lean Consortium.
Kason is participating in reciprocal meetings and plant tours with two other Newnan-area companies, E.G.O. North America Inc. and Bonnell Aluminum Inc. Currently, 34 organizations across the state are advancing their knowledge and use of lean principles through shared training and peer-to-peer relationships.
“In going through different factories and facilities, we’re able to learn new ideas and then try to expand on them within our own facilities,” said Skipper Schofield, continuous improvement manager for Kason.
Energy and environmental management are also areas where companies can readily cut waste and become leaner. The Bostik plant in Calhoun, Ga., a facility belonging to a large adhesive and sealant maker, recently worked with EI2 energy specialist Jessica Brown to reduce its energy consumption.
According to production manager Dan Conetta, Brown’s help allowed Bostik to reduce its energy consumption by some 56 percent, saving $40,000 annually.
“We needed to move to a more sustainable mode of operation,” Conetta said. “The level of expertise and the availability make the Enterprise Innovation Institute a valuable resource.”
In fiscal year 2009, EI2 helped more than a dozen Georgia hospitals adopt process improvement techniques that reduce costs and improve service. With funding from Healthcare Georgia Foundation, EI2 is helping Peach Regional Medical Center in Fort Valley improve service quality and reduce costs with process-improvement techniques adapted from manufacturing.
Peach Regional’s emergency department has already noted a 20 percent decrease in patients’ average length of stay, said Nancy Peed, the hospital’s CEO.
“I think of Georgia Tech as the world-class university with the local focus,” said Dene Sheheane, Georgia Tech’s director of governmental relations. “I love the fact that we are consciously reaching out to towns and businesses throughout the state and saying to them, ‘We’re here for you – how can we collaborate with you?’”
Learning to navigate the procurement processes of federal, state and local governments can be a challenge for small- and medium-size businesses. Smaller outfits can also have trouble keeping up with industry standards concerning manufacturing and business processes, as well as government health and safety regulations.
The Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC), an EI2 unit, approaches the issue head-on. Working from nine locations throughout the state, GTPAC counselors provide classes and other services to Georgia businesses that address the ins and outs of becoming a government vendor.
GTPAC also maintains an online electronic bid-match service that collects contracting opportunities from more than 1,200 websites where government agencies post their needs. GTPAC e-mails clients with potential business opportunities daily.
Smaller Georgia manufacturers and businesses can be handicapped if they don’t comply with worldwide industry standards such as ISO 9000 quality standards or with federal and state regulations governing workplace health and safety.
“A lot of our work is helping smaller companies become certified in standards such as ISO 9000,” said Alan Barfoot, an EI2 senior research engineer who supports businesses in central Georgia. “It isn’t new technology, but it’s often critical for these companies to become certified
to get new customers and grow their businesses.”
When Thermal Ceramics, an Augusta insulation manufacturer, needed to revamp its quality management system, EI2 professionals helped the company streamline procedures and become fully ISO certified. As a result, the company increased sales by $6 million while saving $2 million in costs.
EI2 also works with the Occupational Health and Safety Program at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) to help hundreds of Georgia businesses comply with requirements of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“It can be challenging for smaller businesses to deal with OSHA and state requirements, and we’re here to help them comply fully and stay safe,” said Daniel Ortiz, a GTRI principal research scientist who directs the OSHA programs at Georgia Tech.
Meanwhile, many regional manufacturers are facing intense competition from imported products. The Southeastern Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (SETAAC), based at EI2 and funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce, supports turnaround strategies for such companies.
In FY 2009, SETAAC helped 11 Georgia companies with 21 projects. The result was an increase in sales revenues of more than $1.7 million and the retention of 230 jobs.
SETAAC’s work has also resulted in gains in the seven other Southeast states that it serves. In the last three years, SETAAC’s clients have increased sales by 26 percent and improved productivity by 28 percent.
When Thomaston, Ga.-based Criterion Technology, an injection molding company, was hit by intense import competition, Mark Hannah, a SETAAC project manager, helped the company prepare an application for the Department of Commerce. The resulting funding allowed Criterion to make research, training and equipment investments that helped company sales rebound.
“When we perform a diagnostic review of the company, we are looking for areas that can help the company improve,” Hannah said. “We develop a list of strategic projects that will have the biggest impact on the firm.”
The Georgia Minority Business Enterprise Center (GMBEC), another EI2 unit, concentrates on aiding minority-owned businesses. It places special emphasis on firms that have potential for rapid growth and high economic impact.
The GMBEC is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency. MBEC’s project director, Donna Ennis, was recently named one of Atlanta’s Top 100 Black Women of Influence by the Atlanta Business League.
“Minority business enterprises are growing faster in our state than the general business community, and in the past seven years GMBEC has helped these companies garner more than $400 million in contracts, financing and sales while creating more than 3,200 jobs,” Ennis said. “While these businesses do have the challenges of raising capital and penetrating markets, they’re making real progress – and we’re here to help them deal with those challenges and grow their Georgia businesses.”
In another effort, Georgia Tech has teamed with the University of Georgia (UGA) in the Georgia Entrepreneur and Small Business Outreach Program (GESBO), funded by the OneGeorgia Authority to focus on smaller businesses outside metro Atlanta.
Through GESBO, Georgia Tech provides technical and government procurement consultation to Georgia manufacturers and other businesses. UGA focuses on providing these companies with marketing support such as website development and e-commerce guidance.
Karen Fite, who directs Georgia Tech’s regional network and is based in Athens, Ga., also leads GESBO for Georgia Tech. Among the program’s new directions, she said, is a series of CEO forums, which are formal mentoring events where company leaders meet in a confidential environment to discuss business issues.
“During our first fiscal year of operation, we served approximately 1,000 companies in the smaller cities and rural areas of Georgia,” Fite said. “Companies reported more than 440 new jobs, $42 million in new revenue, $11 million in new investments and $2 million in operational improvements.”
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2010 issue of Research Horizons, Georgia Tech’s research magazine.
]]>Georgia Institute of Technology
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]]>“Dr. Wang is an internationally renowned scholar and leader who will oversee Georgia Tech’s interdisciplinary manufacturing programs and their impact on economic development,” said Steve Cross, executive vice president for research. “Through his leadership, we will see a renaissance in manufacturing in this state.”
Wang will follow in the footsteps of Steven Danyluk, who served as the center’s director from 1994 to 2010. In addition to his work at MaRC, Wang will also hold an appointment as a professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
“Over the last 30 years, I have worked in various positions related to manufacturing — from operations and planning to strategy and policy,” Wang said. “The approach we will take to reaching the center’s goal of becoming the world’s manufacturing thought leader and trendsetter is to create an innovation ecosystem. We will add substantial commercial, economic and societal values to Tech professors’ inventions to license the technology to a company, create a joint venture or form a new spin-off company.”
Currently, Wang is director of the High-Performance Materials Institute at Florida State University. He also serves as an assistant vice president for research in engineering and holds the following three distinguished professorships: the Simon Ostrach Professor of Engineering, the FSU Distinguished Research Professor and the U.S. Department of Energy Samuel P. Massie Chair of Excellence.
Wang earned his bachelor’s in industrial engineering from Tunghai University in Taiwan and his master’s in industrial engineering and PhD from Pennsylvania State University.
]]>The Nash professorship wascreated through an endowment established by H. Ronald Nash (IE 1970), DeborahNash Harris (IE 1978) and Michael R. Nash (IE 1974), the children of Mary Anneand Harold R. Nash (EE 1952), in honor of their parents.
Swann’s research focuses on developingmodels and analytical methods to solve problems in logistics and supply chainmanagement and inform decisions in health systems and policymaking.
She is also developingeducational and outreach programs to governmental and non-governmentalorganizations that are involved in planning for and responding to short- andlong-term humanitarian crises, such as the pandemic influenza.
“I am truly honored to havebeen chosen for this professorship,” Swann said. “I am dedicated tohaving a societal impact through health and humanitarian research, and I'mdelighted to partner with the Nash family in furthering these causes. Theirsupport will help further the role that operations research and industrialengineering can have in improving society.”
Swann received her B.S. inIndustrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1996 and herM.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences fromNorthwestern in 1998 and 2001, respectively.
The Nash family has alongstanding and deep connection to Georgia Tech, having had three generationseducated here and launched into successful careers.
“As children of Harold andMary Anne Nash it has been our pleasure to see all of the great work being doneat Georgia Tech in the field of humanitarian logistics,” Ron Nash said. “This important area of study is poised to bring incredible benefits to thosepeople displaced in disasters as we learn how to become far more efficient ingetting the right resources to those who need them the most.”
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DARPA presents the YoungFaculty Award to outstanding junior faculty whose research will enablerevolutionary advances in the areas of the physical sciences, engineering, andmathematics. The Young Faculty Award program will fund Styczynski’s researchthrough 2013.
Styczynski’s work involvesidentifying millions of allosteric metabolite and protein interactions bothefficiently and accurately.
“Metabolites are one of themost direct, real-time readouts of cellular state that researchers can assay,” Styczynskisaid. “But they also play a significant regulatory role, which is only beginning to be understood on a large scale.”
Potential applications of Styczynski’sresearch fall into the division of DARPA known as the Defense Sciences Office, whichfocuses on developing technologies that will radically transform battlefieldmedical care. By cataloging the infinite number of metabolite-proteininteractions, his research may lead to the development of a self-regulatingdrug for soldiers in the field that shuts itself down when no longer needed.
Styczynski received hisPh.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007. He joined the facultyat Georgia Tech in 2009 after a postdoctoral appointment at the BroadInstitute, a world-renowned genomic medicine research center located inCambridge, Mass.
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The award, which is bestowedupon only one recipient each year, recognizes an individual under the age of 40for outstanding contributions to chemical engineering computing and systemstechnology literature.
A member of the Center forChemical Evolution and the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics atGeorgia Tech, Grover conducts research that focuses on understandingmacromolecular organization and the emergence of biological function throughthe kinetics of self-assembly, stochastic modeling, model reduction, machinelearning, experimental design, robust parameter design and estimation.
A 2004 recipient of aNational Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program Award, Groverjoined the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering faculty in 2003 afterreceiving her doctorate degree from the California Institute of Technology.
Grover will formally receivethe Outstanding Young Researcher Award at the Computing and Systems TechnologyDivision dinner, which will be held at the AIChE Annual Meeting this fall inMinneapolis. Sponsored by Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., the award includesa plaque and $3,000. In a congratulatory letter, Mayuresh V. Kothare, chair of the AIChE Computing and Systems Technology Division Awards committee, lauded Grover for developing methods for engineering materials structures that are both systematic and practical.
]]>A meta-analysis of the interactions shows that the infection patterns exhibit a nested structure, with hard-to-infect bacteria infected by generalist viruses and easy-to-infect bacteria attacked by both generalist and specialist viruses.
"Although it is well known that individual viruses do not infect all bacteria, this study provides an understanding of possibly universal patterns or principles governing the set of viruses able to infect a given bacteria and the set of bacteria that a given virus can infect," said Joshua Weitz, an assistant professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Discovering this general pattern of nested bacteria-virus infection could improve predictions of microbial population dynamics and community assembly, which affect human health and global ecosystem function. Knowing the patterns of which bacteria are susceptible to which viruses could also provide insights into strategies for viral-based antimicrobial therapies.
The results of the meta-analysis were published June 27, 2011 in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work was sponsored by the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
Georgia Tech physics graduate student Cesar Flores, Michigan State University zoology graduate student Justin Meyer, Georgia Tech biology undergraduate student Lauren Farr, and postdoctoral researcher Sergi Valverde from the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain also contributed to this study.
The research team compiled 38 laboratory studies of interactions between bacteria and phages, the viruses that infect them. The studies represented approximately 12,000 distinct experimental infection assays across a broad spectrum of diversity, habitat and mode of selection. The studies covered a 20-year period and included hundreds of different host and phage strains.
The researchers converted each study into a matrix with rows containing bacterial types, columns containing phage strains, and cells with zeros or ones to indicate whether a given pair yielded an infection. Then they applied a rigorous network theory approach to examine whether the interaction networks exhibited a nonrandom structure, conformed to a characteristic shape, or behaved idiosyncratically -- making them hard to predict.
Of the 38 studies, the researchers found 27 that showed significant nestedness. Nestedness was measured by the extent to which phages that infected the most hosts tended to infect bacteria that were infected by the fewest phages. The researchers used statistical tests to rule out forms of bias. However, because the majority of the data consisted of closely related species, the researchers anticipate that more complex patterns of infection may form with species with more genetic diversity.
"Considering the large range of taxa, habitats and sampling techniques used to construct the matrices, the repeated sampling of a nested pattern of host-phage infections is salient, but the process driving the nestedness is not obvious. The pattern suggests a common mechanism or convergent set of mechanisms underlying microbial co-evolution and community assembly," explained Weitz.
The researchers examined three hypotheses to explain the nestedness pattern based on biochemical, ecological and evolutionary principles, but found that additional experiments will be required to determine why this pattern occurs so often.
This meta-analysis demonstrated the utility of network methods as a means for discovering novel interaction patterns. According to the researchers, viewing host-phage interaction networks through this type of unifying lens more often will likely unveil other hidden commonalities of microbial and viral communities that transcend species identity.
This research was supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (Award No. HR0011-09-1-0055). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of DARPA.
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Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed software that facilitates an innovative approach to active reading. Taking advantage of touch-screen tablet computers, the LiquidText software enables active readers to interact with documents using finger motions. LiquidText can significantly enhance the experiences of active readers, a group that includes students, lawyers, managers, corporate strategists and researchers.
"Most computer-based active reading software seeks to replicate the experience of paper, but paper has limitations, being in many ways inflexible," said Georgia Tech graduate student Craig Tashman. "LiquidText offers readers a fluid-like representation of text so that users can restructure, revisualize and rearrange content to suit their needs."
LiquidText was developed by Tashman and Keith Edwards, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing. The software can run on any Windows 7 touchscreen computer.
Details on LiquidText were presented in May 2011 at the Association for Computing Machinery's annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Vancouver, Canada. Development of LiquidText was supported by the National Science Foundation, Steelcase, Samsung and Dell.
Active reading demands more of the reading medium than simply advancing pages, Edwards noted. Active readers may need to create and find a variety of highlights and comments, and move rapidly among multiple sections of a document.
"With paper, it can be difficult to view disconnected parts of a document in parallel, annotation can be constraining, and its linear nature gives readers little flexibility for creating their own navigational structures," said Edwards.
LiquidText provides flexible control of the visual arrangement of content, including both original text and annotations. To do this, the software uses a number of common fingertip gestures on the touchscreen and introduces several novel gestures. For example, to view two areas of a document at once, the user can pinch an area of text and collapse it.
Active reading involves annotation, content extraction and fast, fluid navigation among multiple portions of a document. To accomplish these tasks, LiquidText integrates a traditional document reading space with a dedicated workspace area where the user can organize excerpts and annotations of a text -- without losing the links back to their sources. In these spaces, the user can perform many actions, including:
For commenting, LiquidText breaks away from the traditional one-to-one mapping between content and comments. Comment objects can refer to any number of pieces of content across a document, or even multiple documents. Comments can be pulled off, rearranged and grouped with other items while maintaining a persistent link back to the content they refer to. To add a comment, users simply select the desired text and begin typing.
Content can also be copied and extracted using LiquidText. Once a section of text has been selected, the user creates an excerpt simply by dragging the selection into the workspace until it "snaps off" of the document. The original content remains in the document, although it is tinted slightly to indicate that an excerpt has been made from it. Excerpts can be freely laid out in the workspace area or be attached to one another or to documents to form groups, while each excerpt can also be traced back to its source.
"The problem with paper and some software programs is that the comments must generally fit in the space of a small margin and can only be linked to a single page of text at a time," said Tashman. "LiquidText's more flexible notion of comments and large workspace area provide space for organizing and manipulating any comments or document excerpts the user may have created."
In addition to traditional zooming and panning, the user can create a magnifying glass in the workspace by tapping with three fingers. The magnifying glass zooms in on select areas while allowing the user to maintain an awareness of the workspace as a whole. Users can manipulate the magnifying glass with simple multi-touch gestures, such as pinching or stretching to resize the lens, or rotating to change the zoom level -- like the zoom lens of a camera. Users can position, resize and control the zoom level of the magnifying glasses in a continuous motion by movements of the hand alone.
The ability to move within a document, search for text, turn a page, or flip between locations to compare parts of a text is also important for active reading. To complete these actions, LiquidText allows users to collapse text, dog-ear text and create magnified views of text.
"In contrast to traditional document viewing software, in which users must create separate panes and scroll them individually, LiquidText's functionality lets a user view two or more document areas with just one action, parallelizing an otherwise serial task," explained Edwards.
Since developing their initial prototype, the researchers have refined the software based on feedback from designers and human factors professionals, and active readers that included managers, lawyers, students and strategists.
Tashman is currently working with Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute to form a startup company to commercialize the technology. The $15,000 Georgia Tech Edison Prize he won, along with $43,000 in grants from the Georgia Research Alliance, will help launch the new company that plans to introduce LiquidText to the public later this year.
The Georgia Tech Edison Prize was established to encourage formation of startup companies based on technology developed at Georgia Tech, and was made possible by a multi-year grant from the Charles A. Edison Fund, named for the inventor's son. Presentation of the prize, the second to be awarded from the Fund, was part of the Georgia Tech Graduate Research and Innovation Conference held Feb. 8, 2011.
This project is supported in part by the National Science Foundation (Award No. IIS-0705569). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.
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Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>The Georgia Tech team joined university teams from all over the world forthe competition, held this year at Redstone Arsenal, Calhoun Community Collegeand the Alabama Robotics Technology Park in and around Huntsville, Ala., fromMay 23 - 27.
This year’s competitionfocused on the autonomy of each flying vehicle, with the judges awarding morepoints for inventions that operated without using remote or video control. Eachteam was required to restrict the size and weight of their vehicles, to competeunder time constraints, and to combat external flight obstacles such as thewind during outdoor drills.
For this year’s competition, the Georgia Tech Aerial Robotics teampartnered with Atlanta-based Adaptive Flight, Inc., which provided the teamwith one of its Hornet vehicles—a micro, unmanned rotorcraft system. Developedfor military surveillance use, the Hornet is one of the world’s smallest andmost advanced helicopters, equipped with an autopilot system, GPS-couplednavigation tools, and an advanced mechanism that allows it to drop objects onspecific targets. The team then modified the hardware and software of the craftfor two missions for the competition.
The team exceeded previous records set during the event’s flight testsduring the competition. For the outdoor autonomy competition, the team’s Hornetwas able to complete a specified course, identify and drop balls on twotargets, and land in a designated area in three minutes, beating the timeallotment of 10 minutes. The team was also able to complete the highest numberof circuits around the outdoor flight dynamics course in a four-minute window.
Established in 1991, the Georgia Tech Aerial Robotics team consists ofundergraduate and graduate students as well as researchers from the DanielGuggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and the School of Electrical andComputer Engineering. Lockheed Martin Associate Professor of Avionics IntegrationEric Johnson of the School of Aerospace Engineering is the faculty advisor forthe team.
Sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the International Micro Aerial Vehicle Competition takes place once a year in different parts of the world and serves as a platform to exchange and showcase new concepts in aerial automation and robotics technology.
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The RoboBoatCompetition is a student robotics challenge in which teams design and raceautonomous surface vehicles through an aquatic obstacle course. The Association of UnmannedVehicle Systems Foundation and the Office of Naval Research jointly sponsoredthe event.
During this year's competition,150 students from across the U.S., Taiwan and Indonesia competed for the titleof "Best RoboBoat" and $20,000 in prize money. The roboticboats were asked to perform a series of progressively difficult tasks thatsimulate the types of activities that are expected of robotic craft built forthe U.S. Navy and Coast Guard.
The Georgia Tech AerospaceSystem Design Laboratory’s Marine Robotics Group took home third place and$3,000. The team is made up of Aerospace Engineering graduate students AlanSmith, Sean Culpepper, David Moroniti, Eric Van Gehuchten and Pierre Valdez;Electrical and Computer Engineering graduate student Edward Macdonald; Computerscience undergraduates Patrick Dillon and Alex Okonishnikov; Mechanicalengineering undergraduates Chris Taylor and Jeff Carpenter. The team’s advisoris Professor Dimitri Mavris from the School of Aerospace Engineering.
The Marine Robotics Group’s autonomoussurface vehicle, Captain Planet, was designed to have superior performance, robustlow-level controls and to complete the mission in the minimum amount of time,said Santiago Balestrini, a research faculty member at the Aerospace SystemDesign Laboratory, and the team’s technical advisor.
“Achieving the third objectiveproved difficult due to the complexity of these robots and the changingenvironmental conditions, but the team most definitely excelled in achievingthe first two,” Balestrini said. “GT-MRG’sdesign was the second lightest and produced more thrust than most designs,giving it a large advantage in thrust-to-weight ratio, an often neglected, yet akey performance parameter of the judge’s scoring rubric.”
The Georgia Tech SavannahRobotics team earned 7th place and $500. Advised by Fumin Zhang,assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, theSavannah team is made up of Electrical and Computer Engineering graduatestudents Steven Bradshaw, Dongsik Chang, Shayok Mukhopadhyay and KlimkaSzwaykowska; Computer engineering undergraduate Will Crick; Electricalengineering undergraduates Valerie Bazie, Lisa Hicks, Sean Maxon and Casey T.Smith.
The team's autonomous surface vehicle, Victoria,featured an onboard embedded computing system and a long-range wireless system,which resulted in a significant reduction in weight and helped the teamadvance to the final round of competition.
“This year’s design includeda long range wireless system which prevented connectivity issues during runs,”said Shayok Mukhopadhyay, a graduate student on the team. “This saved the teammission time and enabled us to perform multiple runs within a single time slot.All of our technical changes, backed by our team spirit propelled us into the finalsthis year.”
]]>Nominations are now being sought for review by the nominatingcommittee composed of faculty, students and public members, to pass along to GeorgiaTech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson for final selection. To nominate anindividual for the Prize, please send an e-mail by July 20, 2011, identifying your candidate’sname and country of residence, and including a brief explanation in support ofyour candidate and your personal contact information to ivanallenprize@gatech.edu.
]]>The Holzman award is one ofthe highest honors to be given by IIE and recognizes significant contributionsto the profession through research, publication, extension, administration andteaching innovation in the academic environment. The contributions must be ofthe highest caliber and be nationally or internationally recognized. Only oneaward is given annually.
In the nomination letter,Shi was noted for exhibiting excellence in classroom teaching and in mentoring,especially in advising graduate students. Shi was also cited for his importantcontributions to the broad research area of engineering statistics and qualitycontrol, demonstrated dedication to continuing education and leadership roles,as well as his significant contributions in community service.
“Professor Shi deserves thisaward because he instills a set of values in his students that yield thisresult,” said Susan Albin, professor at Rutgers, Fellow of IIE, Editor-in-Chiefof IIE Transactions, and the current President of INFORMS said. “He has trained23 doctorates. This is a very large number in a relatively short time andeach and every student received superb training. The successes of the studentsare astounding.”
