Searching for Solutions to HIV in South Africa
Posted: Wed, February 1, 2012

It’s not easy battling HIV on two fronts, let alone on two continents, but with the help of his colleagues in Atlanta and in South Africa that’s exactly what Dr. Manu Platt is doing. If all goes according to plan, Platt’s research will give doctors the ability to predict, treat, and prevent the occurrence of cardiovascular disease in HIV patients while he also develops a low-cost diagnostic tool that could help stem the spread of HIV in Africa.

Not much is known about the connection between HIV and cardiovascular disease; although it is clear that HIV patients are at much higher risk of suffering cardiovascular events than the general population. The risk is even higher for children born with HIV, something that is far too common in countries like South Africa where 10-15% of the population is HIV positive. Dr. Platt, an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, began his foray into HIV research as a first-year professor in 2009 when he answered a call for new researchers that was jointly sponsored by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the International AIDS Society (IAS).

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Non-Invasive Measurements of Tricuspid Valve Anatomy Can Predict Severity of Valve Leakage
Posted: Wed, January 18, 2012

An estimated 1.6 million Americans suffer moderate to severe leakage through their tricuspid valves. If left untreated, severe leakage can affect an individual’s quality of life and can even lead to death. A new study finds that the anatomy of the heart’s tricuspid valve can be used to predict the severity of leakage in the valve, which is a condition called tricuspid regurgitation. The study found that pulmonary arterial pressure, the size of the valve opening and papillary muscle position measurements could be used to predict the severity of an individual’s tricuspid regurgitation. “By being able to identify and measure an individual’s particular tricuspid valve anatomical features that we have shown are correlated with increased leakage, clinicians should be able to better target their repair efforts and create more durable repairs,” said Ajit Yoganathan, Regents’ professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. The study was published in the January issue of the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging.

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Endowment Supports New Chair in Biomedical Engineering
Posted: Tue, December 13, 2011

Professor Ravi Bellamkonda has been named the first Carol Ann and David D. Flanagan Chair in Biomedical Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. The award, made possible by a generous $1.5 million gift from the Flanagans, was recently approved by the Georgia Board of Regents. The award recognizes Bellamkonda’s scholarship and thought leadership in regenerative medicine, nanotechnology and cancer research, and will support his active research program.

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Eberhard Voit Elected to AIMBE College of Fellows
Posted: Wed, December 7, 2011

Biomedical Engineering Professor Eberhard Voit, has been elected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), Class of 2012. He was chosen for the honor: "For outstanding contributions to the development of computational systems biology and the use of model-based problem-solving in biomedical engineering." Voit holds the David D. Flanagan Chair in Biological Systems in The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. He is a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and Associate Director of the Integrative BioSystems Institute. 

There were 107 individuals elected to the College, who will be inducted at a ceremony at AIMBE’s Annual Event on February 20 in Washington, D.C.  The inductees, who were nominated by their peers, were screened by committees of Fellows within their specialty and were finally elected by the full College as the official College of Fellows Class of 2012. The College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers in the country.

Gilda Barabino Elected BMES President
Posted: Wed, November 2, 2011

The Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) announced Gilda Barabino as the organization's next president at the 2011 Annual Meeting in Hartford, Connecticut. She begins her two-year term in October 2012 at the Society’s next annual meeting in Atlanta, GA. Barabino is the first underrepresented minority and second woman to be elected President of BMES since it was established in 1968. Barabino commented on her new role: “My vision for BMES, our profession and the institutions and entities that represent biomedical engineering, is that we practice and are characterized by diversity inclusion, and that we serve as a model for others in doing so. Diversity inclusion is a term coined to denote a characteristic where an institution demonstrates through its policies and practices that diversity is central to its mission – this characteristic is essential to drive future innovation in our field. I will work tirelessly to lead by example and anticipate that others will follow suit.”

Helping Children: FDA Grant