Shi joined the Georgia Techfaculty in 2008. His other IIE awards include three Excellence in ServiceAwards from IIE Transactions in 2002, 2003 and 2004. He is also an INFORMSFellow, an ASME Fellow and an IIE Fellow and the recipient of a NationalScience Foundation CAREER Award.
]]>Solid oxide fuel cells can operate on a wide variety of fuels, and use hydrocarbons gases directly -- without a separate reformer. The fuel cells rely on anodes made from nickel and a ceramic material known as yttria-stabilized zirconia. Until now, however, carbon-containing fuels such as coal gas or propane could quickly deactivate these Ni-YSZ anodes, clogging them with carbon deposits in a process known as "coking" -- especially at lower operating temperatures.
To counter this problem, researchers have developed a technique for growing barium oxide nanostructures on the anodes. The structures adsorb moisture to initiate a water-based chemical reaction that oxidizes the carbon as it forms, keeping the nickel electrode surfaces clean even when carbon-containing fuels are used at low temperatures.
"This could ultimately be the cleanest, most efficient and cost-effective way of converting coal into electricity," said Meilin Liu, a Regents professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "And by providing an exhaust stream of pure carbon dioxide, this technique could also facilitate carbon sequestration without the separation and purification steps now required for conventional coal-burning power plants."
The water-mediated carbon removal technique was reported June 21 in the journal Nature Communications. The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences, through the HeteroFoaM Center, an Energy Frontier Research Center. The work also involved researchers from Brookhaven National Laboratory, the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Conventional coal-fired electric generating facilities capture just a third of the energy available in the fuel they burn. Fuel cells can convert significantly more of the energy, approximately 50 percent. If gas turbines and fuel cells could be combined into hybrid systems, researchers believe they could capture as much as 80 percent of the energy, reducing the amount of coal needed to produce a given amount of energy, potentially cutting carbon emissions.
But that would only be possible if the fuel cells could run for long periods of time on coal gas, which now deactivates the anodes after as little as 30 minutes of operation.
The carbon removal system developed by the Georgia Tech-led team uses a vapor deposition process to apply barium oxide nanoparticles to the nickel-YSZ electrode. The particles, which range in size from 10 to 100 nanometers, form "islands" on the nickel that do not block the flow of electrons across the electrode surface.
When water vapor introduced into the coal gas stream contacts the barium oxide, it is adsorbed and dissociates into protons and hydroxide (OH) ions. The hydroxide ions move to the nickel surface, where they combine with the carbon atoms being deposited there, forming the intermediate COH. The COH then dissociates into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which are oxidized to power the fuel cell, ultimately producing carbon dioxide and water. About half of the carbon dioxide is then recirculated back to gasify the coal to coal gas to continue the process.
"We can continuously operate the fuel cell without the problem of carbon deposition," said Liu, who is also co-director of Georgia Tech's Center for Innovative Fuel Cell and Battery Technologies.
The researchers also evaluated the use of propane to power solid oxide fuel cells using the new anode system. Because oxidation of the hydrogen in the propane produces water, no additional water vapor had to be added, and the system operated successfully for a period of time similar to the coal gas system.
Solid oxide fuel cells operate most efficiently at temperatures above 850 degrees Celsius, and much less carbon is deposited at higher temperatures. However, those operating temperatures require fabrication from special materials that are expensive -- and prevent solid oxide fuel cells from being cost-effective for many applications.
Reducing the operating temperatures is a research goal, because dropping temperatures to 700 or 750 degrees Celsius would allow the use of much less expensive components for interconnects and other important components. However, until development of the self-cleaning process, reducing the operating temperature meant worsening the coking problem.
"Reducing the operating temperature significantly by eliminating the problem of carbon deposition could make these solid oxide fuel cells economically competitive," Liu said.
Fuel cells powered by coal gas still produce carbon dioxide, but in a much purer form than the stack gases leaving traditional coal-fired power plants. That would make capturing the carbon dioxide for sequestration less expensive by eliminating large-scale separation and purification steps, Liu noted.
The researchers have so far tested their process for a hundred hours, and saw no evidence of carbon build-up. A major challenge ahead is to test the long-term durability of the system for fuel cells that are designed to operate for as long as five years. Researchers must also study the potential impact of possible fuel contaminants on the new electrode.
Forming the barium oxide structures can be done as part of conventional anode fabrication processes, and would not require additional steps. The anodes produced in the technique are compatible with standard solid oxide fuel cell systems that are already being developed for commercial electricity generation, home power generation and automotive applications.
"We have started with state-of-the-art technology, and simply modified the surface of the electrode," said Mingfei Liu, a postdoctoral researcher in the Center. "Because our electrode would be built on existing technology, there is a lower barrier for implementing it in conventional fuel cell systems."
In addition to those already mentioned, the research team included Lei Yang, Wentao Qin and Kevin Blinn from Georgia Tech; YongMan Choi and Ping Liu from Brookhaven National Laboratory; Haiyan Chen and Trevor Tyson from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Jianming Bai from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
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Technical Contact: Meilin Liu (meilin.liu@mse.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The researchers believe the application could replace subjective tests now used to assess the severity of tremors, while potentially allowing more frequent patient monitoring without costly visits to medical facilities.
The program -- known as iTrem -- could be offered later this year by the App Store, an Apple Inc. website that sells iPhone applications. But iTrem will first undergo a clinical study at Emory University and must receive any required approvals from the Food and Drug Administration.
"We expect iTrem to be a very useful tool for patients and their caregivers," said Brian Parise, a research scientist who is principal investigator for the project along with Robert Delano, another GTRI research scientist. "And as a downloadable application, it also promises to be convenient and cost-effective."
iTrem utilizes the iPhone's built-in accelerometer to collect data on a patient in his or her home or office. The application directly tracks tremor information currently, and in the future will use simple puzzle games to record tremor data, which will then be processed and transmitted.
The researchers expect the clinical trial to show that data gathered by the program would allow physicians to remotely monitor the degree of disability, progression and medication response among patients with tremor-related conditions. In addition, iTrem offers a social component that allows people to share stories, pictures and data.
iTrem's developers are working with the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) to form a startup company based on iTrem and future applications that might take advantage of iPhone capabilities. ATDC is a startup accelerator based at Georgia Tech that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful technology companies.
The GTRI team plans ongoing development of iTrem's interface, based on responses from doctors and patients. They're also investigating other consumer technologies with diagnostic potential, including the tiny gyroscopes now available in some cellular phones.
Future developments will include the addition of several other Parkinson's related tests and investigation of gait analysis in a joint effort with the University of South Florida and the James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa, Fla. Additional developments may utilize the phone for detecting and analyzing dyskinesia, a movement disorder.
More than 10 million people in the U.S. have tremor-related disease, including Parkinson's, essential tremor and multiple sclerosis, Delano said. Data collected by iTrem could enhance research on tremor disorders, in addition to supporting treatment for current patients, he added.
Most current measurement techniques used by doctors are subjective and are performed infrequently, Delano said. Complex diagnostic procedures such as electroencephalography and electromyography are objective and thorough, but are rarely performed because they're lengthy, expensive and require a clinical setting. The result is that little data about tremor has been available to track the effectiveness of medication and therapy over time.
By contrast, he said, the ease of gathering tremor data with iTrem could help lead to a significant expansion of research in this area, as a wealth of objective data is collected and analyzed.
"Even factoring in the cost of an iPhone, using iTrem is likely to be more convenient and less expensive for patients than office visits, and the data are accurate and abundant," Delano said.
A clinical study involving iTrem use is expected to start soon at Emory University's Movement Disorder Clinic. The study will be led by Dr. Stewart Factor, a researcher in the field of Parkinson's disease at the Emory School of Medicine.
The GTRI development team presented a paper on iTrem in January at the 2011 International Conference on Health Informatics.
Delano explained that the development of iTrem was linked to his own diagnosis with Parkinson's disease several years ago. He eventually became frustrated with the subjective approaches commonplace in the characterizing of patient tremor symptoms.
"Currently, doctors observe tremor during office visits and rate it on a subjective scale of zero to four. That approach seemed outdated to me, considering all the technology now available," Delano said. "My wife Heather, who's an engineer, remarked that maybe that we could try putting some accelerometers on my arm. That made me think of the accelerometer in the iPhone -- and here we are."
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]]>
"Red field properties have negative value civically, environmentally and economically. Converting this underused commercial real estate to green space now and land that could be built on again when the economy improves would be transformational," said Kevin Caravati, a senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). "The conversion would create demolition and landscaping jobs and stabilize housing and property values around the distressed properties."
With support from the Speedwell Foundation, the Georgia Institute of Technology has helped 11 U.S. cities assess the supply of distressed commercial real estate in their communities and determine the best approaches for turning some of that property into green space. Last week, representatives from Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Hilton Head Island revealed their cities' Red Fields to Green Fields study results in Washington, D.C. at the U.S. Capitol. Altogether, the five cities' plans would create as many as 20,000 acres of new parkland and an estimated 300,000 new jobs.
Representatives from the National Park Service, the Trust for Public Land, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center and U.S. Rep. Robert A. Brady's office also attended the meeting. The Pennsylvania congressman is introducing legislation on red fields to green fields issues.
In his remarks at the meeting, Mickey Fearn, deputy director of communications and community assistance for the National Park Service, stated that Red Fields to Green Fields could be America's best idea. Since the financial crisis began in 2008, real estate values have declined approximately $10 trillion. Today, city residents are surrounded by vacant strip malls, blighted commercial corridors, abandoned housing developments and an oversupply of retail and industrial space.
For the Red Fields to Green Fields project, each city asked the same question: What if we invest a few billion dollars in our city to convert red fields to green fields?
To answer the question, Georgia Tech researchers helped each city utilize financial models used by the U.S. Department of the Interior and data reported by the Federal Reserve to quantify the economic, health, social, policy and engineering impacts of turning red fields into green fields. They also incorporated data from city master plans, green space plans, transportation reports, urban infrastructure redevelopment programs and geographic information system databases. The reports were written in collaboration with the City Parks Alliance and 14 universities, local government agencies and stakeholders.
While each city had a different story, the answer was always the same. Thousands of acres of underutilized residential and commercial real estate assets could be rescued and restored through public park planning to enhance the city's economic, environmental and physical health. Cities could replace concrete and glass with trees, green space and cleaner air; remove abandoned buildings that attract crime and vagrancy; and create space for recreation, play and exercise to combat obesity and poor health.
"This type of conversion would spur business activity, create jobs and address the real estate problem at its source -- oversupply," said Michael Messner of the Speedwell Foundation. "And its economic effect would be multiplied with increased infrastructure spending, leverage from unlocking banks’ reserves, and real estate owners would spend again knowing their real estate values have stabilized."
The City of Los Angeles report proposed more than 200 projects to revitalize areas surrounding 32 miles of the Los Angeles River. These projects would create walkable and bikeable connections to the river and link users to small businesses and job sites.
Nearly 3,000 acres of non-performing real estate could be removed from the Phoenix market through red fields to green fields investments, according to that city's report, creating almost 50,000 jobs and an economic impact of $5.9 billion.
"Red fields to green fields projects can restore liquidity to the real estate markets and put Arizona back to work," added Joseph Goodman, a graduate student in the Georgia Tech College of Architecture.
In Detroit, an industrial land inventory indicated that more than 11,000 acres of distressed real estate could be used to create corridors linking job site locations with housing and transportation.
Acquiring land adjacent to 10 major bayous in Houston and establishing an interconnected system of parks, trails and economic development corridors could create 55,000 jobs over the next 10 years. Hilton Head Island served as a case study to evaluate the economic and job impacts to coastal communities.
'Often thought of as resort areas, coastal towns serve as hubs for commercial real estate development, recreation and jobs. We found that red fields to green fields projects in Hilton Head Island and other coastal communities can revitalize these communities and establish conservation lands," said GTRI research scientist Matthew Wren.
The five new city reports add to reports published last year for six other cities -- Atlanta, Denver, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Miami and Wilmington.
Since publishing its report, the city of Denver, in collaboration with the Trust for Public Land and private donors, started acquiring red field sites along the South Platte River Corridor. It is estimated that these investments and implementation of a robust red fields to green fields program in Denver could add more than 30,000 new jobs to the region and remove more than 6,000 acres of distressed real estate from the market, creating an almost $4 billion impact.
During the past year, Miami also began to execute its Red Fields to Green Fields proposal, which tied into its city master plan, and is working to acquire land through public-private partnerships. Miami's report stated that the tax base could be increased by an estimated $59 million per year by converting 312 acres of non-performing real estate to transit-oriented development and more than 14,000 jobs per year for five years could be created. In addition, linking Everglades National Park and Biscayne Bay National Park could create 1,625 acres of additional parkland.
Other U.S. cities have already embraced the concept of converting distressed real estate to improve a region's infrastructure and encourage economic development. Boston's "Big Dig" was a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure project that transformed the city. Local, smaller scale examples in Atlanta include Atlantic Station, the Piedmont Park expansion and the Beltline Old Fourth Ward project.
During the next year, the Georgia Tech research team will focus its efforts on helping the 11 cities implement the plans in their Red Fields to Green Fields reports.
Other researchers involved in the Red Fields to Green Fields program include Joseph Hughes, chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech; Carolyn Knabel, a graduate student in the Georgia Tech College of Architecture; Cade Strippelhoff, a graduate student in the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy; and Erin Keller, an undergraduate student in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.
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Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>The 20,000 square-foot facility can seat up to 325 guests ata time and will staff 10 chefs and culinarians in the fall. During the “soft”opening from June 19-24, an average of 600 meals were served each day forbreakfast, lunch and dinner. In addition, a Housing Team Day was hosted thereon Tuesday during lunch.
Being the first dining hall that Georgia Tech Dining hasbeen able to design and build itself, the North Avenue Dining Hall has a trulyunique and contemporary presence on campus. From the extensive glass windows that provide ample light for diners,this new venue is not only modern in design and operation, it was also built toLEED Gold Certifications, reflecting the institute’s commitment to efficiencyand sustainability. In the fall, the dininghall will be open 24 hours a day on weekdays, making it the first 24-hourdining hall on campus. All meal plans,Buzzfunds, and major credit cards will be accepted.
During the “soft” opening this week, diners were greeted bythe enthusiastic staff and chefs who were eager to provide a glimpse into the long-awaiteddining hall. Visitors sampled just a few of the wide variety of stations fromwhich to choose such as the Grill featuring burgers and curly fries as well asother classic options to the Pizza and Pasta section. All of the stations havepre-made food selections such as deli sandwiches, which second year student LaniBarry exclaimed are “to die for.” In addition, chefs at almost all the stationscan prepare something to order. Several other choices like the World Fare, Wok,and Pho that offer a variety of international cuisines will also be availablein the fall. An additional feature enables students to suggest recipes online.
Students were excited about the North Avenue Dining Hall andwere impressed with the state-of-the-art look from the building itself down tothe square dishes. “I love the new plates. You can fit more on them,” notedsecond year student Tikurete Gebremariam, “but I also likethe clean, bright layout of the entire place.” The presence and quality of the new facility has some studentsre-thinking their meal plan options for the fall. Second year student SamanthaHabacker, who was not intending to purchase a meal plant in the fall, said, “Imight have to get the Social 75 just so I can come here more often.”
Even the staff and chefs at the new venue were eager toshowcase the newest addition to the dining facilities. “I am excited aboutbringing to the students, faculty, and staff and to the Georgia Tech family aunique, state-of-the-art dining experience,” said Andy Gaudiano, OperationsManager for the new dining hall on Wednesday.
The North Avenue Dining Hall will be open again later thissummer from July 11 to 15, so be sure if you are on or around campus thissummer to come experience this new facility.
Written by Georgia Tech Communication & Marketing Student Media Member Katie McGuire
Photos by Georgia Tech Communications & Marketing Student Media Member Ayesha Patel
]]>"We found that species extinction occurred more frequently and more rapidly between species of microorganisms that were more closely related, providing strong support for Darwin's theory, which we call the phylogenetic limiting similarity hypothesis," said Lin Jiang, an assistant professor in the School of Biology at Georgia Tech.
The study was published online on June 14, 2011 in the journal Ecology Letters. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation.
Jiang and his team -- Cyrille Violle, formerly a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech currently at the Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive in Montpellier, France, and Georgia Tech biology graduate student Zhichao Pu -- conducted experiments with 10 common ciliated protist species in artificial, simplified ecosystems called microcosms. Diana Nemergut, an assistant professor in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, helped the team generate a family tree of the 10 microorganisms to determine how closely related the species were.
"We selected bacterivorous ciliated protist microorganisms for this study because they rapidly reproduce, allowing us to examine species co-existence over multiple generations in a closed system during a period of a few weeks, which wouldn't be possible if we were testing the hypothesis with plants or animals," said Jiang.
The researchers set up 165 microcosms that contained either an individual protist species or a pairing of two species, along with three types of bacteria for the organisms to eat. They collected weekly samples from each microcosm and examined them under a microscope, recording the presence or absence of species. After 10 weeks, the researchers estimated the density of the protist species in each microcosm.
The study results showed that all species survived until the end of the experiment when alone in a microcosm. However, in more than half of the experiments in which protists were paired together, one of the two species dominated, leading to the extinction of the other species.
The researchers found that the frequency and speed of this extinction process -- called competitive exclusion -- was significantly greater between species that were more closely related. In addition, in microcosms where both competitors coexisted for the duration of the experiment, the abundance of the inferior competitor was reduced more as the phylogenetic relatedness between the two competitors increased.
The study also showed that the frequency of competitive exclusion was significantly greater between species that had similar mouth sizes.
"We documented the mouth size of each species because there is some evidence that this morphological trait affects the selectivity and uptake rate of prey particles, and we thought that similarity in mouth size might translate into the exploitation of similar bacterial resources and result in competitive exclusion," said Jiang.
While they found that phylogenetic relatedness predicted the likelihood of coexistence better than mouth size, the results suggest that other traits involved in resource uptake may also be important predictors of the outcomes of competitive interactions in ecological communities.
"This study is one step toward a better understanding of how phylogenetic relatedness influences species interactions," said Jiang. "We hope our experimental validation of the phylogenetic limiting similarity hypothesis in microorganisms will encourage other ecologists to conduct additional studies with other types of organisms to further validate Darwin's hypothesis."
The phylogenetic limiting similarity hypothesis is just one of the many ideas Darwin published in his 1859 book called "The Origin of Species." In this book, Darwin introduced his scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. The book presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution.
This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (Award No. DEB-0640416 and Ecosystems Award No. 0922267). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.
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]]>In a memorandumsent to Georgia Tech Provost and Chair of the task force Rafael L. Bras,Peterson said that he was pleased by the task force’s comprehensive approach inanalyzing Georgia Tech-Savannah operations and programs, and that he wasexcited about the prospects for the future.
Peterson alsowrote, “While I know that much of the work focused on Georgia Tech’s operationsand physical presence in Savannah, it is very clear that the task force tookgreat care to consider how its recommendations might ultimately affect thelives and careers of our students, faculty and staff as well as the communitywe serve in the coastal region.”
Highlights fromthe task force report include recommendations that will allow GeorgiaTech-Savannah to continue to have a strong presence in Southeast Georgia bycreating a new academic and operational model for the campus while phasing outcurrent degree programs.
The proposedorganization, designed to be viable and self-sustaining, includes a portfolioof programs ranging from co-curricular undergraduate activities to instructionfor the military and executive and other non-credit education programs toprofessional master’s degrees. In addition, the recommendations included theoption of developing regional research opportunities.
During the 10-daycomment period, Peterson had the opportunity to review comments regarding taskforce recommendations. The vast majority of comments were submitted by currentGeorgia Tech-Savannah students voicing support for the undergraduate programand expressing concern regarding their individual circumstances.
According toPeterson, the concerns of students, faculty and staff underscore the importanceof developing a comprehensive and supportive transition and implementationplan.
The Georgia Tech-Savannah campus willoperate in a “business-as-usual mode” during the summer and fall semesters of2011. Academic advisors will work individually with Georgia Tech studentsin Savannah to provide the support necessary to aid them in completing theirdegree programs, according to Bras.
]]>The Joseph C. MelloProfessorship was created through an endowment established by alumnus Mello (B.S.IE 1980) to support the work of an outstanding Stewart School of Industrial andSystems Engineering faculty member whose work focuses on health care deliveryoperations.
“I am honored to be named theJoseph C. Mello Professor,” Keskinocak said. “The opportunities to make adifference in world health and humanitarian response are vast. Through thissupport, I, my colleagues, and our students, will be able to expand our reachand impact by pushing the boundaries of our research and education in thisfield.”
Keskinocak’s researchfocuses on supply chain management, with an emphasis on resource allocation. Sheis actively engaged in research and applications in health care andhumanitarian logistics. She received B.S. and M.S. degrees in industrialengineering from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, in 1991 and 1992, and aPh.D. in operations research from Carnegie Mellon University in 1997. Beforejoining Georgia Tech, she was with IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center inYorktown Heights, NY.
Mello, who recently retiredfrom his position as chief operating officer for DaVita, the largest independentprovider of dialysis services in the United States, has been a leader in thehealth care industry throughout his career. In addition to DaVita, Mello servedin key management positions with MedPartners Inc. and Vivra Asthma &Allergy Inc.
Understanding the need forincreased research and intellectual scholarship concerning the systems-basedapproach to health care delivery, the Mello’s have generously supportedinitiatives at Georgia Tech, including the establishment of the MelloProfessorship.
"I couldn't bemore pleased with the selection of Dr. Keskinocak as the Mello Professor,” saidMello. “Her work in humanitarian logistics, applying industrialengineering know-how to global health care concerns, integrates perfectly withthose issues that my wife, Ginny, and I are so committed to."
]]>New research presented on June 16, 2011 at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) shows that systematically controlling the local and global environments during stem cell development helps to effectively direct the process of differentiation. In the future, these findings could be used to develop manufacturing procedures for producing large quantities of stem cells for diagnostic and therapeutic applications. The research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
"Stem cells don't make any decisions in isolation; their decisions are spatially and temporally directed by biochemical and mechanical cues in their environment," said Todd McDevitt, director of the Stem Cell Engineering Center at Georgia Tech and an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "We have designed systems that allow us to tightly control these properties during stem cell differentiation, but also give us the flexibility to introduce a new growth factor or shake the cells a little faster to see how changes like these affect the outcome."
These systems can also be used to compare the suitability of specific stem cell types for a particular use.
"We have developed several platforms that will allow us to conduct head-to-head studies with different kinds of stem cells to determine if one type of stem cell outperforms another type for a certain application," said McDevitt, who is also a Petit Faculty Fellow in the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech.
Many laboratory growth methods allow stem cells to aggregate in three-dimensional clumps called "embryoid bodies" during differentiation. McDevitt and biomedical engineering graduate student Andres Bratt-Leal incorporated biomaterial particles directly within these aggregates during their formation. They introduced microparticles made of gelatin, poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) or agarose and tested their impact on the assembly, intercellular communication and morphogenesis of the stem cell aggregates under different conditions by varying the microsphere-to-cell ratio and the size of the microspheres.
The researchers found that the presence of the biomaterials alone modulated embryoid body differentiation, but did not adversely affect cell viability. Compared to typical delivery methods, providing differentiation factors -- retinoic acid, bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) -- via microparticles induced changes in the gene and protein expression patterns of the aggregates.
By including tiny magnetic particles into the embryoid bodies during formation, the researchers also found they could use a magnet to spatially control the location of an aggregate and its assembly with other aggregates. The magnetic particles remained entrapped within the aggregates for the duration of the experiments but did not adversely affect cell viability or differentiation.
"With biomaterial and magnetic microparticles, we are beginning to be able to recreate the types of complex geometric patterns seen during early development, which require multiple cues at the same time and the ability to spatially and temporally control their local presentation," noted McDevitt.
While microparticles can be used to control differentiation by regulating the local environment, other methods exist to control differentiation through the global environment. Experiments by McDevitt and biomedical engineering graduate student Melissa Kinney have demonstrated that modulating hydrodynamic conditions can dictate the morphology of cell aggregate formation and control the expression of differentiated phenotypic cell markers.
"Because bioreactors typically impose hydrodynamic forces on cells to cultivate large volumes of cells at high density, our use of hydrodynamics to control cell fate decisions represents a novel, yet simple, principle that could be used in the future for the scalable efficient production of stem cells," added McDevitt.
Technologies capable of being directly integrated into bioprocessing systems will be the best choice for manufacturing large batches of stem cells, he noted. In the future, the development of multi-scale techniques that combine different levels of control -- both local and global -- to regulate stem cell differentiation may help the translation of stem cells into viable clinical therapies.
This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (Award No. CBET 0651739) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (R01GM088291). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF or NIH.
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]]>Spectrometers have conventionally been expensive and bulky bench-top instruments used to detect and identify the molecules inside a sample by shining light on it and measuring different wavelengths of the emitted or absorbed light. Previous efforts toward miniaturizing spectrometers have reduced their size and cost, but these reductions have typically resulted in lower-resolution instruments.
"For spectrometers, it is better to be small and cheap than big and bulky -- provided that the optical performance targets are met," said Ali Adibi, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We were able to achieve high resolution and wide bandwidth with a compact single-mode on-chip spectrometer through the use of an array of microdonut resonators, each with an outer radius of two microns."
The 81-channel on-chip spectrometer designed by Georgia Tech engineers achieved 0.6-nanometer resolution over a spectral range of more than 50 nanometers with a footprint less than one square millimeter. The simple instrument -- with its ultra-small footprint -- can be integrated with other devices, including sensors, optoelectronics, microelectronics and microfluidic channels for use in biological, chemical, medical and pharmaceutical applications.
The microspectrometer architecture was described in a paper published in the June 20 issue of the journal Optics Express. The research was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
"This architecture is promising because the quality-factor of the microdonut resonators is higher than that of microrings of the same size," said Richard Soref, a research scientist in the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Hanscom Air Force Base who was not directly involved in the research. "Having such small resonators is also an advantage because they can be densely packed on a chip, enabling a large spectrum to be sampled."
Adibi's group is currently developing the next generation of these spectrometers, which are being designed to contain up to 1000 resonators and achieve 0.15-nanometer resolution with a spectral range of 150 nanometers and footprint of 200 micrometers squared.
Adibi, current graduate student Zhixuan Xia and research engineer Ali A. Eftekhar, and former research engineers Babak Momeni and Siva Yegnanarayanan designed and implemented the microspectrometer using CMOS-compatible fabrication processes. The key building element they used to construct the device was an array of miniaturized microdonut resonators, which were essentially microdiscs perforated in their centers. This research built on former Georgia Tech graduate student Mohammad Soltani's work to develop miniature microresonators, which was published in the Sept. 13, 2010 issue of the journal Optics Express.
The researchers adjusted the resonance wavelengths of different microdonut resonators by engineering their geometry. While the resonance was very sensitive to variations in the outer radius, fine-tuning could be achieved by adjusting the inner radius. The microdonut resonators were carefully designed so that each of the resonators only tapped a small portion of the incoming spectrum, thus enabling measurement of the entire spectrum of desired wavelengths in real time.
A key advantage of this microspectrometer design, according to the researchers, is the ability to independently control and configure the resolution and operating bandwidth of each channel for different applications. The device can cover a wide range of wavelengths from approximately one to three micrometers. Extending this concept to the silicon nitride platform also enables spectrometers for visible light applications.
"The microspectrometer we designed may allow individuals to replace the big, bulky, high- resolution spectrometers with a large bandwidth they are currently using with an on-chip spectrometer the size of a penny," noted Adibi. "Our device has the potential to be a high-resolution, lightweight, compact, high-speed and versatile microspectrometer with a large dynamic range that can be used for many applications."
Current graduate students Qing Li and Maysamreza Chamanzar also contributed to this work.
This research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (Award No. HR 0011-10-1-0075) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) (Award No. FA9550-06-01-2003). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of DARPA or AFOSR.
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]]>The annual study showed that with a$12.6 billion economic impact on the state’s economy in FY2010, Georgia’spublic university system remains a powerful economic engine for the state, generating130,738 full- and part-time jobs statewide during the same time period.
The eightinstitutions of the University System located in the metro Atlanta areaaccounted for $5.8 billion of the USG’s $12.6 billion total. Georgia Tech,Georgia State University, Clayton State University, Kennesaw State University,Southern Polytechnic State University, Georgia Gwinnett College, AtlantaMetropolitan College and Georgia Perimeter College also produced 53,658 jobs.
]]>Bob Nerem, professor emeritus in mechanicalengineering and director of Georgia Tech and Emory Center for RegenerativeMedicine, and Todd McDevitt, associate professor of biomedical engineering anddirector of Georgia Tech's Stem Cell Engineering Center, will be two of the six members on the WorldTechnology Evaluation Center panel.
The panel will travel throughout Europeand possibly Asia this year to see how the United States compares to other effortsworldwide and will make recommendations on how the U.S can move this fieldforward by investing strategically.
]]>
This is the third annual tour for Peterson who will travelthrough several cities from June 8 to 13. Stops will be made in Dalton, Rome, Carrolton, Peachtree City, Newnan,LaGrange and Gainesville.
Peterson and his wife, Val, initiated the visits two yearsago to provide an opportunity to meet face to face with alumni, students, stateleaders and other friends to share updates on Georgia Tech and listen toquestions and concerns.
Stops for the 2010 tour were Young Harris, Athens,Watkinsville, Greensboro, Perry, Warner Robins, Fort Valley, Lyons, Vidalia andAlbany.
Peterson visited Columbus, Macon, Savannah, Brunswick andAugusta in 2009.
]]>The CSB2 Prize in Systems Biology is awardedannually to a young scientist for exceptional contributions to the developmentand implementation of new methods in biomedical research. Lu was selected fordevelopment of microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip instruments for manipulating andstudying living embryos and nematodes.
Lu, who is part of Georgia Tech’s Parker H. PetitInstitute of Bioengineering and Bioscience, received her Ph.D. from theMassachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003 and served as a postdoc atthe Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California andthe Rockefeller University before coming to Georgia Tech.
She has received other awards including the DARPA Young Faculty Award,the DuPont Young Professor Award and the National Institutes ofHealth Mentored Quantitative Research CAREER Development Award. Her researchlies at the interface of engineering and biology. Lu's lab engineersmicrofluidic devices and BioMEMS (Bio Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) tostudy neuroscience, genetics, cancer biology, systems biology, andbiotechnology.
The Council for Systems Biology in Bostonbuilds local, regional, and national links between academic and industriallaboratories active in the areas of systems and computational biology. CSB2 isdedicated to promoting quantitative, systems and synthetic biology in theBoston area and beyond by promoting interactions among academic andpharmaceutical laboratories, organizing international symposia and recognizingthe achievements of promising young scientists and engineers.
]]>Each year, an AIChE member is invited by the Executive Board of the National Program Committeeto present a comprehensive, authoritative review of the chemical engineeringscience in his or her field of specialization. This presentation is known as the InstituteLecture, and it is the most prestigious award given by the National ProgramCommittee.
“This is a terrific honor for Bill,” said Ronald W.Rousseau, Cecil J. "Pete" Silas Chair and Chair of the School ofChemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Koros is the GRA Eminent Scholar in Membranes and theRoberto C. Goizueta Chair for Excellence in Chemical Engineering in GeorgiaTech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Koros and his research group pursue fundamental and appliedresearch to the burgeoning area of membrane-gas separation. Koros focuses onthe creation of membrane, sorbent and barrier materials; characterization andapplication of membrane, sorbent and barrier structures; and penetrant historyand temperature-dependent phenomena.
Koros received his bachelor's degree in in 1969 and hisPh.D. in 1977 from the University of Texas at Austin.
]]>In a paper published in the journal Physical Review B, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have described a family of seven potential defect structures that may appear in sheets of graphene and imaged examples of the lowest-energy defect in the family.
The defects may arise to help relieve mechanical stress in graphene's carbon-atom honeycomb structure by allowing atoms to spread out and occupy slightly more space. Such stress may arise during the growth of graphene or by stretching the graphene sheet.
"For an engineer interested in the mechanical properties of graphene to create atom-thick membranes, for instance, it would be very important to understand these kinds of properties, which could give rise to plastic deformation of the material," said Phillip First, one of the paper's co-authors and a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Physics. "For instance, it may be that these defects are just one part of the kinetic pathway to failure for a strained sheet of graphene."
For electronic applications, the defects could deflect electrons and cause backscattering that would increase the resistance of the material -- like a rock in a stream slows the flow of water.
However, First says improved growth techniques developed since the defect study began may eliminate that concern.
"With the growth techniques that have now been developed using silicon carbide, we typically do not see these defects," he noted. "The defects occur on material that we know to be of a lower quality because of the growth conditions or substrate preparation."
Defects can appear due to the movement of carbon atoms at high temperatures, explained NIST Fellow Joseph Stroscio. Rearrangements of graphene that require the least amount of energy involve switching from the standard six-member carbon rings to structures containing either five or seven atoms. The NIST researchers have discovered that stringing five- and seven-member rings together in closed loops creates a new type of defect or grain boundary loop in the honeycomb lattice.
According to NIST researcher Eric Cockayne, the fabrication process plays a big role in creating the defects.
"As the graphene forms under high heat, sections of the lattice can come loose and rotate," he said. "As the graphene cools, these rotated sections link back up with the lattice, but in an irregular way. It's almost as if patches of the graphene were cut out with scissors, turned clockwise, and made to fit back into the same place. Only it really doesn't fit, which is why we get these flowers."
So far, only the flower defect, which is composed of six pairs of five- and seven-atom rings, has been observed. Modeling of graphene's atomic structure by the NIST team suggests there might be a veritable bouquet of flower-like configurations. These configurations -- seven in all -- would each possess its own unique mechanical and electrical properties, Cockayne said.
First hopes the team can continue studying the defects, both to learn whether their formation can be controlled and to clarify the role of defects in the material's mechanical properties.
"Graphene is strong and light, so the mechanical properties are of great interest," he noted. "Understanding just how it rips apart is an interesting question that has important implications. But even with these defects, graphene is still spectacularly strong."
Georgia Tech contributions to this work were funded by the Semiconductor Research Corporation (NRI-INDEX) and by the National Science Foundation through the Georgia Tech Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) under grants DMR-0804908 and DMR-0820382.
Mark Esser of NIST also contributed to this article.
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Matter falling into black holes emits tremendous amounts of energy which can escape as visible light, ultraviolet light and X-rays. This energy can also drive outflows of gas and dust far from the black hole, affecting the growth and evolution of galaxies containing the black holes. Understanding the complex processes that occur in these active galactic nuclei is vital to theories describing the formation of galaxies such as the Milky Way, and is therefore the subject of intense research.
Though light cannot escape from black holes themselves, black holes with accretion disks -- which are swirling clouds of matter about to enter the black hole -- are among the most luminous objects in galaxies. By studying how the radiation and accretion disk interact, astrophysicists can learn much about the extreme gravitational fields, magnetic forces and radiation processes close to these black holes.
"We reviewed data collected from space telescopes over the past few years and found that the more rapidly a black hole was gobbling up material, the more highly ionized the accretion disk was," said David Ballantyne, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics. "The simple theory of accretion disks predicts this, but the relationship we saw between the ionization and rate of accretion was different from what the theory predicted."
The large difference between the observed and theoretical relationships -- a linear dependence on the rate of accretion as opposed to a cubic dependence -- is not surprising for a phenomenon that can’t exactly be tested under controlled laboratory conditions. In a paper published online June 3 in The Astrophysical Journal, Ballantyne describes the research and speculates about possible reasons for the difference between observations and theory. The research, which will appear in the Journal's June 20 issue, was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
"As in many areas of science, especially astronomy, we end up needing more data -- many more high-quality observations to better define this relationship," he added.
Astrophysicists don't have a detailed understanding of how the accretion process works, why black holes grow at different rates -- or what makes them stop growing. These questions are important because the growth of active galactic nuclei -- the black holes and their surrounding accretion disks -- has broader effects on the galaxies of which they are part.
"The rapid accretion phase releases a lot of energy, not only in radiation, but also in outflows that drive gas out of a galaxy, which can shut off star formation and hold back the growth of the galaxy," said Ballantyne, a scientist in Georgia Tech's Center for Relativistic Astrophysics. "We could potentially learn something fundamental about the flow of energy through the accretion disk very close to the black hole. We could learn about the viscosity of this matter and how efficiently radiation transport takes place. These are very important questions in astrophysics."
X-rays are believed to originate from innermost portion of active galactic nuclei. As they pass through matter on its way into the black hole, the X-rays are altered by the materials in ways that astrophysicists can measure. In their study, Ballantyne and his collaborators were interested in studying the ionization state of the matter -- which is related to the illumination -- and were able to do so by analyzing the "fingerprint" the ionization left on the X-rays.
"From laboratory work, we understand the physics of how gas interacts with X-ray radiation because that's basically an atomic physics problem," he explained. "We can model what these fingerprints might look like on the X-rays, and compare that to the actual data to help us understand what's going on."
Because of their high energy and short wavelength, X-rays pass through many materials, such as human bodies, with little attenuation. This makes them ideal for examining processes in active galactic nuclei. Longer wavelengths, such as ultraviolet and visible light, are absorbed by intergalactic dust, or are difficult to distinguish from light originating in stars. However, X-rays do get absorbed by dense objects, such as bones -- and crucially for this study -- accretion disks.
Ballantyne and his collaborators Jon McDuffie and John Rusin studied ten X-ray observations reported by other scientists from eight different active galactic nuclei. The observations were made using such space telescopes as Chandra and XMM.
To be useful, they used only measurements of X-ray emissions from the innermost and hottest portion of the accretion disk, and only where the mass of the black holes -- which range from a million to a billion times the size of our sun -- had high quality estimates.
In pursuing the study, Ballantyne hopes to maintain the involvement of Rusin, a student from South Cobb High School in Marietta, near Atlanta. Rusin became involved when he contacted Georgia Tech to inquire about astrophysics projects.
"He helped us with data acquisition and was a really big help," said Ballantyne. "I treated him just like an undergraduate student. I'm pleased to know that he has decided to attend Georgia Tech."
The next step in the research will be to gather additional information from other studies of active galactic nuclei to see if the linear relationship Ballantyne's group measured holds up. The work may also lead to other techniques for learning about black holes and the accretion process.
"Black holes themselves are very simple, but what goes on around them can be very complex," Ballantyne said. "There is still a lot to be learned about how black holes get fueled, and how some accrete slowly while others grow rapidly. The astrophysics of black holes is actually very important in determining what our universe looks like."
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Writer: John Toon
]]>This isn't a future-tech scenario. This advanced autonomous capability has been developed by a team from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and the California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). A paper describing this capability and its present level of performance was presented in April at the SPIE Defense, Security and Sensing Conference in Orlando, Fla.
"When first responders -- whether it's a firefighter in downtown Atlanta or a soldier overseas -- confront an unfamiliar structure, it's very stressful and potentially dangerous because they have limited knowledge of what they're dealing with," said Henrik Christensen, a team member who is a professor in the Georgia Tech College of Computing and director of the Robotics and Intelligent Machines Center there. "If those first responders could send in robots that would quickly search the structure and send back a map, they'd have a much better sense of what to expect and they'd feel more confident."
The ability to map and explore simultaneously represents a milestone in the Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) Collaborative Technology Alliance Program, a major research initiative sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. The five-year program is led by BAE Systems and includes numerous principal and general members comprised largely of universities.
MAST's ultimate objective is to develop technologies that will enable palm-sized autonomous robots to help humans deal with civilian and military challenges in confined spaces. The program vision is for collaborative teams of tiny devices that could roll, hop, crawl or fly just about anywhere, carrying sensors that detect and send back information critical to human operators.
The wheeled platforms used in this experiment measure about one foot square. But MAST researchers are working toward platforms small enough to be held in the palm of one hand. Fully autonomous and collaborative, these tiny robots could swarm by the scores into hazardous situations.
The MAST program involves four principal research teams: integration, microelectronics, microsystems mechanics, and processing for autonomous operation. Georgia Tech researchers are participating in every area except microelectronics. In addition to the College of Computing, researchers from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the School of Aerospace Engineering and the School of Physics are involved in MAST work.
The experiment -- developed by the Georgia Tech MAST processing team -- combines navigation technology developed by Georgia Tech with vision-based techniques from JPL and network technology from the University of Pennsylvania.
In addition to Christensen, members of the Georgia Tech processing team involved in the demonstration include Professor Frank Dellaert of the College of Computing and graduate students Alex Cunningham, Manohar Paluri and John G. Rogers III. Regents professor Ronald C. Arkin of the College of Computing and Tom Collins of GTRI are also members of the Georgia Tech processing team.
In the experiment, the robots perform their mapping work using two types of sensors – a video camera and a laser scanner. Supported by onboard computing capability, the camera locates doorways and windows, while the scanner measures walls. In addition, an inertial measurement unit helps stabilize the robot and provides information about its movement.
Data from the sensors are integrated into a local area map that is developed by each robot using a graph-based technique called simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). The SLAM approach allows an autonomous vehicle to develop a map of either known or unknown environments, while also monitoring and reporting on its own current location.
SLAM's flexibility is especially valuable in areas where global positioning system (GPS) service is blocked, such as inside buildings and in some combat zones, Christensen said. When GPS is active, human handlers can use it to see where their robots are. But in the absence of global location information, SLAM enables the robots to keep track of their own locations as they move.
"There is no lead robot, yet each unit is capable of recruiting other units to make sure the entire area is explored," Christensen explained. "When the first robot comes to an intersection, it says to a second robot, 'I'm going to go to the left if you go to the right.'"
Christensen expects the robots' abilities to expand beyond mapping soon. One capability under development by a MAST team involves tiny radar units that could see through walls and detect objects -- or humans -- behind them. Infrared sensors could also support the search mission by locating anything giving off heat. In addition, a MAST team is developing a highly flexible "whisker" to sense the proximity of walls, even in the dark.
The processing team is designing a more complex experiment for the coming year to include small autonomous aerial platforms for locating a particular building, finding likely entry points and then calling in robotic mapping teams. Demonstrating such a capability next year would culminate progress in small-scale autonomy during MAST's first five years, Christensen said.
In addition to the three universities, other MAST team participants are North Carolina A&T State University, the University of California Berkeley, the University of Maryland, the University of Michigan, the University of New Mexico, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and two companies: BAE Systems and Daedalus Flight Systems.
This research was sponsored by the Army Research Laboratory under Cooperative Agreement Number W911NF-08-2-0004. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Army Research Laboratory or the U.S. Government.
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]]>"The strategic objective of the HOST program is to lead efforts of discovery and collaboration, seeding development in open source software and practices that produce a measurable impact for government cyber security systems," said Joshua Davis, associate division head at GTRI's Cyber Technology and Information Security Laboratory and principal investigator for the HOST program. "The collaborative nature of open source and open technologies provide unique technical and economic value and opportunities for government users."
Open technologies are not a panacea for all challenges, Davis added. HOST will reach out to government, industry, academic and open source community representatives to learn where and how open technologies have been successfully adopted within public and private systems and where the challenges still remain.
"As we go, we are sharing this information across government agencies and helping to build networks of users, service and support providers and policy influencers, and providing a venue to enable them to discuss, share and learn from collective experiences," Davis said. "The collective is what gives open source its strength. We are simply applying this successful strategy to address government cyber security challenges."
GTRI is leading HOST efforts in conjunction with the Open Technology Research Consortium (OTRC), a collaborative network of leading academic research institutions, industry partners and open source community organizations that work to promote the advancement of open source software adoption within government agencies. OTRC members participating in the HOST program include: Georgia Tech Research Institute, University of Texas at Austin, the Open Information Security Foundation and the Open Source Software Institute.
Securing the nation's cyber networks and protecting critical infrastructures is a primary focus of the Department of Homeland Security. To accomplish this, DHS seeks to drive innovation and promote the adoption of cyber security technologies, techniques and procedures that produce safe, secure and resilient cyber systems for federal, state, local, tribal and territorial government agencies.
Within DHS, the Science and Technology Directorate is responsible for sponsoring advanced research activities and leading the development of collaborative working relationships to exchange ideas and technical resources between the public and private-sector environments.
Additional information on the HOST program will be made available through the DHS HOST website (www.cyber.st.dhs.gov/host.html) and through a publicly accessible informational portal to be launched this summer.
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ITI Fellows are recognized for their leadership in international, national or regional activities; record of publication and research in the area of implant dentistry; engagement in dental implant education; and demonstration of innovation and further development in the clinical implant dentistry field. Fellowship is conferred for a period of four years and is reviewed at the end of this period. It is only possible to become an ITI Fellow by nomination.
Boyan, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, has research interests in bone and cartilage cell biology in the fields of orthopaedics, plastic and reconstructive surgery, and oral health, with specific emphasis on the role of sex in determining how cells respond to steroid hormones and to biomaterials used in medical devices. She is past president, American Association for Dental Research; past secretary/treasurer, Orthopaedic Research Society; member, Board of Directors: ArthroCare, Inc., IsoTis, Inc., and Carticept Medical, Inc.; and founder, OsteoBiologics, Inc.; Orthonics, Inc.; Biomedical Development Corporation; and Spherigenics, Inc.
]]>Kay Kinard
Communications, College of Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
404-385-7358
]]>Cosponsored by the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) and the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), the competition facilitates connections between the younger entrepreneurial community and more seasoned entrepreneurs. Pindrop, founded by primary researcher and Ph.D. student Vijay Balasubramaniyan, beat out three other finalists to claim the $50,000 cash first prize, as well as more than $200,000 in donated services from the Atlanta business community.
Originally called “PinDr0p,” the technology works by analyzing audio imprints left on calls by the multiple networks—cellular, voiceover IP, public switched telephone networks—through which they travel. It uses these imprints to positively identify the calling phone with high accuracy. Equally important is that the identification is made within 15 seconds of initial call placement.
Balasubramaniyan developed Pindrop in collaboration with School of Computer Science and Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) faculty, including Assistant Professor Patrick Traynor and Professor and GTISC Director Mustaque Ahamad. Earlier this year, TAG named Pindrop Security a Georgia Top 40 Innovation Company, and it also finished second in the 2011 Startup Riot.
“Winning the prize feels great, particularly because there were 88 other great companies competing for it,” Balasubramaniyan said. “It provides great validation for the technology, the efforts of the team and the market potential. Georgia is a great place to start and build a security-focused technology company, and we’re pleased to work with the local community to support economic growth and development as we expand our reach into the financial services, government and consumer markets.”
“GTISC researchers are leaders in understanding emerging cyber security threats and in developing innovative techniques that can provide effective solutions for real-world problems,” said Ahamad. “Pindrop is just another example of this, and it will help maintain Atlanta's reputation as a security industry hub.”
Balasubramaniyan said the company’s next step will be to use its GRA/TAG competition winnings to hire staff, with plans underway for the next software release in the fourth quarter of this year.
Pindrop Security, a new company based on technology developed by School of Computer Science researchers to verify caller ID, has won the 2011 GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition.
]]>
The award includes a plaque that will be presented during aspecial ceremony at the 32nd Council for Chemical Research annual meeting May 1-3 inDetroit, Mich.
The Malcolm E. Pruitt Award has been given annually since1985 to recognize outstanding contributions to research progress in thechemical sciences and engineering while interacting among industrial, academicand government research sections. Rousseauis the 3rd Georgia Tech engineering professor to receive this award.
Rousseau has served as chair of ChBE since joining theGeorgia Tech faculty in 1987. He also has served two terms as interim director of the Institute of Paper Science & Technology at Georgia Tech.
Previously, he was a faculty member atNorth Carolina State University and a visiting professor at PrincetonUniversity. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from Louisiana StateUniversity. His research has explored numerous areas related to separationprocesses and resulted in more than 190 journal articles, book chapters, andmonographs and more than 250 presentations at technical meetings and seminarsfor industry and universities.
Among his many awards and honors, Rousseau received the Warren K. Lewis Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Clarence G. Gerhold Award from the Separations Division of the AIChE and the Forest Products Award given by the Forest Products Division of AIChE. He is a fellow of both AIChE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was selected for the LSU Engineering Hall of Distinction. On the occasion of the AIChE Centennial, he was cited by AIChE as one of 30 authors of groundbreaking chemical engineering books. In January 2010, he was awarded a Docteur Honoris Causa by L’Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse.
]]>By asking an individual to walka short distance while saying the months of the year in reverse order,researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are trying to determineif that person is impaired. This simple test, which could be performed on thesideline of a sporting event or on a battlefield, has the potential to helpcoaches and commanders decide if athletes and soldiers are ready to engage inactivity again.
“Research performed at theUniversity of Oregon found that when a person with a concussion performscognitive and motor skill tasks simultaneously, they have a different gaitpattern than a healthy individual, and we are working to identify thoseanomalies in a person’s walk with radar,” said GTRI research engineer JenniferPalmer.
More than 1 million concussionsand other mild traumatic brain injuries are reported each year in the UnitedStates and catching them right after they happen can improve treatment andprevent further injury or other long-term health issues. Diagnosing concussionscan be difficult, though, because the symptoms of concussions are not alwayseasily visible or detectable, even though they last for weeks or monthsfollowing the incident. Methods exist for detecting concussions, but most focuspurely on cognitive impairment and do not assess accompanying motor skilldeterioration.
Details of GTRI’s research technique,which simultaneously examines a person’s cognitive and motor skills, were presentedon April 26 at the SPIE Defense, Security and Sensing conference in Orlando.GTRI research engineers Kristin Bing and Amy Sharma, principal researchscientist (ret) Eugene Greneker, and research scientist Teresa Selee alsoworked on this project, which is supported by the GTRI Independent Research andDevelopment (IRAD) program.
Several studies have shown thatmeasuring changes in gait could be used to diagnose concussions, but measuringa person’s gait typically requires wearing special clothing with reflectivemarkers or sensors so that movements can be captured with motion analysiscameras. Using radar for gait analysis could be faster and less intrusive thanthese existing techniques. The assessment would be done with radar systemssimilar to those used by police for measuring the speed of vehicles.
For their study, the GTRIresearch team compared how 10 healthy individuals walked normally and when subjectedto a simulated impairment. For the impairment scenario, individuals woregoggles that simulated impairment produced by drinking alcoholic beverages.Past research has shown that concussion impairment is equivalent to having ablood alcohol level of 0.05 percent.
During the trials, eachindividual performed four 30-second walking tasks: a normal walk, walk whilesaying the months of the year in reverse order, walk while wearing the goggles,and walk while wearing the goggles and performing the cognitive task. For eachtask, the subjects walked away from the radar system, turned around and walkedback toward the radar system.
“We’re using a 10.5 gigahertzcontinuous wave radar, which is similar to a police officer’s radar gun thatmeasures the speed of a car,” explained Bing. “The data we collect tells us thevelocity of everything that’s in the field of view of the radar at that time,including a person’s foot kicks, and head and torso movements.”
The researchers analyzed theradar data using information-theoretic techniques, which detected similaritiesand differences in the information without having to identify and alignspecific body parts. In addition, these techniques could recognize a gaitanomaly without requiring that an individual’s normal gait be measured beforethe person became impaired.
“We found differences betweenthe gait patterns of individuals walking normally while completing a cognitivetask versus those with the simulated impairment while completing a cognitivetask,” explained Palmer. “The gait of individuals walking normally whilecompleting a cognitive task was more periodic, with regular and higher velocityfoot kicks and faster torso and head movement, than the gait exhibited byindividuals wearing impairment goggles and performing the cognitive task.”
The results also indicated thatif no cognitive task was performed, the gait pattern was not statisticallydifferent when wearing and not wearing the goggles.
“We found that we needed to exercisea person’s physical and mental capabilities at the same time to see a change ingait,” said Bing. “It’s easy for a person to concentrate on one task, but whenthat person has to multitask we can begin to discriminate differences in gait.”
In the future, the researchersplan to collect additional data from healthy individuals of different heightsand weights, and from individuals exhibiting concussion symptoms according toneuropsychological screening tests performed at a hospital. They also plan toreduce the size of the experimental system so that it becomes more practical touse.
“For the military, we envisionthe system could fit into a tough box so that commanders can have it in thefield,” added Bing. “They could simply press a button, connect the radar systemto a laptop, and an easy-to-use interface would display the results.”
Approval from the Food and DrugAdministration will be required before this system can be used to help doctors diagnoseconcussions.
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Media Relations Contacts: Abby Robinson (abby@innovate.gatech.edu; 404-385-3364) or John Toon (jtoon@gatech.edu; 404-894-6986) or Kirk Englehardt (kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu; 404-407-7280)
Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>For the first time, 23 of the 33 GeorgiaTech recipients are women. This year’s winners represent areas of study rangingfrom aerospace engineering to theoretical chemistry. In addition, 48 currentGeorgia Tech students received an honorable mention designation from NSF.
The purpose of the GRF initiative,the oldest of NSF’s programs, is to foster experts who will contributesignificantly to research, teaching and innovations in science and engineering.
A list of the 2011 GRF recipients is provided under the "Related Files" heading.
]]>The project’sobjective is to generate public awareness of political issues related to votingdistricts, proposing a mathematical algorithm to automatically redistrictregions using census data. Project Redistrict, a project of Georgia TecheDemocracy, has the long-term goal of constructing an intuitive website thatredistricts areas based on parameters such as population equality, density andcontiguity.
“The team workedvery hard throughout the term and is very excited to be awarded this grant,”said Sheetul Hassan, a third-year materials science and engineering student andteam leader for the project. “The grant money will be used primarily forimprovement of our innovation through community outreach programs and inmuch-needed software. This is a great honor and we look forward to the futuresuccess of this project.”
Team membersinclude industrial and systems engineering students Charlotte Huang, SwethaKrishnakumar and Xiaotong Yang; computer science student Himani Manglani; andpublic policy student Stephanie Noble. Rich DeMillo, distinguished professor inthe College of Computing, served as faculty advisor.
The honorincludes $1,000 for project implementation, $500 in student scholarships and a$1,000 stipend to DeMillo. The team will be presented with certificates ofmerit at Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson’s office on May 5.
]]>The project focuses on the development of an effective vaccine for Ebola and Marburg virus infections, two members of a family named "filoviruses" because they produce long filamentous particles.
The lead investigators include Richard Compans and Chinglai Yang at Emory University, Mark Prausnitz at Georgia Tech, and Jean Patterson and Ricardo Carrion at Texas Biomedical Research Institute.
According to Compans, "These viruses cause severe hemorrhagic fevers with up to 90 percent mortality, and can be passed via person-to-person contact, thus posing a high risk in case of an epidemic outbreak as well as a possible bioterrorism threat.”
In ongoing research, the Emory group has developed virus-like particle (VLP) vaccines to prevent virus infection, and has shown that the Ebola VLPs stimulate immune cell activity and induce strong antibody responses, indicating that such VLPs could be effective vaccines to induce protective immunity against infection. They also have found that immunization with a mixture of DNA and VLP vaccines (DNA/VLP) induced higher levels of protective immune responses in comparison to immunization with either vaccine alone.
"We consider this to be one of the most promising and safest approaches to protecting against hemorrhagic fever viruses," said Patterson, chair of the Department of Virology and Immunology at Texas Biomedical Research Institute.
In addition, the researchers are testing these vaccines with a new skin delivery technology developed at Georgia Tech that could further increase such responses, with the aim of having a vaccine that can confer rapid and long-lasting protection against Ebola and Marburg virus infection. The results will identify the most effective candidate vaccine for human trials. The successful development of this vaccine strategy may also lead to vaccines against other viral hemorrhagic fevers, which still lack effective vaccines.
"Administering these vaccines with a microneedle skin patch may increase the effectiveness of the vaccine, as well as potentially make vaccination simple and painless," said Prausnitz, professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech.
The Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center of Emory University produced this news release.
Media Relations Contacts: Holly Korschun, Emory University (hkorsch@emory.edu)(404-727-3990) or John Toon, Georgia Tech (jtoon@gatech.edu)(404-894-6986).
]]>
The Treehouse Project is the creation of students in a science, technology and culture (STaC) senior seminar called "The Natural History of Wood" with Hugh Crawford, associate professor in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture.
Throughout the seminar, students looked at trees and forests as biological, ecological, technological, cultural, mythic and literary entities. They studied a broad range of nature writing, as well as histories of forestry and building practices.
The students decided to build a tree house to serve as a prompt or provocation to think about trees, forests and small structures in relation to liminal space, sustainable building, children's literature and the popular imagination. In addition to gathering the materials, designing and constructing the house, students produced video interviews, posters, research papers, flash animations and process slide shows representing their broad and varied research.
The treehouse will be on display in the library's Neely Gallery throughout the week of final exams.
]]>Kristen Shaw
Communications & Marketing
Like otherindividuals and institutions, Georgia Tech students, faculty, staff anddepartments may encounter delays in federal services. The shutdown is likely tointerrupt processing of federal financial aid, passports and other federaldocuments.
Work onfederally funded research projects should not be interrupted, althoughemployees who work in government facilities could be impacted. For example, theNational Science Foundation (NSF) is reporting that current awardees maycontinue their operations with NSF funds that are already obligated, but thatgrants will not be disbursed or obligated during the funding hiatus.
While aprolonged shutdown could have the potential to increasingly affect our abilityto execute our mission, Georgia Tech’s Office of Community and GovernmentRelations will continue to monitor the situation. Any changes or concerns willbe posted on the Georgia Tech website.
]]>Fecal pollution of surface waters is measured by the concentration of E. coli bacteria in the water because E. coli is believed to live only in the intestines and waste of humans and other warm-blooded animals, and quickly dies outside its host. The presence of E. coli in water also serves as a marker for other potentially more harmful organisms that may accompany it. Positive E. coli tests may lead to the summertime closing of beaches and other recreational bodies of water.
In this new study, researchers report identifying and sequencing the genomes of nine strains of E. coli that have adapted to living in the environment independent of warm-blooded hosts. These strains are indistinguishable from typical E. coli based on traditional tests and yield a positive fecal coliform result though researchers say they may not represent a true environmental hazard.
"The basis for E. coli’s widespread use as a fecal pollution indicator is the traditional thinking that E. coli cannot survive for extended periods outside a host or waste, but this study indicates that's not true," said Kostas Konstantinidis, an assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "These results suggest the need to develop a new culture-independent, genome-based coliform test so that the non-hazardous environmental types of E. coli are not counted as fecal contamination."
A paper describing the research was published April 11 in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
Konstantinidis and Georgia Tech School of Biology graduate student Chengwei Luo compared the genomes of 25 different strains of E. coli and close relatives, which were sequenced by the Center for Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University, the Broad Institute in Massachusetts, or were publicly available in the National Center for Biotechnology Information database. Nine strains that were recovered primarily from environmental sources encoded all genes required for classification as E. coli.
"The orders-of-magnitude higher abundances of the group of organisms represented by these nine strains in environmental samples relative to those in human feces and the clinic indicate that they represent truly environmentally adapted organisms that are not associated primarily with mammal hosts," explained Konstantinidis, who also holds a joint appointment in the Georgia Tech School of Biology.
By comparing the full genomes of the samples, the Georgia Tech researchers identified 84 genes specific to or highly enriched in the genomes of the environmental E. coli and 120 genes specific to the strains commonly found in the gastrointestinal tract of healthy humans, which are called commensal E. coli. They also detected recent genetic exchange of core genes within the environmental E. coli and within the commensal strains, but not from commensal genomes to their environmental counterparts.
The environment-specific bacteria included genes important for resource acquisition and survival in the environment, such as the genes required to utilize energy sources and to break down dead cellular material. In contrast, the gastrointestinal E. coli included several genes involved in the transport and use of nutrients thought to be abundant in the gut.
"The genomic data suggest that the environmental E. coli are better at surviving in the external environment, but are less effective competitors in the gastrointestinal tract than commensal E. coli, which tells us that the environmental bacteria are highly unlikely to represent a risk to public health," explained Konstantinidis.
Collectively, this data also indicates that the environmental E. coli strains represent a distinct species from their commensal E. coli counterparts even though they are identified as E. coli based on the standard taxonomic methods. This work is consistent with a more stringent and ecologic definition for bacterial species than the current definition and suggests ways to start replacing traditional, culture-based approaches for defining diagnostic phenotypes of new species with genomic-based procedures.
The scientific, medical, regulatory and legal communities expect species to reasonably reflect the traits and habitat of an organism -- especially an organism like E. coli that has ramifications for diagnostic microbiology and for assessing fecal pollution of natural ecosystems. Efforts toward a more refined definition of this bacterial species are needed, according to Konstantinidis.
This study's findings provide a way to start redefining E. coli species and testing for fecal contamination with procedures based on genomics and ecology.
"We are now working to develop a molecular assay that uses the gastrointestinal-specific genes as robust biomarkers to count commensal E. coli cells in environmental samples more accurately than current methods," added Konstantinidis.
This project is supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) award to Georgia Tech and Michigan State University (Award No. DEB0516252) and a National Institutes of Health (NIH/NIAID) award to the Broad Institute (Award No. HHSN2722009000018C). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigators and does not necessarily represent the official views of NSF or NIH.
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Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>In responseto questions regarding the purpose and timing of the review, Bras said that theadoption of the Institute’s strategic plan was a key consideration along with avariety of other factors including challenging economic conditions, challengingdemographics and needs of the community and the evolving higher educationlandscape.
“During myvisit last September, I promised to provide guidance regarding the future ofGeorgia Tech-Savannah by the end of the academic year,” said Bras. “Our goal isto complete the report by June 1.”
Once thereport is complete, it will be presented to Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud”Peterson for consideration. Any academic program changes may require review by theBoard of Regents. After Task Force recommendations are adopted, a transitionplan will be developed.
Whilestudents expressed concerns about the future of the undergraduate program, Brasassured them that it would be business as usual for the coming fall semester.“Any changes that are adopted will be gradually implemented with our studentsin mind,” he said. “Our goal is for our students to succeed no matter whatrecommendations are adopted.”
Updates fromthe Task Force and other information about the ongoing review will be posted onthe Georgia Tech-Savannah website.
]]>The symposium is dedicated to honoring and celebratingthe contributions of men and women from the U.S. and around the world whodedicated their careers to the success of space missions in the Shuttle Era.The Space Shuttle program has spanned three decades of operation and itsstoried saga is coming to an end with STS Mission 135 scheduled in June 2011.The technical advances made possible by the program have touched everyone onthis planet, and opened our eyes both to the wonders of the planet we all shareand to the mysteries of the deep space beyond. As this time of remarkableaccomplishments draws to a close, it is important that we pause to honor thosewho contributed to its design, operation, and success, and reflect on thelessons from this complex system, a true turning point in mankind’s voyage intospace.
This symposium will bring together an international group ofscientists, technologists, engineers, mission designers, policy makers andstudents with an interest in learning from the significant contributions of theshuttle era and in exchanging ideas to promote future collaboration andcontinued leadership in space science and engineering. The symposium scopeincludes topics of the Shuttle Era-its history, technical and scientificachievements, the orbiter, propulsion, structures and thermal protection,system and mission flight operations, ground operations, current and futurevehicle concepts and designs, astronaut safety provisions and two paneldiscussions focusing on “lessons learned” and international collaboration.
Registration for the symposium is officially open andparticipation in this unparalleled look at the space shuttle is stronglyencouraged. Those who attend will assuredly garner afond appreciation for NASA's advances over the years and will walk awaywith a strong knowledge of the history and milestones reached duringthe Shuttle Era. Don't miss this opportunity to be part of agroundbreaking and historic event.
]]>Outreach by Georgia Tech Students
Through theStudent Government Association’s Tech Cares for Japan initiative, credit cardor BuzzCard donations can now be made at the following link: https://epay.gatech.edu/C20793_ustores/web/store_main.jsp?STOREID=126
Funds collectedthrough this link and other efforts will be consolidated into a single checkand presented to the American Red Cross on behalf of Georgia Tech students.
Tech Caresfor Japan has also kicked off a “1,000 cranes” fundraising effort. Volunteerswill staff a table near Einstein Bros. Bagels through April 5 and collect aminimum $1 donation for each crane that is created. Plans are to display thefolded cranes in the Student Center.
Crisis and Recovery Insight
On Wednesday, April 6, Georgia Tech experts will participate in a faculty-ledconversation to discuss the causes, response and consequences of the catastrophe in Japan.The event will be held in room 236 of the Global Learning Center from 4 to 5:30p.m.
Thediscussion will be moderated by Brian Woodall, Sam Nunn School of InternationalAffairs, and questions from the audience are welcomed. The panel members are:
* Pinar Keskinocak, H. Milton StewartSchool of Industrial and Systems Engineering
* Usha C. Nair-Reichert, School ofEconomics
* Glenn Rix, School of Civil andEnvironmental Engineering
* Glenn Sjoden, George W. Woodruff Schoolof Mechanical Engineering
Honored guests for the event include representatives of the Consulate-Generalof Japan in Atlanta. Guests will have the opportunity to sign a book ofcondolence and encouragement for the Japanese people, and a number oforganizations will be present for those who want to become more activelyengaged in recovery efforts.
International Programs
Allinternational work and study abroad programs destined for Japan have beencanceled due to ongoing disaster conditions in the country and based on thetravel warning issued by the U.S. Department of State. This decision impactsnot only students who planned to participate in programs this spring, but also atotal of 22 students who were scheduled to participate in summer work and studyabroad programs. Georgia Tech is working with students whose programs are canceled to try to minimize the negative consequences for the students.
Georgia Techis also reaching out to students in Japan. The Institute is finalizinglogistics to host two or three graduate students from Tohoku University in oneof Tech’s research centers as well as exploring other ways that students mightbe accommodated.
]]>Additionally, Georgia Tech undergraduate and Georgia Tech Society of Black Engineers member Jacob Tzegeagbe won the Mike Shinn Distinguished Member of the Year award.
The organization also took home several awards from the southeast region including Treasurer and Programs Chair of the Year, TORCH Creative Program of the Year and Regional Distinguished Chapter of the Year.
“These awards and accolades are a direct reflection of our program planning as well as the tremendous support of the Tech community,” said Terence Johnson, president of the Georgia Tech chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.
The mission of the National Society of Black Engineers is to increase the number of culturally responsible Black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community.
]]>Approximately 500 delegates from across the globe attended this bi-annual meeting that was kicked off by Executive Vice President for Research Steve Cross with the address, "What Does Tech Think?" The institute also included invited presentations on the future of clean energy and propulsion as it relates to power generation, automotive and aircraft applications as well as a poster session, exhibits and presentations from leading combustion experts.
Georgia Tech has significant research activities in clean combustion and propulsion. This includes a major research facility in the Ben T. Zinn Combustion Laboratory located on the North Avenue Research Area of campus that is shared by seven academic faculty members and more than 100 students. Work is also carried out by other faculty across the campus including Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
]]>Marder was granted the honor for his “seminal contributions to thetheory-inspired design, synthesis, characterization and application of organicsecond- and third-order nonlinear optical, photorefractive and electronicmaterials,” according to materials provided by the ACS.
Marder is known for his work in developing materials for nonlinearoptics as well as organic electronics and photonics. He joined Georgia Tech in2003 and is the founding director of the Center for Organic Photonics andElectronics. Before that he was at theUniversity of Arizona, the California Institute of Technology and the JetPropulsion Laboratory.
In 2009, Marder received Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Awardfor Research Program Development and was named a fellow of the AmericanPhysical Society. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, SPIE,the Optical Society of America and the American Association for the Advancementof Science.
Marder has co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed researchpapers and holds 18 patents. He is co-founder of Arizona Microsystems, LLC;Focal Point, LLC; and LumoFlex, LLC.
]]>"We can now make very narrow, conductive nanoribbons that have quantum ballistic properties," said Walt de Heer, a professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "These narrow ribbons become almost like a perfect metal. Electrons can move through them without scattering, just like they do in carbon nanotubes."
De Heer discussed recent results of this graphene growth process March 21st at the American Physical Society’s March 2011 Meeting in Dallas. The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation-supported Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC).
First reported Oct. 3 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the new fabrication technique allows production of epitaxial graphene structures with smooth edges. Earlier fabrication techniques that used electron beams to cut graphene sheets produced nanoribbon structures with rough edges that scattered electrons, causing interference. The resulting nanoribbons had properties more like insulators than conductors.
"In our templated growth approach, we have essentially eliminated the edges that take away from the desirable properties of graphene," de Heer explained. "The edges of the epitaxial graphene merge into the silicon carbide, producing properties that are really quite interesting."
The templated growth technique begins with etching patterns into the silicon carbide surfaces on which epitaxial graphene is grown. The patterns serve as templates directing the growth of graphene structures, allowing the formation of nanoribbons and other structures of specific widths and shapes without the use of cutting techniques that produce the rough edges.
In creating these graphene nanostructures, de Heer and his research team first use conventional microelectronics techniques to etch tiny "steps" -- or contours -- into a silicon carbide wafer whose surface has been made extremely flat. They then heat the contoured wafer to approximately 1,500 degrees Celsius, which initiates melting that polishes any rough edges left by the etching process.
Established techniques are then used for growing graphene from silicon carbide by driving the silicon atoms from the surface. Instead of producing a consistent layer of graphene across the entire surface of the wafer, however, the researchers limit the heating time so that graphene grows only on portions of the contours.
The width of the resulting nanoribbons is proportional to the depth of the contours, providing a mechanism for precisely controlling the nanoribbon structures. To form complex structures, multiple etching steps can be carried out to create complex templates.
"This technique allows us to avoid the complicated e-beam lithography steps that people have been using to create structures in epitaxial graphene," de Heer noted. "We are seeing very good properties that show these structures can be used for real electronic applications."
Since publication of the Nature Nanotechnology paper, de Heer's team has been refining its technique. "We have taken this to an extreme -- the cleanest and narrowest ribbons we can make," he said. "We expect to be able to do everything we need with the size ribbons that we are able to make right now, though we probably could reduce the width to 10 nanometers or less."
While the Georgia Tech team is continuing to develop high-frequency transistors -- perhaps even at the terahertz range -- its primary effort now focuses on developing quantum devices, de Heer said. Such devices were envisioned in the patents Georgia Tech holds on various epitaxial graphene processes.
"This means that the way we will be doing graphene electronics will be different," he explained. "We will not be following the model of using standard field-effect transistors (FETs), but will pursue devices that use ballistic conductors and quantum interference. We are headed straight into using the electron wave effects in graphene."
Taking advantage of the wave properties will allow electrons to be manipulated with techniques similar to those used by optical engineers. For instance, switching may be carried out using interference effects -- separating beams of electrons and then recombining them in opposite phases to extinguish the signals.
Quantum devices would be smaller than conventional transistors and operate at lower power. Because of its ability to transport electrons with virtually no resistance, epitaxial graphene may be the ideal material for such devices, de Heer said.
"Using the quantum properties of electrons rather than the standard charged-particle properties means opening up new ways of looking at electronics," he predicted. "This is probably the way that electronics will evolve, and it appears that graphene is the ideal material for making this transition."
De Heer's research team hopes to demonstrate a rudimentary switch operating on the quantum interference principle within a year.
Epitaxial graphene may be the basis for a new generation of high-performance devices that will take advantage of the material's unique properties in applications where higher costs can be justified. Silicon, today's electronic material of choice, will continue to be used in applications where high-performance is not required, de Heer said.
"This is an important step in the process," he added. "There are going to be a lot of surprises as we move into these quantum devices and find out how they work. We have good reason to believe that this can be the basis for a new generation of transistors based on quantum interference."
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Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The study, published online on March 15, explains how epithelial cells expand as a sheet and migrate to engulf the entire avian egg yolk as it grows. It also reveals the presence of certain molecules during this process that have not been previously reported in other major developmental models, including Xenopus frogs and zebrafish.
"These molecules and mechanisms of early development in the avian embryo may demonstrate evolutionary differences across species in the collective movement of epithelial cells and motivate additional studies of avian embryo development," said Evan Zamir, an assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Matt Futterman, who worked on the project as a graduate student at Georgia Tech, and mechanical engineering professor Andrés García also contributed to this study. The research was funded by Zamir's new faculty support from Georgia Tech and by a grant to García from the National Institutes of Health.
In the study, the researchers conducted immunofluorescence and high-resolution confocal microscopy experiments to examine the spatial distribution and expression of five proteins -- vimentin, cytokeratin, β-catenin, E-cadherin and laminin -- as cells moved to wrap the yolk sac of quail embryos during development.
The results showed that during this process, four of the proteins -- vimentin, cytokeratin, β-catenin and E-cadherin -- appeared in the cells located at the free edge of the migrating cell sheet. Finding dense interconnected networks of both vimentin and cytokeratin in the edge cells surprised the researchers.
"Since cytokeratin is generally associated with the epithelial phenotype and vimentin is generally associated with the mesenchymal phenotype, it's rare to see them expressed in the same cells, but this does occur in metastasizing tumor cells," said Zamir.
Cells expressing the mesenchymal phenotype are typically found in connective tissues -- such as bone, cartilage, and the lymphatic and circulatory systems -- whereas cells of the epithelial phenotype are found in cavities and glands and on surfaces throughout the body.
This finding provides evidence that epithelial cells normally attached to a membrane surface underwent biochemical changes that enabled them to assume a mesenchymal cell phenotype, which enhanced their migratory capacity. This process, called partial epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, has many similarities to the initiation of tumor cell metastasis and wound healing.
Since this epithelial and mesenchymal expression pattern in the edge cells has not previously been reported in Xenopus or zebrafish, it may be unique to the avian embryo. This discovery would make the avian embryo a valuable model for studying tumor cell migration and wound healing.
In addition to detailing protein expression in the quail embryo during development, the researchers also determined the origin of the new cells required at the migrating edge to cover the growing yolk. During development, the radius of the quail yolk doubles every day for the first few days, representing a hundreds-fold increase in the egg yolk surface area.
"For each individual cell that has to cover the egg yolk as it grows, the migration around the yolk is extraordinary, because it's such a large territory -- it would be like an ant walking across the earth," explained Zamir.
Looking more closely at the edge cells, the researchers found strong evidence that expansion of the edge cell population was due exclusively to cells relocating from an interior region to the edge as the embryo expanded. The cells located at the free edge generated the bulk of the traction force necessary for expansion and towed the cells within the interior of the epithelium.
"These experiments confirm that edge cell proliferation is not the primary mechanism for expansion of the edge cell population," noted Zamir. "And our observation of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in the edge cells explains how these epithelial cells might be changing phenotype to become migratory in this rapidly expanding sheet."
To determine if this study's findings are indeed unique to the avian embryo, Zamir plans to conduct further studies to characterize protein expression and cell migration in Xenopus and zebrafish.
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]]>Jayaraman was unanimously voted in by the selectioncommittee and will hold the position for a term of four years. Jayaraman holds a joint appointment betweenthe School of Materials Science and Engineering and the College of Managementand is actively engaged in cutting edge research in smart textiles forhealthcare.
“We are very excited about this new partnershipbetween the School of Materials Science and Engineering and Kolon,” DeanGiddens said. “The investment by Kolonin Dr. Jayaraman’s work demonstrates the importance of academic research toinnovation in industry.”
Jayaraman and his research grouphave made significant contributions in the area of high-tech textiles,including the realization of the world's first Wearable Motherboard™, alsoknown as the “Smart Shirt.” It is currently in the Archives of the Smithsonian’sNational Museum of American History inWashington, D.C.
Jayaraman’s current research interestsinclude engineering design and analysis of intelligent fibrous structures andprocesses, information technology and healthcare including wearable biomedicalsystems, and the role of technology in public policy.
Kolon was founded as the first Korean chemical fiber manufacturingcompany in 1957 and since 1980 has diversified into key nationalindustries such as petrochemicals, construction and electronic materials. In 2000, Kolondecided that water, bio and energy would be the future growth engines and hasfocused on developing related technologies and businesses. As a pioneer of the synthetic fiber industry in the 20thcentury, Kolon Glotech, a member of the Kolon Group, continues its efforts tobe atthe forefront of technology development in materials and textiles.
“We are proud to establish the Kolon Term Professorshipat Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering and could not behappier with the appointment of Dr. Jayaraman as the first holder of theposition,” said Dong Moon Park, CEO of Kolon Glotech.
The School of Materials Science andEngineering at Georgia Tech is one of the strongest in the world with 55 thesissponsoring faculty. Its undergraduateand graduate programs are routinely ranked among the nation’s leading programsby U.S. News and World Report. The School offers degrees in Materials Scienceand Engineering at the bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. levels and its facultyscholars attract more than $26 million in annual research funding each year andlead 14 major interdisciplinary research centers, including centers devoted toNanotechnology, Bioengineering, Molecular Design, Electronic Packaging andPhotonics.
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"We have closed the loop between the quality inspection of buns and the oven controls to meet the specifications required by food service and fast food customers," said GTRI senior research engineer Douglas Britton. "By creating a more accurate, uniform and faster assessment process, we are able to minimize waste and lost product."
During existing inspection processes, workers remove a sample of buns each hour to inspect their color. Based on this assessment, they manually adjust the oven temperature if the buns appear too light or too dark. But with more than 1,000 buns leaving a bakery production line every minute, there is a great need for automated control to make more rapid corrections to produce buns of consistent color, size, shape and seed coverage.
"Automated control over the baking process is necessary to produce a consistent product through batch changes, shift changes, daily and seasonal temperature and humidity changes, and variations in ingredients," added Britton.
Working with baking company Flowers Foods, headquartered in Thomasville, Ga., and Baking Technology Systems (BakeTech), a baking equipment manufacturer in Tucker, Ga., Britton and GTRI research scientist Colin Usher have tested their industrial-quality prototype system. Made of stainless steel, the system is dust and water resistant, and mounts to existing conveyor belts as wide as 50 inches.
The prototype system has been shown at the International Baking Industry Exposition held in Las Vegas. Initial funding for this project was provided by Georgia's Traditional Industries Program for Food Processing, which is managed through the Food Processing Advisory Council (FoodPAC).
Britton and Usher tested the system in a Flowers Foods bakery for a year, running it regularly for hour-long intervals. During this testing phase, the system successfully inspected a variety of buns, including seeded buns, unseeded buns, different size buns and different top-bun shapes. For the past year, the system has been in full-operational mode in the bakery.
"Without the imaging system, it would be impossible for an operator to respond quickly enough to make the correct changes to the oven to improve the target color of the product," said Stephen Smith, BakeTech's vice president and director of engineering.
As fresh-baked buns move along Flowers' production line, a digital camera captures an image of them. Items not measuring up in terms of color are identified by imaging software and the color information is automatically sent to the oven controllers, which adjust the oven temperature to correct the issue.
"Our system reduces the time between noticing a problem and fixing it," Usher explained. "The window for correction is short, though, because an entire batch may only take 12 minutes to bake and the buns stay in the oven for eight minutes, providing a four-minute window to correct the temperature of the batch once the first buns come out so that the rest of the buns in the batch are an acceptable color when they come out of the oven."
The system also automatically records data including shape, seed distribution, size and contamination to generate production reports that are immediately available for statistical process control. Another feature of the system is that the conveyor belt can be any color except the color of the buns. This allows the system to image buns on almost any conveyor belt surface or in pans.
In the future, the imaging system could be adapted to control the quality of other bakery products, such as biscuits, cookies, crackers, bread and pies.
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Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>Guldberg will serve as chairperson of the study section fromJuly 1, 2011, to June 30, 2013. The study section will contribute to thenational biomedical research effort and assure the quality of the NIH peerreview process.
Guldberg's research interests focus on musculoskeletalgrowth and development, functional regeneration following traumatic injury anddegenerative diseases, including skeletal fragility and arthritis
According to Dr. Toni Scarpa, director of the Center forScientific Review in NIH’s Department of Health and Human Services, Guldbergwas selected for the chair position because of his demonstrated achievement inhis scientific discipline, quality of research accomplishments, publications inscientific journals and overall judgment and objectivity.
At Georgia Tech, Guldberg studies cell-based therapies, bonebiomechanics, musculoskeletal injury, joint degeneration, biomaterials anddelivery, and micro-CT imaging. His laboratory creates strategies and enables technologiesfor the functional restoration of damaged or degenerated musculoskeletaltissues, with a focus on bone and cartilage.
In 1996, Guldberg joined Georgia Tech, serving both in IBBand the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. He was appointeddirector of IBB in November 2009.
Guldberg holds an undergraduate degree in mechanicalengineering, a master’s degree in bioengineering and mechanical engineering,and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan.
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The Tech baseball team is also advocating this effort, and has committed to one player shaving his head for every $200 donated between now and March 20. The baseball team will have its players' heads shaved following their game versus N.C. State that Sunday, and hopes to raise at least $1,500 in its fundraising campaign.
Donations may still be made to IFC or the baseball team.
]]>El-Sayed was listed as number 17 in Thomson-Reuters listingof the top chemists of the past decade. The ranking covers the time period fromJanuary 2000 to October 2010. In that time, El-Sayed published 111 papers inchemistry journals with 10,135 citations. The list also rates the number ofcitations per paper as a way to measure scientists’ impact on the field, andEl-Sayed received 91.31 in this category.
El-Sayed was presented with the U.S. National Medal ofScience in 2007 by then-President George W. Bush. His citation reads: “for his seminal and creativecontributions to our understanding of the electronic and optical properties ofnano-materials and to their applications in nano-catalysis and nano-medicine,for his humanitarian efforts of exchange among countries and for his role indeveloping the scientific leadership of tomorrow.”In the following year, he was listed among the 100 most influential people inthe state of Georgia.
AtGeorgia Tech, El-Sayed is the director of the Laser Dynamics Laboratory. Hislab studies the conversion of electronic energy in a wide variety ofstructures such as semiconductors (quantum dots) and metallicnanostructures.Among his most promising current areas of research are using lasers and goldnanorods to fight cancerous tumors under the skin.
El-Sayedcame to Georgia Tech in 1994 and is currently the Julius Brown Chair andRegents’ Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He was on the faculty at theUniversity of California at Los Angeles from 1961-94. He earned his doctoratefrom Florida State University and his bachelor’s degree from Ain ShamsUniversity in Egypt.
Jean-LucBredas was listed as number 84 in Thomson-Reuters listing of the top materialsscientists of the past decade. In that time, Bredas published 50 papers inmaterials science journals with 2,177 citations and an impact factor of 43.54.
Bredaswas a member of the team that received the Descartes Prize of the EuropeanUnion in 2003. He was awarded the Quinquennial Prize of the National Fund forScientific Research in Belgium in 2000 and the Francqui Prize in 1997. In 2010, he received the Charles H. StoneAward of the American Chemical Society.
AtGeorgia Tech, Bredas is a member of the Center for Organic Photonics andElectronics (for which he is in charge of international relations) and aco-director of the Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology.His work seeks to uncover the chemical and physical properties of novel organicmaterials and includes research on organic solar cells as well as organiclight-emitting diodes for potential use in visual displays and lighting.
Bredasis a Regents’ Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. He isalso a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and the Vasser Woolley andGeorgia Research Alliance Chair in Molecular Design. He holds an extraordinaryprofessorship at the University of Mons in Belgium and an honoraryprofessorship at the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciencesin Beijing. Bredas came to Tech in 2003 from the University of Arizona. Heearned his doctoral and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Namur inBelgium.
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When the earthquake and tsunami initially impacted Japan, contact was made with Georgia Tech students who were planning to or already participating in study and work abroad programs in that country. Georgia Tech was able to determine that all of those students were safe.
The Institute continues to closely monitor conditions for the approximately 69 students participating in programs located in the Pacific Rim outside of Japan, however no action is necessary at this time.
To keep the Georgia Tech community informed about opportunities to assist Japan and our expertise in areas spanning from engineering to logistics, a new “Focus on Japan” website has been launched. The site, www.gatech.edu/japan/, will be continually updated as Georgia Tech’s response to the crisis evolves.
The site also features “How You Can Help,” providing links to relief organizations and information on student outreach activities. For example, students are in the process of initiating fundraising as well as blood drives and other efforts that will begin after spring break. Resources including information on travel advisories, nuclear energy and other topics will also be included on the site.
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The therapy, known as adoptive T cell transfer, has shown encouraging results in clinical trials. This treatment involves removing disease-fighting immune cells called T cells from a cancer patient, multiplying them in the laboratory and then infusing them back into the patient's body to attack the cancer. The effectiveness of this therapy, however, is limited by the finite lifespan of T cells -- after many divisions, these cells become unresponsive and inactive.
Researchers at Georgia Tech and Emory University have addressed this limitation by developing a microfluidic device for sample handling that allows a statistical model to be generated to evaluate cell responsiveness and accurately predict cell "age" and quality. Being able to assess the age and responsiveness of T cells -- and therefore transfer only young functional cells back into a cancer patient's body -- offers the potential to improve the therapeutic outcome of several cancers.
"The statistical model, enabled by the data generated with the microfluidic device, revealed an optimal combination of extracellular and intracellular proteins that accurately predict T cell age," said Melissa Kemp, an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "Knowing this information will help facilitate the clinical development of appropriate T cell expansion and selection protocols."
Details on the microfluidic device and statistical model were published in the March issue of the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Georgia Cancer Coalition, and Georgia Tech Integrative Biosystems Institute.
Currently, clinicians measure T cell age by using multiple assays that rely on measurements from large cell populations. The measurements determine if cells are exhibiting functions known to appear at different stages in the life cycle of a T cell.
"Since no one measurement is a perfect predictor, it is advantageous to concurrently sample multiple proteins at different time points, which we can do with our microfluidic device," explained Kemp, who is also a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Professor. "The wealth of information we get from our device for a small number of cells far exceeds a single measurement from a population the same size by another assay type."
For their study, Kemp, electrical engineering graduate student Catherine Rivet and biomedical engineering undergraduate student Abby Hill analyzed CD8+ T cells from healthy blood donors. They acquired information from 25 static biomarkers and 48 dynamic signaling measurements and found a combination of phenotypic markers and protein signaling dynamics -- including Lck, ERK, CD28 and CD27 -- to be the most useful in predicting cellular age.
To obtain biomarker and dynamic signaling event measurements, the researchers ran the donor T cells through a microfluidic device designed in collaboration with Hang Lu, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. After stimulating the cells, the device divided them into different channels corresponding to eight different time points, ranging from 30 seconds to seven minutes. Then they were divided again into populations that were chemically treated to halt the biochemical reactions at snapshots in time to build up a picture of the signaling events that occurred as the T cells responded to antigen.
"While donor-to-donor variability is a confounding factor in these types of experiments, the technological platform minimized the experimental data variance and allowed stimulation time to be precisely controlled," said Lu.
With the donor T cell data, the researchers developed a model to assess which biomarkers or dynamical signaling events best predicted the quality of T cell function. The model found the most informative data in predicting cellular age to be the initial changes in signaling dynamics.
"Although a combination of biomarker and dynamic signaling data provided the optimal model, our results suggest that signaling information alone can predict cellular age almost as well as the entire dataset," noted Kemp.
In the future, Kemp plans to use this approach of combining multiple cell-based experiments on a microfluidic chip to integrate single-cell information with population-averaged techniques, such as multiplexed immunoassays or mass spectrometry.
This project is supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)(Grant No. R21CA134299). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
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]]>The study found that a group of ancient enzymes known as thioredoxin were chemically stable at temperatures up to 32 degrees Celsius (58 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than their modern counterparts. The enzymes, which were several billion years old, also showed increased activity at lower pH levels -- which correspond to greater acidity.
"This study shows that a group of ubiquitous proteins operated in a hot, acidic environment during early life, which supports the view that the environment progressively cooled and became more alkaline between four billion and 500 million years ago," said Eric Gaucher, an associate professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The study, which was published April 3 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, was conducted by an international team of researchers from Georgia Tech, Columbia University and the Universidad de Granada in Spain.
Major funding for this study was provided by two grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to Georgia Tech, a grant from the National Institutes of Health to Columbia University, and a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to the Universidad de Granada.
Using a technique called ancestral sequence reconstruction, Gaucher and Georgia Tech biology graduate student Zi-Ming Zhao reconstructed seven ancient thioredoxin enzymes from the three domains of life -- archaea, bacteria and eukaryote -- that date back between one and four billion years.
To resurrect these enzymes, which are found in nearly all known modern organisms and are essential for life in mammals, the researchers first constructed a family tree of the more than 200 thioredoxin sequences available from the three domains of life. Then they reconstructed the sequences of the ancestral thioredoxin enzymes using statistical methods based on maximum likelihood. Finally, they synthesized the genes that encoded these sequences, expressed the ancient proteins in the cells of modern Escherichia coli bacteria and then purified the proteins.
"By resurrecting proteins, we are able to gather valuable information about the adaptation of extinct forms of life to climatic, ecological and physiological alterations that cannot be uncovered through fossil record examinations," said Gaucher.
The reconstructed enzymes from the Precambrian period -- which ended about 542 million years ago -- were used to examine how environmental conditions, including pH and temperature, affected the evolution of the enzymes and their chemical mechanisms.
"Given the ancient origin of the reconstructed thioredoxin enzymes, with some of them predating the buildup of atmospheric oxygen, we thought their catalytic chemistry would be simple, but we found that thioredoxin enzymes use a complex mixture of chemical mechanisms that increases their efficiency over the simpler compounds that were available in early geochemistry," said Julio Fernández, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences professor at Columbia University.
Fernández led a team that included Columbia University postdoctoral researchers Raul Perez-Jimenez, Jorge Alegre-Cebollada and Sergi Garcia-Manyes, and graduate student Pallav Kosuri in using an assay based on single molecule force spectroscopy to measure the activity level of the thioredoxin enzymes under different pH levels.
For their experiments, the researchers used an atomic force microscope to pick up and stretch an engineered protein in a solution containing thioredoxin. They first applied a constant force to the protein, causing it to rapidly unfold and expose its disulfide bonds to the thioredoxin enzymes. The rate at which a thioredoxin enzyme snipped the disulfide bonds determined the enzyme's level of efficiency.
The study results showed that the three oldest thioredoxin enzymes -- those thought to have inhabited Earth 4.2 to 3.5 billion years ago -- were able to operate in lower pH environments than the modern thioredoxin enzymes.
"Our analysis indicates that ancient thioredoxin enzymes were well adapted to function under acidic conditions and that they maintained their high level of activity as they evolved in more alkaline environments," said Fernández.
To measure the temperature range in which the enzymes operated, professor Jose Sanchez-Ruiz and graduate student Alvaro Inglés-Prieto from the Departamento de Química-Física at the Universidad de Granada in Spain used a technique called differential scanning calorimetry. This method measures the stability of enzymes by heating the enzymes at a constant rate and measuring the heat change associated with their unfolding.
The researchers found that the ancient proteins were stable at temperatures up to 32 degrees Celsius higher than the modern thioredoxins. The experiments showed that the enzymes exhibited higher temperature stability the older they were. The results provide evidence that ancestral thioredoxins adapted to the cooling trend of ancient oceans, as inferred from geological records.
"Our results confirm that life has the remarkable ability to adapt to a wide range of historical environmental conditions; and by extension, life will undoubtedly adapt to future environmental changes, albeit at some cost to many species," said Gaucher.
This study also showed that the experimental resurrection of ancient proteins together with the sensitivity of single-molecule techniques can be a powerful tool for understanding the origin and evolution of life on Earth.
The researchers are currently using this strategy to assess other enzymes to get a clearer picture of what life was like on Early Earth. They are also applying these tools to the field of biotechnology, where enzymes play important roles in many industrial processes.
"The functions and characteristics we observed in the ancestral enzymes show that our techniques can be implemented to generate improved enzymes for a wide range of applications," added Perez-Jimenez.
This project was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (Award Nos. NNX08AO12G and NNA09DA78A). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official view of NASA.
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Representatives from the humanitarian sector, government, nonprofitsand academia will address these questions and more at the 3rd annual Health andHumanitarian Logistics Conference, to be held March 3-4 at Georgia Tech’sGlobal Learning Center. The conference is open to the public.
“The conference will play an important role in highlightingthe key issues and challenges in the health and humanitarian sectors and willhelp build bridges, enable the exchange of ideas and establish collaborationsacross different players,” said Pinar Keskinocak, professor in the School ofIndustrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Participants from across the globe – countries such asCanada, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, India, Kenya, theNetherlands, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Uganda, and Zambia – areexpected to attend the conference.
Georgia Tech and The UPS Foundation, the charitable arm ofUnited Parcel Service, are sponsors of this year's conference.
"UPS has become a leading force in urgent humanitarianrelief with the logistics expertise, technology and assets we can bring,"said Ken Sternad, president of The UPS Foundation. "Working withpartners like Georgia Tech helps UPS to extend its support for our communitiesin preparedness, response and recovery in times of disaster."
The Georgia Tech Global Learning Center is located at 84Fifth St. NW, Atlanta, GA 30308.
]]>The research is focused on producing a silver-diamond thermal shim of unprecedented thinness – 250 microns or less. The ratio of silver to diamond in the material can be tailored to allow the shim to be bonded with low thermal-expansion stress to the high-power wide-bandgap semiconductors planned for next generation phased-array radars.
Thermal shims are needed to pull heat from these high-power semiconductors and transfer it to heat-dissipating devices such as fins, fans or heat pipes. Since the semiconductors work in very confined operating spaces, it is necessary that the shims be made from a material that packs high thermal conductivity into a tiny structure.
Diamonds provide the bulk of thermal conductivity, while silver suspends the diamond particles within the composite and contributes to high thermal conductivity that is 25 percent better than copper. To date, tests indicate that the silver-diamond composite performs extremely well in two key areas -- thermal conductivity and thermal expansion.
'We have already observed clear performance benefits -- an estimated temperature decrease from 285 degrees Celsius to 181 degrees Celsius -- using a material of 50 percent diamond in a 250-micron shim,' said Jason Nadler, a GTRI research engineer who is leading the project.
The researchers are approaching diamond percentages that can be as high as 85 percent, in a shim less than 250 microns in thickness. These increased percentages of diamond are yielding even better performance results in prototype testing.
Nadler added that this novel approach to silver-diamond composites holds definite technology-transfer promise. No material currently available offers this combination of performance and thinness.
Natural Thermal Conductors
Diamond is the most thermally conductive natural material, with a rating of approximately 2,000 watts per meter Kelvin, which is a measure of thermal efficiency. Silver, which is among the most thermally conductive metals, has a significantly lower rating -- 400 watts per meter K.
Nadler explained that adding silver is necessary to:
- bond the loose diamond particles into a stable matrix;
- allow precise cutting of the material to form components of exact sizes;
- match thermal expansion to that of the semiconductor device being cooled;
- create a more thermally effective interface between the diamonds.
Nadler and his team use diamond particles, resembling grains of sand, that can be molded into a planar form.
The problem is, a sand-like material doesn't hold together well. A matrix of silver -- soft, ductile and sticky -- is needed to keep the diamond particles together and achieve a robust composite material.
In addition, because the malleable silver matrix completely surrounds the diamond particles, it supports cutting the composite to the precise dimensions needed to form components like thermal shims. And silver allows those components to bond readily to other surfaces, such as semiconductors.
Tailoring Thermal Expansion
As any material heats up, it expands at its own individual rate, a behavior known as its coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE).
When structures made from different materials -- such as a wide-bandgap semiconductor and a thermal shim -- are joined, it is vital that their thermal-expansion coefficients be identical. Bonded materials that expand at different rates separate readily.
Diamond has a very low coefficient of thermal expansion of about two parts per million/Kelvin (ppm/K). But the materials used to make wide-bandgap semiconductors -- such as silicon carbide or gallium nitride – have higher CTEs, generally in the range of three to five ppm/K.
By adding in just the right percentage of silver, which has a CTE of about 20 ppm/K, the GTRI team can tailor the silver-diamond composite to expand at the same rate as the semiconductor material. By matching thermal-expansion rates during heating and cooling, the researchers have enabled the two materials to maintain a strong bond.
Unlike metals, which conduct heat by moving electrons, diamond conducts heat by means of phonons, which are vibrational wave packets that travel through crystalline and other materials. Introducing silver between the diamond-particle interfaces helps phonons move from particle to particle and supports thermal efficiency.
"It's a challenge to use diamond particles to fill space in a plane with high efficiency and stability," Nadler said. "In recent years we've built image-analysis and other tools that let us perform structural morphological analyses on the material we've created. That data helps us understand what's actually happening within the composite -- including how the diamond-particle sizes are distributed and how the silver actually surrounds the diamonds."
A remaining hurdle involves the need to move beyond performance testing to an in-depth analysis of the silver-diamond material's functionality. Nadler's aim is to explain the thermal conductivity of the composite from a fundamental materials standpoint, rather than relying solely on performance results.
The extremely small size of the thermal shims makes such in-depth testing difficult, because existing testing methods require larger amounts of material. However, Nadler and his team are evaluating several testbed technologies that hold promise for detailed thermal-conductivity analysis.
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Writer: Rick Robinson
]]>Since 2003, Hughes has chaired the Georgia Tech's School of Civil and EnvironmentalEngineering. He also serves as professor of environmental engineering and materialsscience and engineering.
“Dr.Hughes’ vision for engineering education, his impact on public policy and his(inter)national visibility are substantial," said Georgia Tech's College of Engineering Chair Don Giddens. " . . . UnderDr. Hughes’ administration, we have continuously observed increased rankings ofthe School, undergraduate enrollments have swelled from 500 to more than 1,000students, all while maintaining and even elevating the program’s quality ofeducation.”
Hughes' research interests include environmental biotechnology,nanomaterial fate and transport and environmental engineering needs indeveloping countries. His research focuses on the treatment and remediation of hazardous wastes.He is a recognized leader in this field and has pioneered at least two areas ofresearch that have significantly influenced engineering practice.
Hughesearned hisPh.D. and M.S. degrees in civil and environmental engineering from theUniversity of Iowa and a B.A. in chemistry from Cornell College.
In addition, Georgia Tech alumnus James Hamilton, president andCEO of Southern Civil Engineers, received the Georgia Engineer of the YearAward. A Georgia native and Georgia Techgraduate, Hamilton has dedicated his career to finding the balance betweenconstruction and environmental conservation and used this mission to build thefoundation for his engineering firm, Southern Civil Engineers, which he foundedin 1983.
]]>The Intel Foundation is a philanthropic organization thatprovides funding for national and localized grants. Together with the Semiconductor ResearchCorporation’s Education Alliance, the foundation fuels innovation inclassrooms, and empowers women and underserved youth through the UndergraduateResearch Opportunities program.
"With the support of SRC's Education Alliance, thisinnovative program of Intel-sponsored undergraduate research teams exposes ourstudents to real-world engineering problems and contributes to our goal ofgiving them every possibility to succeed,” said Gary S. May, professor andSteve W. Chaddick School Chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical andComputer Engineering.
Georgia Tech’s award recipients, new and continuing in2010-2011, include:
- Christina Bins, 2011, Chemical and BiomolecularEngineering
- Alex Cardwell, 2013, Electrical Engineering
- Penyen Chi, 2012, Computer Engineering
- Brendon Duncombe-Smith, 2013, Electrical Engineering
- Samuel Elia, 2012, Electrical Engineering
- Aaron Fan, 2012, Electrical Engineering
- Trevor Green,2013, Computer Engineering
- Christopher Hilgert, 2013, Chemical and BiomolecularEngineering
- Brett Ireland, 2012, Computer Engineering
- Justin Jiang, 2013, Electrical Engineering
- Layla Marshall, 2013, Electrical Engineering
- Sebastian Palacios, 2011, Electrical Engineering
- Mark Pinturak, 2013, Computer Engineering
- Pranav Ramesh, 2012, Electrical Engineering
- Adithya Ravichandran, 2011, Electrical Engineering
- Rolando Roca, 2011, Electrical Engineering
- Jeremy Thompson, 2012, Computer Engineering
- Samual Wilson, 2012, Chemical and BiomolecularEngineering
]]>Anthony Belvin (B.S. mechanical engineering‘97) is an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the Department ofEnergy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. He is the first fellow ever selected to workin this office.
Priorto this fellowship, Belvin served as a senior technical staff member in theApplied Technologies Division at the Y-12 National Security Complex in OakRidge, Tenn. Before that, Anthony developedengineering solutions for Sandia National Laboratories—Livermore, Ford MotorCompany, Pratt & Whitney and the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.
Inaddition to his undergraduate degree from Georgia Tech, Belvin earned hismaster’s degree in mechanical engineering from Howard University and a PhD in mechanicalengineering from Florida A&M University.
TripleGeorgia Tech alumnus Anthony Dickherber(B.S. electrical engineering ‘99; M.S. electrical and computer engineering ‘02,and Ph.D. bioengineering ‘08) is an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowat the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute.
Previously,Dickherber served as a postdoctoral fellow in 2009 at Georgia Tech’s NanotechnologyResearch Center and was a Tech graduate research assistant from 2003 to 2008,as well as a research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute from 1999to 2003. Dickherber also completed aprofessional co-op assignment at Scientific Atlanta (now Cisco Broadband) in1997.
Richard A. Simmons (B.S. mechanicalengineering ‘93) is serving as an energy officer at the U.S. Department ofState, where he supports the Office of International Energy and Commodities byapplying technical expertise and support to international policy issues relatedto energy.
Alicensed professional engineer for 15 years, Simmons has concentrated his work inthe automotive industry, studying advanced materials, recycling and alternativefuels. Simmons is also a board member and technical advisor of companies basedin Atlanta and Brussels, Belgium respectively.
Jacqueline Tront (B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. incivil and environmental engineering) is an AAAS Diplomacy Fellow at the U.S.State Department, Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science, Office ofEnvironmental Policy, Division of Environment and Trade. Prior to her selectionas an AAAS Diplomacy Fellow, Tront was a postdoctoral fellow in the Institutefor Geotechnical Engineering at the ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute ofTechnology) in Zurich, Switzerland. Her research focused on applications anddevelopment of environmental biotechnology, with an emphasis on microbial fuelcell biosensor development for use in environmental monitoring and soilimprovement for natural disaster abatement/avoidance.
Annica Wayman (M.S. in mechanicalengineering ‘03 and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering ‘06) is an AAAS Science andTechnology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Agency for International Development inthe Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning.
Anative of West Chester, Pa., Wayman worked as a senior engineer in medicalsurgical systems at Becton Dickinson from 2006 to 2010, prior to thefellowship. Wayman was also a National Science Foundation Fellow, PresidentialFellow, FACES Fellow and ARCS Fellow – all at Georgia Tech.
Theimpact of the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowships is well known onCapitol Hill and in departments and agencies that have a science-related focus.Since they were founded in 1973, the fellowships have sent more than 2,300scientists and engineers to work for a year or two in Congress and nearly 20executive branch agencies and departments. Scores have stayed on to buildhigh-impact careers in government, while others have gone on to leadershippositions in education, private enterprise and non-governmental organizations.
This year, for the second consecutive year, the energy, environment andagriculture program area has the largest contingent of Fellows.
]]>The award, sponsored by the Leon K. Kirchmayer MemorialFund, recognizes Cressler for inspirational teaching and student mentoring inthe field of advanced microelectronic devices and circuits.
Cressler will be presented with the award on February 21 at the IEEEInternational Solid-State Circuits Conference, in San Francisco, Calif.
Known for his approachability and his unlimited patience,Cressler includes unique design experiences within his graduate courses so thatstudents gain exposure to real-world challenges, learn to communicate withdiverse audiences and work together in a team environment to solve complexproblems, the IEEE award announcement said.
"John is passionately dedicated to finding engineering and technological solutions to the challenges that the world faces today, and he is an exemplary ambassador for our profession," said Gary May, fellow professor and Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Cressler also instills his passion for social awarenesswithin his students, examining both the positive and negative aspects of theglobal micro- and nanoelectronics revolution. According to former students,known to many in industry as “Cressler Students,” Cressler has inspired them touse technology to build a better world and to seek balance in life while theyexcel professionally. Cressler consistently receives high ratings from studentsurveys and is admired by students and faculty alike.
Cressler is considered a leading expert in silicon-germaniumheterojunction bipolar transistor technology. This technology opens the doorfor low-cost but high-performance electronics and systems needed to supportever-increasing global communications needs. The experience he gained inindustry prior to starting his teaching career clearly influences his classroomstyle and philosophy. He has maintained close ties to both industry andgovernment sponsors, ensuring that his students’ research has timely impact onthe ever-changing communications marketplace.
Cressler also serves asfaculty mentor for Georgia Tech’s SURE program, which brings top-notch minorityundergraduates to the school and incorporates them into research teams for ataste of what graduate school is all about.
Before joining Georgia Tech in 2002, Cressler worked at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. and served on the ECE faculty at Auburn University. He is an IEEE Fellow and is a previous recipient of the Georgia Tech Outstanding Faculty Leadership for the Development of Graduate Research Assistants Award (2007) and the Georgia Tech Class of 1940 W. Howard Ector Outstanding Teacher Award (2010).
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Election to NAE is considered among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. According to NAE, membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature," and to the "pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."
]]>Apica Cardiovascular has licensed the Georgia Tech/Emory technology and will further develop the system, which will make the transapical access and closure procedure required for delivering therapeutic devices to the heart more routine for all surgeons. The goal is to expand the use of surgery techniques that are less invasive and do not require stopping the heart.
"Our company has leveraged the expertise in cardiovascular technology at Georgia Tech and the clinical experience of surgeons at Emory University to develop a technology that has the potential to revolutionize the delivery of different types of medical devices to the heart, including aortic and mitral valves," said the company's CEO James Greene.
With research and development support from the Coulter Foundation Translational Research Program and the Georgia Research Alliance VentureLab program, the company has already completed a series of pre-clinical studies to test the functionality of the device and its biocompatibility.
The improved heart surgery system consists of a conduit with proprietary technology inside that allows the conduit to be securely attached to the beating heart. Surgeons can then deliver therapeutic devices, such as heart valves or left ventricular assist devices, into the beating heart without loss of blood or exposure to air. Once a therapeutic device has been delivered and surgery is complete, the company's system closes and seals the access site with a biocompatible implant. The closure site can be reopened if necessary.
"By minimizing the incision size to gain access to the beating heart and eliminating the need for conventional sutures, our system improves safety, decreases procedure time and reduces the technical challenges associated with these new minimally invasive procedures," explained Vinod Thourani, an associate professor of surgery and associate director of the Structural Heart Center in Emory University's Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery.
With the new investment from Ireland-based Seroba Kernel Life Sciences and Israel-based TriVentures, the company will continue to conduct research and pre-clinical trials in Atlanta, ultimately leading up to regulatory approval. These efforts will be led by Jorge H. Jimenez, the chief technology officer of the company, which is in the VentureLab process at ATDC, Georgia Tech’s startup company accelerator.
"Our goal is to accelerate and expand the adoption of less-invasive therapeutic procedures to a greater number of surgeons and as a result, many underserved patients will receive needed treatment for valve disease and end-stage heart failure," said Ajit Yoganathan, Regents professor and Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair in Biomedical Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.
The startup will also have an office in Ireland, which will benefit from the strong research collaborations between Georgia Tech, Georgia Tech Ireland and the National University of Ireland, Galway.
"We seek to contribute to and benefit from a global innovation ecosystem in ways that accelerate research results to the market while enhancing economic development opportunities here in Georgia," said Stephen E. Cross, Georgia Tech's executive vice president for research. "Apica Cardiovascular is a perfect example of the synergy between our leading edge work in Atlanta, our Irish translational unit GT Ireland, and our partnership with the National University of Ireland, Galway."
Apica Cardiovascular was founded in 2009 based on technology invented by Jimenez, Thourani, Yoganathan and Thomas Vassiliades, who was an associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Emory University at the time. The company was named Emory University's Startup Company of 2010.
About ATDC:
The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) is a startup accelerator that helps technology entrepreneurs in Georgia launch and build successful companies. Founded in 1980, ATDC has graduated more than 120 companies, which together have raised more than a billion dollars in outside financing. In 2010, ATDC was named to Forbes Magazine’s list of the “10 technology incubators that are changing the world.”
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]]>"ICU nurses have one of the most task-laden jobs in medicine and typically take care of multiple patients at the same time, so if we can use control system technology to automate the task of sedation, patient safety will be enhanced and drug delivery will improve in the ICU," said James Bailey, the chief medical informatics officer at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, Ga. Bailey is also a certified anesthesiologist and intensive care specialist.
During a presentation at the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, the researchers reported on their analysis of more than 15,000 clinical measurements from 366 ICU patients they classified as "agitated" or "not agitated." Agitation is a measure of the level of patient sedation. The algorithm returned the same results as the assessment by hospital staff 92 percent of the time.
"Manual sedation control can be tedious, imprecise, time-consuming and sometimes of poor quality, depending on the skills and judgment of the ICU nurse," said Wassim Haddad, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Aerospace Engineering. "Ultimately, we envision an automated system in which the ICU nurse evaluates the ICU patient, enters the patient's sedation level into a controller, which then adjusts the sedative dosing regimen to maintain sedation at the desired level by continuously collecting and analyzing quantitative clinical data on the patient."
This project is supported in part by the U.S. Army. On the battlefield, military physicians sometimes face demanding critical care situations and the use of advanced control technologies is essential for extending the capabilities of the health care system to handle large numbers of injured soldiers.
Working with Haddad and Bailey on this project are Allen Tannenbaum and Behnood Gholami. Tannenbaum holds a joint appointment as the Julian Hightower Chair in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, while Gholami is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
This research builds on Haddad and Bailey's previous work automating anesthesia in hospital operating rooms. The adaptive control algorithms developed by Haddad and Bailey control the infusion of an anesthetic drug agent in order to maintain a desired constant level of depth of anesthesia during surgery in the operating room. Clinical trial results that will be published in the March issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology demonstrate excellent regulation of unconsciousness allowing for a safe and effective administration of an anesthetic agent.
Critically ill patients in the ICU frequently require invasive monitoring and other support that can lead to anxiety, agitation and pain. Sedation is essential for the comfort and safety of these patients.
"The challenge in developing closed-loop control systems for sedating critically ill patients is finding the appropriate performance variable or variables that measure the level of sedation of a patient, in turn allowing an automated controller to provide adequate sedation without oversedation," said Gholami.
In the ICU, the researchers used information detailing each patient's facial expression, gross motor movement, response to a potentially noxious stimulus, heart rate and blood pressure stability, noncardiac sympathetic stability, and nonverbal pain scale to determine a level of sedation.
The researchers classified the clinical data for each variable into categories. For example, a patient's facial expression was categorized as "relaxed," "grimacing and moaning," or "grimacing and crying." A patient's noncardiac sympathetic stability was classified as "warm and dry skin," "flushed and sweaty," or "pale and sweaty."
They also recorded each patient's score on the motor activity and assessment scale (MAAS), which is used by clinicians to evaluate level of sedation on a scale of zero to six. In the MAAS system, a score of zero represents an "unresponsive patient," three represents a "calm and cooperative patient," and six represents a "dangerously agitated patient." The MAAS score is subjective and can result in inconsistencies and variability in sedation administration.
Using a Bayesian network, the researchers used the clinical data to compute the probability that a patient was agitated. Twelve-thousand measurements collected from patients admitted to the ICU at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center between during a one-year period were used to train the Bayesian network and the remaining 3,000 were used to test it.
In 18 percent of the test cases, the computer classified a patient as "agitated" but the MAAS score described the same patient as "not agitated." In five percent of the test cases, the computer classified a patient as "not agitated," whereas the MAAS score indicated "agitated." These probabilities signify an 18 percent false-positive rate and a five percent false-negative rate.
"This level of performance would allow a significant reduction in the workload of the intensive care unit nurse, but it would in no way replace the nurse as the ultimate judge of the adequacy of sedation," said Bailey. "However, by relieving the nurse of some of the work associated with titration of sedation, it would allow the nurse to better focus on other aspects of his or her demanding job."
The researchers' next step toward closed-loop control of sedation in the ICU will be to continuously collect clinical data from ICU patients in real time. Future work will involve the development of objective techniques for assessing ICU sedation using movement, facial expression and responsiveness to stimuli.
Digital imaging will be used to assess a patient's facial expression and also gross motor movement. In a study published in the June 2010 issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, the researchers showed that machine learning methods could be used to assess the level of pain in patients using facial expressions.
"We will explore the relationship between the data we can extract from these multiple sensors and the subjective clinical MAAS score," said Haddad. "We will then use the knowledge we have gained in developing feedback control algorithms for anesthesia dosage levels in the operating room to develop an expert system to automate drug dosage in the ICU."
This project is supported in part by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command (Grant No. 08108002). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator (Wassim Haddad) and does not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Army.
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Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>Using a novel analytical process, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that the complex antifungal molecules are not distributed evenly across the seaweed surfaces, but instead appear to be concentrated at specific locations – possibly where an injury increases the risk of fungal infection.
A Georgia Tech scientist reported on the class of compounds, known as bromophycolides, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Feb. 21, 2011 in Washington, D.C. The research, supported by the National Institutes of Health, is part of a long-term study of chemical signaling among organisms that are part of coral reef communities.
"The language of chemistry in the natural world has been around for billions of years, and it is crucial for the survival of these species," said Julia Kubanek, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Biology and School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "We can co-opt these chemical processes for human benefit in the form of new treatments for diseases that affect us."
More than a million people die each year from malaria, which is caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum. The parasite has developed resistance to many anti-malarial drugs and has begun to show resistance to artemisinin -- today's most important anti-malarial drug. The stakes are high because half the world's population is at risk for the disease.
"These molecules are promising leads for the treatment of malaria, and they operate through an interesting mechanism that we are studying," Kubanek explained. "There are only a couple of drugs left that are effective against malaria in all areas of the world, so we are hopeful that these molecules will continue to show promise as we develop them further as pharmaceutical leads."
In laboratory studies led by Georgia Tech student Paige Stout from Kubanek’s lab -- and in collaboration with California scientists -- the lead molecule has shown promising activity against malaria, and the next step will be to test it in a mouse model of the disease. As with other potential drug compounds, however, the likelihood that this molecule will have just the right chemistry to be useful in humans is relatively small.
Other Georgia Tech researchers have begun research on synthesizing the compound in the laboratory. Beyond producing quantities sufficient for testing, laboratory synthesis may be able to modify the compound to improve its activity -- or to lessen any side effects. Ultimately, yeast or another microorganism may be able to be modified genetically to grow large amounts of bromophycolide.
The researchers found the anti-fungal compounds associated with light-colored patches on the surface of the Callophycus serratus seaweed using a new analytical technique known as desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS). The technique was developed in the laboratory of Facundo Fernandez, an associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. DESI-MS allowed researchers for the first time to study the unique chemical activity taking place on the surfaces of the seaweeds.
As part of the project, Georgia Tech scientists have been cataloging and analyzing natural compounds from more than 800 species found in the waters surrounding the Fiji Islands. They were interested in Callophycus serratus because it seemed particularly adept at fighting off microbial infections.
Using the DESI-MS technique, researchers Leonard Nyadong and Asiri Galhena analyzed samples of the seaweed and found groups of potent anti-fungal compounds. In laboratory testing, graduate student Amy Lane found that these bromophycolide compounds effectively inhibited the growth of Lindra thalassiae, a common marine fungus.
"The alga is marshalling its defenses and displaying them in a way that blocks the entry points for microbes that might invade and cause disease," Kubanek said. "Seaweeds don't have immune responses like humans do. But instead, they have some chemical compounds in their tissues to protect them."
Though all the seaweed they studied was from a single species, the researchers were surprised to find two distinct groups of anti-fungal chemicals. From one seaweed sub-population, dubbed the "bushy" type for its appearance, 23 different anti-fungal compounds were identified. In a second group of seaweed, the researchers found 10 different anti-fungal compounds — all different from the ones seen in the first group.
In the DESI-MS technique, a charged stream of polar solvent is directed at the surface of a sample under study at ambient pressure and temperature. The spray desorbs molecules, which are then ionized and delivered to the mass spectrometer for analysis.
"Our collaborative team of researchers from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the College of Sciences has worked within the newly-formed Bioimaging Mass Spectrometry Center at Georgia Tech to better understand the mechanisms of chemical defenses in marine organisms," said Fernandez. "This is an example of cross-cutting interdisciplinary research that characterizes our institute."
Kubanek is hopeful that other useful compounds will emerge from the study of signaling compounds in the coral reef community.
"In the natural world, we have seaweed that is making these molecules and we have fungi that are trying to colonize, infect and perhaps use the seaweed as a substrate for its own growth," Kubanek said. "The seaweed uses these molecules to try to prevent the fungus from doing this, so there is an interaction between the seaweed and the fungus. These molecules function like words in a language, communicating between the seaweed and the fungus."
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]]>Georgia Tech ranked among the top 50 publicschools.
TheBest Value Colleges for 2011 were selected based upon institutional data andstudent opinion surveys collected from Fall 2009 through Fall 2010. Broadlyspeaking, the factors weighed covered undergraduate academics, costs and financialaid. Additionally, Princeton Review considered the percentage ofgraduating seniors who borrowed from any loan program and the average dollaramount of debt those students had at graduation.
]]>Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have formed a startup company and are working with a medical device firm to design a prototype treatment system that would use magnetic nanoparticles engineered to capture cancer cells. Added to fluids removed from a patient's abdomen, the magnetic nanoparticles would latch onto the free-floating cancer cells, allowing both the nanoparticles and cancer cells to be removed by magnetic filters before the fluids are returned to the patient's body.
In mice with free-floating ovarian cancer cells, a single treatment with an early prototype of the nanoparticle-magnetic filtration system captured enough of the cancer cells that the treated mice lived nearly a third longer than untreated ones. The researchers expect multiple treatments to extend the longevity benefit, though additional research will be needed to document that -- and determine the best treatment options.
"Almost no one dies from primary ovarian cancer," said John McDonald, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Biology and chief research scientist of Atlanta's Ovarian Cancer Institute. "You can remove the primary cancer, but the problem is metastasis. A good deal of the metastasis in ovarian cancer comes from cancer cells sloughing off into the abdominal cavity and spreading the disease that way."
The removal system being developed by McDonald and postdoctoral fellow Ken Scarberry -- who is also CEO of startup company Sub-Micro -- should slow tumor progression in humans. It may reduce the number of free-floating cancer cells enough that other treatments, and the body's own immune system, could keep the disease under control.
"If you can reduce metastasis, you can improve the lifespan of the person with the disease and get a better chance of treating it effectively," said McDonald. "One goal is to make cancer a chronic disease that can be effectively treated over an extended period of time. If we can't cure it, perhaps we can help people to live with it."
Earlier in vitro studies published by the authors of the Nanomedicine paper showed that the magnetic nanoparticles could selectively remove human ovarian cancer cells from ascites fluid, which builds up in the peritoneal cavities of ovarian cancer patients. The nanoparticles are engineered with ligands that allow them to selectively attach to cancer cells.
The researchers believe that treating fluid removed from the body avoids potential toxicity problems that could result from introducing the nanoparticles into the body, though further studies are needed to confirm that the treatment would have no adverse effects.
The recently reported study in Nanomedicine used three sets of female mice to study the benefit of the nanoparticle-magnetic filtration system. Each mouse was injected with approximately 500,000 murine ovarian cancer cells, which multiply rapidly -- each cell doubling within approximately 15 hours.
In the experimental group, the researchers -- who included research scientist Roman Mezencev -- removed fluid from the abdomens of the mice immediately after injection of the cancer cells. They then added the magnetic nanoparticles to the fluid, allowed them to mix, then magnetically removed the nanoparticles along with the attached cancer cells before returning the fluid. The steps were repeated six times for each mouse.
One control group received no treatment at all, while a second control group underwent the same treatment as the experimental group -- but without the magnetic nanoparticles. Mice in the two control groups survived a median of 37 days, while the treated mice lived 12 days longer -- a 32 percent increase in longevity.
Though much more research must be done before the technique can be tested in humans, McDonald and Scarberry envision a system very similar to what kidney dialysis patients now use, but with a buffer solution circulated through the peritoneal cavity to pick up the cancer cells.
"What we are developing is akin to hemofiltration or peritoneal dialysis in which the patient could come into a clinic and be hooked up to the device a couple of times a week," said Scarberry. "The treatment is not heavily invasive, so it could be repeated often."
The new treatment could be used in conjunction with existing chemotherapy and radiation. Reducing the number of free-floating cancer cells could allow a reduction in chemotherapy, which often has debilitating side effects, Scarberry said. The new treatment system could be used to capture spilled cancer cells immediately after surgery on a primary tumor.
The researchers hope to have a prototype circulation and filtration device ready for testing within three years. After that will come studies into the best treatment regimen, examining such issues as the number of magnetic nanoparticles to use, the number of treatments and treatment spacing. If those are successful, the company will work with the FDA to design human clinical trials.
The researchers also studying how their magnetic nanoparticles could be engineered to capture ovarian cancer stem cells, which are not affected by existing chemotherapy. Removing those cells could help eliminate a potent source of new cancer cells.
The research has been supported by the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), the Ovarian Cancer Institute, the Robinson Family Foundation and the Deborah Nash Harris Endowment. A member of Georgia Tech’s ATDC startup accelerator program and a GRA VentureLab company, Sub-Micro has also raised private funding to support its prototype development.
Challenges ahead include ensuring that nanoparticles cannot bypass the filtration system to enter the body, and controlling the risk of infection caused by opening the peritoneal cavity.
Beyond cancer, the researchers believe their approach could be useful for treating other diseases in which a reduction in circulating cancer cells or virus particles could be useful. Using magnetic nanoparticles engineered to capture HIV could help reduce viral content in the bloodstream, for instance.
"A technology like this has many different possibilities," said Scarberry. "We are currently developing the technology to control the metastatic spread of ovarian cancer, but once we have a device that can efficiently and effectively isolate cancer cells from circulating fluids, including blood, we would have other opportunities."
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]]>The Institute is also ranked 10th in theSoutheast Region among over 250 colleges and universities of all sizes locatedin Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and PuertoRico. Since Peace Corps was founded in 1961, 240 Georgia Tech alumni have volunteered with the organization.
Approximately8,600 volunteers are currently serving in 77 countries – a 40-year high,according to the Peace Corps. Celebratingits 50th anniversary, the Peace Corps was established in 1961 by PresidentJohn F. Kennedy to promote world peace and friendship. To learn more about thePeace Corps, visit www.peacecorps.gov.
]]>1. GTENS-Depending on your opt in choices to the GTENS system, you will
receive an email message, a voice message (30 seconds long, please do
not hang up, computer needs that time to determine a live delivery or to
voice mail), and a text message. This is a semester test.
2. SCREAM-will provide an alert message to: classroom projectors logged
in to the GT network, computer clusters on campus, and digital signs
around campus.
3. Siren Warning System-All seven speaker locations will be tested one at
a time, then each speaker location will have a live voice test.
Then all seven speaker locations will be tested at the same time, playing a test
message at least twice or more times to ensure the system is operational.
4. Cable TV Alert System-will show a test message for 30 seconds.
5. The testing of all system will be completed by or before 11:30 am.
For more information on emergency preparedness, visit
www.gatech.edu/emergency.
Communications and Marketing
404-894-8835
]]>That investment earned the company a 2011 "Deal of the Year" award from Georgia Bio, a nonprofit association that represents Georgia's pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device community.
CardioMEMS, which has more than 65 employees, grew out of Georgia Tech research. The company's products combine wireless communications technology with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication, providing doctors with more information while making monitoring less invasive for patients.
MEMS uses micro-machining fabrication to build electrical and mechanical systems at the micron scale -- one-millionth of a meter. Using technology originally developed for the integrated circuit industry, MEMS is an attractive platform for medical devices because mechanical, sensing and computational functions can be placed on a single chip.
CardioMEMS began marketing its first product in 2006: the EndoSure sensor, which measures blood pressure inside a repaired abdominal aortic aneurysm. Implanted along with a stent graft during endovascular repair, this tiny sensor may allow doctors to monitor post-surgery patients more effectively than the CT scans that had previously been used. The EndoSure sensor is also less expensive and more convenient.
Now the company's second product, a sensor that measures intracardiac pressure in people who suffer from congestive heart failure, is moving closer to FDA approval.
Implanted in the pulmonary artery, CardioMEMS' new heart sensor enables Class III heart-failure patients (considered to be in the moderate stage of heart failure) to take daily intracardiac pressure readings at home. This information is transmitted to a website, which enables physicians to monitor patients more effectively and alter medications when necessary. In fact, results from the recent clinical study showed a 40 percent reduction in hospitalizations when doctors used data from CardioMEMS' system to treat patients.
Launched in 2001, CardioMEMS was co-founded by Dr. Jay Yadav, a cardiologist and director at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation at the time, and Mark Allen, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the school's MEMS research group.
Due to the unique nature of its technology, CardioMEMS elected to locate in Atlanta to be close to Allen and his students. ATDC accepted CardioMEMS into its incubator program shortly after the startup's formation. The Georgia Research Alliance assisted with an industry partnership grant early in the company's development.
"ATDC has played an important role in CardioMEMS' success, especially during our early years," said David Stern, CardioMEMS' senior vice president for scientific affairs and one of the company's first full-time employees.
Bioscience companies face unique challenges, Stern explained: They have greater needs for capital, face higher technical risks and typically need FDA or other regulatory approval before they can market their products or services. And unlike many entrepreneurs that can start their companies in a garage or home office, bioscience companies require special facilities.
CardioMEMS was among the first tenants in ATDC's Biosciences Center, located within Georgia Tech's Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T) research center, which enabled the company to access wet labs equipped with special ventilation and purified water systems. CardioMEMS was also able to use Georgia Tech clean rooms for micromachining.
If CardioMEMS had been required to build its own clean room, it would have cost millions of dollars and delayed R&D for months, Stern said. In addition, Georgia Tech's clean rooms have a broad array of specialized equipment, which enabled CardioMEMS to execute its prototyping faster -- and try different equipment to see what it would ultimately need to invest in.
The physical proximity to other entrepreneurs and researchers in ES&T was also a plus. "At one point we were next to another medical-device company, so it was easy for our staffs to have impromptu discussions walking down the hallways," Stern said. Being on Georgia Tech's campus gave CardioMEMS access to a deep talent pool, and enabled the company to hire professors as consultants, graduate students as permanent employees and current students as interns.
An important aspect of being able to use Georgia Tech facilities and hire talent was the lack of red tape. "With most institutions, that becomes very complicated and you can spend a lot of time negotiating contracts rather than getting work done," Stern explained. "Yet ATDC was able to make it all really easy."
"This may sound like a minor point, but it's not," said Stern, noting that startup is a crucial time for any company, but especially for a biotech firm. "It's during those early years that you have the least amount of money -- and the most to accomplish. You don't want to waste time or money on anything that doesn't involve progressing R&D or acquiring talent."
Today CardioMEMS is located in Technology Enterprise Park, a biobusiness complex located south of the Georgia Tech campus, and FDA approval of its heart sensor would position the company for considerable growth. The heart sensor has faced a longer road to commercialization than the company's first product, however, its market potential is dramatically larger, said Stern, citing a patient population of more than 1.5 million compared to about 30,000 for the EndoSure sensor.
Although CardioMEMS is already contributing to Georgia's economy by generating new high-tech jobs, the company's success has broader implications, observed Nina Sawczuk, ATDC general manager.
The $100 billion U.S. medical device industry is made up of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises and a few large players. "Medical device companies are located throughout the country, but concentrated in specific regions known for other high-technology industries, such as microelectronics and biotechnology," Sawczuk explained. "Georgia is among the top 10 states with the highest number of medical device companies and our focus is on supporting the small, innovative companies."
To this end Georgia Tech has partnered with Saint Joseph's Translational Research Institute, Piedmont Healthcare and the Georgia Research Alliance to launch the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI), an initiative aimed at accelerating the development of next-generation medical devices and technology in the Southeast.
"CardioMEMS is a catalyst for developing a next generation medical-device industry hub in Georgia," Sawczuk continued. "CardioMEMS marries MEMS technology with more traditional medical device technology. This is particularly exciting because the company is creating a new type of wireless product that is the future of the medical device industry. It is success stories such as CardioMEMS that the GCMI plans to replicate in the Southeast."
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Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu).
Writer: T.J. Becker
]]>
On February 8 and 9, the Office of Emergency Preparedness will be at the Campus Recreation Center distributinginformation about Severe Weather and personal preparedness. If you are inthe area, please stop by and say hello!
On Thursday, February 10, the Office of Emergency Preparedness is conducting a brownbag class entitled, "Identifying and ReportingSevere Weather." This will be in the Piedmont Room of the Student Center from 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. You can sign up for the class at www.trainsweb.gatech.edu.
Before Christmas, we published the newlycreated Emergency Response Guidebook. The GT Emergency ResponseGuidebook is a quick reference guide that instructs students, faculty and staffon the immediate actions to take during various emergencies on campus. The Guidebook is not meant to replace existing campus emergency plans, but toprovide easier access to the information, in a short quick referenceformat.
We encourage you all todownload a copy of the Guide here: http://www.police.gatech.edu/emergencypreparedness/resources/documents/guidebook.pdf
Also, if your department isinterested, we have set up the document for printing in larger quantitiesat OIT's Print and Copy Services. Copies of the guide are in aspiral bound, with a clear plastic cover and tabs for each section. Justcall Printing and Copying Services and ask for the Emergency ResponseGuidebook.
Severe weather can affectanyone. Taking simple steps likedetermining where you will shelter during a tornado warning, having a disastersupply kit and signing up for emergency notification can enhance everyindividuals ability to respond to and recover from a severe weather event.
]]>In collaboration with Emory University's Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing and the Task Force for Global Health, GTRI is evaluating and advising on computer systems developed to provide information for better human resource management, policy development and health planning.
The aim of the Kenyan effort, called the Kenya Health Work Force Project (KHWFP), is to move information on the nation's health care professionals from a decentralized paper system to a computer database. This human resources information system would help Kenyan authorities manage and deploy critical personnel such as nurses, physicians and others. That capability, in turn, would bolster the nation’s battle against multiple heath challenges, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
The KHWFP is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and implemented through the Lillian Carter Center. It is funded through the CDC by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), launched by former President George W. Bush in 2002.
The project has made substantial progress. A custom software database -- the Kenya Health Care Work Force Informatics System -- has been developed by KHWFP using local Kenyan programmers. In early 2009, GTRI joined the effort to carry out an independent software evaluation of the new system.
"Before the Kenya Health Work Force Project can be completed, we need to show that its information-systems software will effectively support Kenya's health care effort and perform according to expectations," said Martha F. Rogers, M.D., a professor in Emory's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and principal investigator for the workforce-informatics project. "The GTRI team is helping us reach that goal by testing and evaluating both the software and the overall usability of the system."
Kenya's health-care system follows a centralized model, explained Christopher Skeels, a research scientist who leads the evaluation work for GTRI. Health care personnel records have traditionally been kept on several paper-based systems at government organizations that track multiple aspects of health care professionals' training and professional practice.
Starting with the Nursing Council of Kenya's records, the new informatics software is in the process of transferring the paper systems' functionality to an online database. The aim is to maintain all information on that database and phase out the paper system.
If the new approach is successful, all of Kenya's health care workforce records would be automated using a similar approach.
The GTRI team found that off-the-shelf software-evaluation programs and protocols weren't right for testing the Kenyan informatics system. Existing products were costly and didn't apply well to situations like Kenya's, where technical capacity and infrastructure are still developing.
"As a result, we had the opportunity to design a software-evaluation protocol from scratch, based on the international ISO standard for such evaluations," Skeels said. "We spent half a year developing a full protocol, so that we could test whether the Kenyan informatics system was ready to do its job and capable of being adapted and upgraded down the road."
In addition to testing the Kenyan software in a Georgia Tech lab, the GTRI team visited Kenya to evaluate how beta versions of the informatics software were faring at the Nursing Council. The team examined the existing IT environment -- hardware, software, network specifications and hardware placement -- and conducted extensive interviews with council personnel. The result was the Nursing Council of Kenya Transition Assessment Report, authored by Skeels, Rogers, and GTRI researchers Heyward Adams, Robert Delano and Philip Marquardt.
The team found a number of areas that needed attention. These included issues with the workforce informatics software itself in the areas of usability, maintainability and portability. In addition, the assessment report pointed to several network and user training challenges, and some IT-infrastructure concerns as well.
Among the more pressing issues is the fact that Kenya's plans call for the workforce software to be adapted for use by other Ministry of Health groups such as those overseeing doctors and clinical technicians, Skeels noted. Thus, a key task will involve making sure the software can be readily maintained and updated by programmers other than the original developer, and confirming that the code can be ported to a variety of operating systems.
"While we found a number of significant areas that need to be addressed, we're confident that the Kenya Health Work Force Project can be completed successfully," Skeels said.
The GTRI team made a number of recommendations in the areas of hardware, information-technology software and capacity and management issues. A new contract with Emory calls for GTRI researchers to support Kenyan developers and the Nursing Council IT staff in implementing those recommendations during 2011.
"We will actively brainstorm and design with the Kenyan programmers -- working face-to-face in Kenya and also via email and telephone -- to help them address these issues," Skeels said.
In another project also sponsored by the CDC and PEPFAR, GTRI is working with Judith Wold, a clinical professor at the Emory School of Nursing's Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing, to help establish a health care workforce database system in Zimbabwe. A GTRI team first travelled to Zimbabwe in July 2009 with Wold, who is principal investigator on the Zimbabwe project, to discuss the work with government officials there.
"That project is moving forward, and we're very excited about it," Skeels said. "We will be in on the ground floor, advising Zimbabwean developers on the design of a database model and a user-interface model tailored to the needs of that nation’s health care system."
The Republic of Kenya, located in east Africa, ranks 33rd in the world in terms of population with 38.6 million people and has a land area of 224,081 square miles. The Republic of Zimbabwe in southern Africa has a population of 12.6 million people and a land area of 150,872 square miles.
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]]>To help address the challenge of how to quickly examine a large quantity of leaves, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a user-assisted software tool that extracts information about macroscopic vein structures directly from leaf images.
"The software can be used to help identify genes responsible for key leaf venation network traits and to test ecological and evolutionary hypotheses regarding the structure and function of leaf venation networks," said Joshua Weitz, an assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Biology.
The program, called Leaf Extraction and Analysis Framework Graphical User Interface (LEAF GUI), enables scientists and breeders to measure the properties of thousands of veins much more quickly than manual image analysis tools.
Details of the LEAF GUI software program were published in the "Breakthrough Technologies" section of the January issue of the journal Plant Physiology. Development of the software, which is available for download at www.leafgui.org, was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Burroughs Welcome Fund.
LEAF GUI is a user-assisted software tool that takes an image of a leaf and, following a series of interactive steps to clean up the image, returns information on the structure of that leaf's vein networks. Structural measurements include the dimensions, position and connectivity of all network veins, and the dimensions, shape and position of all non-vein areas, called areoles.
"The network extraction algorithms in LEAF GUI enable users with no technical expertise in image analysis to quantify the geometry of entire leaf networks -- overcoming what was previously a difficult task due to the size and complexity of leaf venation patterns," said the paper's lead author Charles Price, who worked on the project as a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech. Price is now an assistant professor of plant biology at the University of Western Australia.
While the Georgia Tech research team is currently using the software to extract network and areole information from leaves imaged under a wide range of conditions, LEAF GUI could also be used for other purposes, such as leaf classification and description.
"Because the software and the underlying code are freely available, other investigators have the option of modifying methods as necessary to answer specific questions or improve upon current approaches," said Price.
LEAF GUI is not the only software program Weitz's group has developed to investigate the network characteristics of plants. In March 2010, Weitz's group co-authored another "Breakthrough Technologies" paper in Plant Physiology detailing a way to analyze the complex root network structure of crop plants, with a focus on rice.
This work was performed in collaboration with Anjali Iyer-Pascuzzi, John Harer and Philip Benfey at Duke University and was supported by DARPA, the National Science Foundation and the Burroughs Welcome Fund.
"Both of these software programs are enabling tools in the growing field of 'plant phenomics,' which aims to correlate gene function, plant performance and response to the environment," noted Weitz. "By identifying leaf vein characteristics and root structures that differ between plants, we are enabling advances in basic plant science and, in the case of crop plants, assisting researchers in identifying and potentially altering genes to improve plant health, yield and survival."
In addition to those already mentioned, Olga Symonova, Yuriy Mileyko and Troy Hilley also contributed to this work at Georgia Tech.
These projects were supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (Award No. HR0011-05-1-0057), National Science Foundation (NSF Plant Genome Research Program Award Nos. 0606873 and 0820624) and Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of DARPA, NSF or BWF.
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]]>Red, green and blue lights from a projector activate light-sensitive microbial proteins that are genetically engineered into the worms, allowing the researchers to switch neurons on and off like light bulbs and turn muscles on and off like engines.
Use of the LCD technology to control small animals advances the field of optogenetics -- a mix of optical and genetic techniques that has given researchers unparalleled control over brain circuits in laboratory animals. Until now, the technique could be used only with larger animals by placement of an optical fiber into an animal's brain, or required illumination of an animal's entire body.
A paper published Jan. 16 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Methods describes how the inexpensive illumination technology allows researchers to stimulate and silence specific neurons and muscles of freely moving worms, while precisely controlling the location, duration, frequency and intensity of the light.
"This illumination instrument significantly enhances our ability to control, alter, observe and investigate how neurons, muscles and circuits ultimately produce behavior in animals," said Hang Lu, an associate professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Lu and graduate students Jeffrey Stirman and Matthew Crane developed the tool with support from the National Institutes of Health and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
The illumination system includes a modified off-the-shelf LCD projector, which is used to cast a multi-color pattern of light onto an animal. The independent red, green and blue channels allow researchers to activate excitable cells sensitive to specific colors, while simultaneously silencing others.
"Because the central component of the illumination system is a commercially available projector, the system's cost and complexity are dramatically reduced, which we hope will enable wider adoption of this tool by the research community," explained Lu.
By connecting the illumination system to a microscope and combining it with video tracking, the researchers are able to track and record the behavior of freely moving animals, while maintaining the lighting in the intended anatomical position. When the animal moves, changes to the light's location, intensity and color can be updated in less than 40 milliseconds.
Once Lu and her team built the prototype system, they used it to explore the "touch" circuit of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans by exciting and inhibiting its mechano-sensory and locomotion neurons. Alexander Gottschalk, a professor in the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt Institute of Biochemistry in Frankfurt, Germany, and his team provided the light-sensitive optogenetic reagents for the Georgia Tech experiments.
For their first experiment, the researchers illuminated the head of a worm at regular intervals while the animal moved forward. This produced a coiling effect in the head and caused the worm to crawl in a triangular pattern. In another experiment, the team scanned light along the bodies of worms from head to tail, which resulted in backward movement when neurons near the head were stimulated and forward movement when neurons near the tail were stimulated.
Watch a movie showing Georgia Tech researchers illuminating the head of a worm expressing light-sensitive optogenetic reagents. The light produces a coiling effect in the head and causes the worm to crawl in a triangular pattern.
Watch a movie showing how researchers at Georgia Tech use light from an LCD projector to directly control the muscles of an immobilized worm.
Additional experiments showed that the intensity of the light affected a worm's behavior and that several optogenetic reagents excited at different wavelengths could be combined in one experiment to understand circuit functions. The researchers were able to examine a large number of animals under a variety of conditions, demonstrating that the technique's results were both robust and repeatable.
"This instrument allowed us to control defined events in defined locations at defined times in an intact biological system, allowing us to dissect animal functional circuits with greater precision and nuance," added Lu.
While these proof-of-concept studies investigated the response of C. elegans to mechanical stimulation, the illumination system can also be used to evaluate responses to chemical, thermal and visual stimuli. Researchers can also use it to study a variety of neurons and muscles in other small animals, such as the zebrafish and fruit fly larvae.
"Experiments with this illumination system yield quantitative behavior data that cannot be obtained by manual touch assays, laser cell ablation, or genetic manipulation of neurotransmitters," said Lu.
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]]>The researchers found that T cell receptors -- molecules located on the surface of the T cell -- first bind with the antigen on the pathogen-invaded cell. That initiates a signaling process which leads a co-receptor on the T cell to also bind with the molecule that presents the antigen, amplifying the effect. The process resembles how a person at a party might recognize someone they don't know well by using that person's strong handshake or distinctive voice to supplement their recollection of facial features.
"We show for the first time the important role of the co-receptor in contributing to the discrimination process that takes place in the T cell," said Cheng Zhu, a Regents professor in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "This is a cooperative binding process with the co-receptor co-engaging with the T cell receptor. This cooperative binding has a synergistic effect that amplifies the action."
The resulting binding, which then triggers the body's defensive activities, is stronger than the sum of the individual binding that would result from the T cell receptor and CD8 co-receptor operating independently.
The two-step binding process, which alters the accepted model for T cell recognition, was reported Jan. 20 in the early online edition of the journal Immunity. The research was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the National Multiple Sclerosis Foundation.
Zhu and his colleagues found a time delay between when the T cell receptor engages the antigen peptide and when the CD8 co-receptor goes into action. That delay was about a second in the hundreds of contacts studied. The researchers also found that the binding feedback loop was rapid, short-lived, reversible, synergistic and peptide-discriminative.
The research used a technique known as micropipette adhesion frequency assay to study the mechanical interactions between T cells and the antigen, known as a peptide major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) -- a glycoprotein.
For the study, pMHC molecules taken from a transgenic mouse were placed onto a red blood cell held by a micropipette, simulating the activity of antigen-presenting cells which normally isolate these foreign molecules and display them for recognition by T cells. A mouse T cell held by another micropipette was then placed into contact with the red blood cell for varying periods of time.
By microscopically examining adhesion between the two cells when separated, the researchers were able to determine whether binding between the T cell receptor -- and the CD8 co-receptor -- had occurred.
In studying the data from hundreds of contacts between different types of antigens, the researchers saw a step in the probability of binding, then a jump to a second step. By alternately blocking binding between the pMHC and the T cell receptor, and between the pMHC and the CD8, they were able to determine that the first step represented binding with the T cell receptor while the second step represented binding with the CD8.
The micropipette adhesion technique, developed by Zhu and his student, allows the study of interaction between T cell receptor molecules -- of which there are as many as a million -- and pMHC protein molecules. Earlier techniques had isolated the receptor molecules for study in a solution environment, but Zhu believes his two-dimensional technique provides a more realistic representation of their activity because the receptors remain on the T cell membrane.
Until now, scientists had assumed that T cell receptor and CD8 binding with the antigen took place at approximately the same time, reinforcing one another to make the intermolecular connection strong enough to trigger an immune response.
"What was surprising to us was that the two interactions do not occur simultaneously," said Zhu. "There is a delay of about one second, and we attribute that to the intracellular interactions that have to take place within the T cell before the CD8 can engage."
The research confirmed earlier findings that T cell responses to lower affinity antigen ligands were more dependent on CD 8 binding. "We confirmed this finding, but demonstrated that the major function of CD8 was to amplify recognition of the higher affinity antigen, meaning the magnitude and kinetics of the CD8 contribution favors the response to low levels of strong antigens," Zhu explained.
T cell receptors are among the most important molecules in the immune system because of their role in recognizing the antigens on target cells. The receptors also must distinguish those threats from the body's own cells to avoid triggering an unwanted immune response.
For the future, Zhu would like to clarify what advantages the two-step process provides when a tiny amount of "non-self" antigen peptides are presented together with a large amount of "self" peptides, and attempt to understand how the T cells seek out interactions with foreign antigens.
In addition to Zhu, the research team included Ning Jiang, Jun Huang, Baoyu Li, and Yan Zhang of the Coulter Department. Collaborators from Emory University included Lindsay J. Edwards, Carrie D. Beal and Brian D. Evavold. Evavold, an associate professor in Emory University's Department of Microbiology and Immunology and a collaborator of Zhu's in this project, provided the transgenic mouse T cells and pMHC used in the research.
"This new study adds significantly to the understanding of how T cell receptors and associated molecules differentiate the antigens of the body's own cells from those of an invader," Zhu added. "It may be that this co-receptor plays a role in helping discriminate viruses that have mutated and are no longer a direct match to what the T cell is looking for. That's another hypothesis we hope to study."
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The annual award, named for astronautics pioneer TheodoreVon Karman, is given to someone who has performed notably and distinguishedthemselves technically in the field of astronautics.
Braun was recognized for advancing the understanding of thechallenge of Mars entry, descent and landing, and for the development ofsystems concepts and technologies enabling Martian exploration programs.
He delivered his lecture, “Mars Entry, Descent and LandingTechnology Advancements,” during the 49th annual AIAA AerospaceSciences Meeting in Orlando, FL held this month.
“I am honored to be recognized by the AIAA and to speak atthis year’s conference about the challenging work done by the scientists andengineers in NASA’s entry, descent and landing technical community,” Braun said. “My hope is that engineering students aroundthe country will share in the excitement of planetary exploration, developingnew technologies and advancing our nation’s forays in space.”
Braun is the David and Andrew Lewis Professor in SpaceTechnology in the School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech's College of Engineering. He was named NASA’s first chief technologistsfor a two-year term on Feb 3, 2010, serving as principal advisor and advocateon matters concerning agency-wide technology policy and programs.
]]>FIRST (For Inspiration andRecognition of Science and Technology) is an organization that was founded toinspire interest in science and engineering among young people.
Saturday's event is the State Championshipand the top team of the event will advance to the World Festival in St. Louis inlate April.
With a theme of “BodyForward,” teams of students aged 9 to 14 will explore the cutting-edge world ofbiomedical engineering to discover innovative ways to repair injuries, overcomegenetic predispositions and maximize the bodies' potential, with the purpose ofleading happier, healthier lives.
The event is co-hosted byGeorgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Center forEducation Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing and Georgia TechResearch Institute, as well as LEGO Robotics Design and Outreach Community.
So far in this year'stournament, 337 teams have competed in 12 qualifiers and three super-regionalcontests, involving a total of 2,500 students. Through these qualifiers, thefield was narrowed to 50 teams that will participate at the event Saturday atTech.
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Kiplinger has ranked thetop schools since 1998. The currentrankings can be found at
www.kiplinger.com/tools/colleges.
Selected from a pool ofmore than 500 public four-year colleges and universities, schools in theKiplinger 100 were ranked according to academic quality, including admissionand retention rates, student-faculty ratios and four- and six-year graduationrates, as well as cost and financial aid.
]]>That material, the focus of the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics, is graphene -- a fancy name for extremely thin layers of ordinary carbon atoms arranged in a "chicken-wire" lattice. These layers, sometimes just a single atom thick, conduct electricity with virtually no resistance, very little heat generation -- and less power consumption than silicon.
With silicon device fabrication approaching its physical limits, many researchers believe graphene can provide a new platform material that would allow the semiconductor industry to continue its march toward ever-smaller and faster electronic devices -- progress described in Moore's Law. Though graphene will likely never replace silicon for everyday electronic applications, it could take over as the material of choice for high-performance devices.
And graphene could ultimately spawn a new generation of devices designed to take advantage of its unique properties.
Since 2001, Georgia Tech has become a world leader in developing epitaxial graphene, a specific type of graphene that can be grown on large wafers and patterned for use in electronics manufacturing. In a recent paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, Georgia Tech researchers reported fabricating an array of 10,000 top-gated transistors on a 0.24 square centimeter chip, an achievement believed to be the highest density reported so far in graphene devices.
In creating that array, they also demonstrated a clever new approach for growing complex graphene patterns on templates etched into silicon carbide. The new technique offered the solution to one of the most difficult issues that had been facing graphene electronics.
"This is a significant step toward electronics manufacturing with graphene," said Walt de Heer, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Physics who pioneered the development of graphene for high-performance electronics. "This is another step showing that our method of working with epitaxial graphene grown on silicon carbide is the right approach and the one that will probably be used for making graphene electronics."
Unrolled Carbon Nanotubes
For de Heer, the story of graphene begins with carbon nanotubes, tiny cylindrical structures considered miraculous when they first began to be studied by scientists in 1991. De Heer was among the researchers excited about the properties of nanotubes, whose unique arrangement of carbon atoms gave them physical and electronic properties that scientists believed could be the foundation for a new generation of electronic devices.
Carbon nanotubes still have attractive properties, but the ability to grow them consistently -- and to incorporate them in high-volume electronics applications -- has so far eluded researchers. De Heer realized before others that carbon nanotubes would probably never be used for high-volume electronic devices.
But he also realized that the key to the attractive electronic properties of the nanotubes was the lattice created by the carbon atoms. Why not simply grow that lattice on a flat surface, and use fabrication techniques proven in the microelectronics industry to create devices in much the same way as silicon integrated circuits?
By heating silicon carbide -- a widely-used electronic material -- de Heer and his colleagues were able to drive silicon atoms from the surface, leaving just the carbon lattice in thin layers of graphene large enough to grow the kinds of electronic devices familiar to a generation of electronics designers.
That process was the basis for a patent filed in 2003, and for initial research support from chip-maker Intel. Since then, de Heer's group has published dozens of papers and helped spawn other research groups also using epitaxial graphene for electronic devices. Though scientists are still learning about the material, companies such as IBM have launched research programs based on epitaxial graphene, and agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have invested in developing the material for future electronics applications.
Georgia Tech's work on developing epitaxial graphene for manufacturing electronic devices was recognized in the background paper produced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences as part of the Nobel Prize documentation.
The race to find commercial applications for graphene is intense, with researchers from the United States, Europe, Japan and Singapore engaged in well-funded efforts. Since awarding of the Nobel to a group from the United Kingdom, the flood of news releases about graphene developments has grown.
"Our epitaxial graphene is now used around the world by many research laboratories," de Heer noted. "We are probably at the stage where silicon was in the 1950s. This is the beginning of something that is going to be very large and important."
Silicon "Running Out of Gas"
A new electronics material is needed because silicon is running out of miniaturization room.
"Primarily, we've gotten the speed increases from silicon by continually shrinking feature sizes and improving interconnect technology," said Dennis Hess, director of the National Science Foundation-sponsored Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) established at Georgia Tech to study future electronic materials, starting with epitaxial graphene. "We are at the point where in less than 10 years, we won't be able to shrink feature sizes any farther because of the physics of the device operation. That means we will either have to change the type of device we make, or change the electronic material we use."
It's a matter of physics. At the very small size scales needed to create ever more dense device arrays, silicon generates too much resistance to electron flow, creating more heat than can be dissipated and consuming too much power.
Graphene has no such restrictions, and in fact, can provide electron mobility as much as 100 times better than silicon. De Heer believes his group has developed the roadmap for the future of high-performance electronics -- and that it is paved with epitaxial graphene.
"We have basically developed a whole scheme for making electronics out of graphene," he said. "We have set down what we believe will be the ground rules for how that will work, and we have the key patents in place."
Silicon, of course, has matured over many generations through constant research and improvement. De Heer and Hess agree that silicon will always be around, useful for low-cost consumer products such as iPods, toasters, personal computers and the like.
De Heer expects graphene to find its niche doing things that couldn't otherwise be done.
"We're not trying to do something cheaper or better; we're going to do things that can't be done at all with silicon," he said. "Making electronic devices as small as a molecule, for instance, cannot be done with silicon, but in principle could be done with graphene. The key question is how to extend Moore's Law in a post-CMOS world."
Unlike the carbon nanotubes he studied in the 1990s, de Heer sees no major problems ahead for the development of epitaxial graphene.
"That graphene is going to be a major player in the electronics of the future is no longer in doubt," he said. "We don't see any real roadblocks ahead. There are no flashing red lights or other signs that seem to say that this won't work. All of the issues we see relate to improving technical issues, and we know how to do that."
Making the Best Graphene
Since beginning the exploration of graphene in 2001, de Heer and his research team have made continuous improvements in the quality of the material they produce, and those improvements have allowed them to demonstrate a number of physical properties -- such as the Quantum Hall Effect -- that verify the unique properties of the material.
"The properties that we see in our epitaxial graphene are similar to what we have calculated for an ideal theoretical sheet of graphene suspended in the air," said Claire Berger, a research scientist in the Georgia Tech School of Physics who also has a faculty appointment at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France. "We see these properties in the electron transport and we see these properties in all kinds of spectroscopy. Everything that is supposed to be occurring in a single sheet of graphene we are seeing in our systems."
Key to the material's future, of course, is the ability to make electronic devices that work consistently. The researchers believe they have almost reached that point.
"All of the properties that epitaxial graphene needs to make it viable for electronic devices have been proven in this material," said Ed Conrad, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Physics who is also a MRSEC member. "We have shown that we can make macroscopic amounts of this material, and with the devices that are scalable, we have the groundwork that could really make graphene take off."
Reaching higher and higher device density is also important, along with the ability to control the number of layers of graphene produced. The group has demonstrated that in their multilayer graphene, each layer retains the desired properties.
"Multilayer graphene has different stacking than graphite, the material found in pencils," Conrad noted. "In graphite, every layer is rotated 60 degrees and that's the only way that nature can do it. When we grow graphene on silicon carbide, the layers are rotated 30 degrees. When that happens, the symmetry of the system changes to make the material behave the way we want it to."
Epitaxial Versus Exfoliated
Much of the world's graphene research -- including work leading to the Nobel -- involved the study of exfoliated graphene: layers of the material removed from a block of graphite, originally with tape. While that technique produces high-quality graphene, it's not clear how that could be scaled up for industrial production.
While agreeing that the exfoliated material has produced useful information about graphene properties, de Heer dismisses it as "a science project" unlikely to have industrial electronics application.
"Electronics companies are not interested in graphene flakes," he said. "They need industrial graphene, a material that can be scaled up for high-volume manufacturing. Industry is now getting more and more interested in what we are doing."
De Heer says Georgia Tech's place in the new graphene world is to focus on electronic applications.
"We are not really trying to compete with these other groups," he said. "We are really trying to create a practical electronic material. To do that, we will have to do many things right, including fabricating a scalable material that can be made as large as a wafer. It will have to be uniform and able to be processed using industrial methods."
Resolving Technical Issues
Among the significant technical issues facing graphene devices has been electron scattering that occurs at the boundaries of nanoribbons. If the edges aren't perfectly smooth -- as usually happens when the material is cut with electron beams -- the roughness bounces electrons around, creating resistance and interference.
To address that problem, de Heer and his team recently developed a new "templated growth" technique for fabricating nanometer-scale graphene devices. The technique involves etching patterns into the silicon carbide surfaces on which epitaxial graphene is grown. The patterns serve as templates directing the growth of graphene structures, allowing the formation of nanoribbons of specific widths without the use of e-beams or other destructive cutting techniques. Graphene nanoribbons produced with these templates have smooth edges that avoid electron-scattering problems.
"Using this approach, we can make very narrow ribbons of interconnected graphene without the rough edges," said de Heer. "Anything that can be done to make small structures without having to cut them is going to be useful to the development of graphene electronics because if the edges are too rough, electrons passing through the ribbons scatter against the edges and reduce the desirable properties of graphene."
In nanometer-scale graphene ribbons, quantum confinement makes the material behave as a semiconductor suitable for creation of electronic devices. But in ribbons a micron or so wide, the material acts as a conductor. Controlling the depth of the silicon carbide template allows the researchers to create these different structures simultaneously, using the same growth process.
"The same material can be either a conductor or a semiconductor depending on its shape," noted de Heer. "One of the major advantages of graphene electronics is to make the device leads and the semiconducting ribbons from the same material. That's important to avoid electrical resistance that builds up at junctions between different materials."
After formation of the nanoribbons, the researchers apply a dielectric material and metal gate to construct field-effect transistors. While successful fabrication of high-quality transistors demonstrates graphene's viability as an electronic material, de Heer sees them as only the first step in what could be done with the material.
"When we manage to make devices well on the nanoscale, we can then move on to make much smaller and finer structures that will go beyond conventional transistors to open up the possibility for more sophisticated devices that use electrons more like light than particles," he said. "If we can factor quantum mechanical features into electronics, that is going to open up a lot of new possibilities."
Collaborations with Other Groups
Before engineers can use epitaxial graphene for the next generation of electronic devices, they will have to understand its unique properties. As part of that process, Georgia Tech researchers are collaborating with scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The collaboration has produced new insights into how electrons behave in graphene.
In a recent paper published in the journal Nature Physics, the Georgia Tech-NIST team described for the first time how the orbits of electrons are distributed spatially by magnetic fields applied to layers of epitaxial graphene. They also found that these electron orbits can interact with the substrate on which the graphene is grown, creating energy gaps that affect how electron waves move through the multilayer material.
"The regular pattern of magnetically-induced energy gaps in the graphene surface creates regions where electron transport is not allowed," said Phillip N. First, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Physics and MRSEC member. "Electron waves would have to go around these regions, requiring new patterns of electron wave interference. Understanding this interference would be important for some bi-layer graphene devices that have been proposed."
Earlier NIST collaborations led to improved understanding of graphene electron states, and the way in which low temperature and high magnetic fields can affect energy levels. The researchers also demonstrated that atomic-scale moiré patterns, an interference pattern that appears when two or more graphene layers are overlaid, can be used to measure how sheets of graphene are stacked.
In a collaboration with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a group of Georgia Tech professors developed a simple and quick one-step process for creating nanowires on graphene oxide.
"We've shown that by locally heating insulating graphene oxide, both the flakes and the epitaxial varieties, with an atomic force microscope tip, we can write nanowires with dimensions down to 12 nanometers," said Elisa Riedo, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Physics and a MRSEC member. "And we can tune their electronic properties to be up to four orders of magnitude more conductive."
A New Industrial Revolution?
Though graphene can be grown and fabricated using processes similar to those of silicon, it is not easily compatible with silicon. That means companies adopting it will also have to build new fabrication facilities -- an expensive investment. Consequently, de Heer believes industry will be cautious about moving into a new graphene world.
"Silicon technology is completely entrenched and well developed," he admitted. "We can adopt many of the processes of silicon, but we can't easily integrate ourselves into silicon. Because of that, we really need a major paradigm shift. But for the massive electronics industry, that will not happen easily or gently."
He draws an analogy to steamships and passenger trains at the dawn of the aviation age. At some point, it became apparent that airliners were going to replace both ocean liners and trains in providing first-class passenger service. Though the cost of air travel was higher, passengers were willing to pay a premium for greater speed.
"We are going to see a coexistence of technologies for a while, and how the hybridization of graphene and silicon electronics is going to happen remains up in the air," de Heer predicted. "That is going to take decades, though in the next ten years we are probably going to see real commercial devices that involve graphene."
This article originally appeared in Research Horizons, Georgia Tech's research magazine.
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]]>Funded through a new $5.7 million grant from the NationalInstitute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health, the study isbeing led on the Georgia Tech side by Eva Lee, professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrialand Systems Engineering and director of the Center forOperations Research in Medicine.
Researchers agree cocaine injures the heart and predisposesusers to HIV/AIDS because of risky behaviors. The anti-retroviral medicinesused to treat HIV/AIDS also may adversely affect the cardiovascular system.Used together, cocaine and anti-retroviral therapy can amplify the injury fromeach.
Lee is working with cardiac pathologist William Lewis, whois the principal investigator of the study and a professor of pathology andlaboratory medicine in Emory University School of Medicine.
“The model must be capable of incorporating large amounts ofheterogeneous data, including genomic, biochemical, physiological andpathological,” Lee said. “Identifyingthe discriminatory features and constructing the predictive systems networkwill offer fundamental understanding of cocaine, HIV/AIDS and antiretroviralnucleosides interaction at multiple levels. … This will shed light on promisingavenues for improving treatment strategies.”
It is estimated that more than 34 million Americans haveused cocaine and more than 1.5 million are habitual users. More thana million Americans are infected with HIV or have full-blown AIDS.
For decades, cocaine has been thought to increase the riskfor HIV infection, Dr. Lewis said.
“HIV/AIDS, along with the use of cocaine and NRTIs[nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors] may lead to cardiomyopathy, aprevalent, life-threatening illness,” he said.
Researchers want to formulate a testable hypothesis on whatmechanisms lead to cardiomyopathy and heart failure in AIDS and non-AIDSconditions.
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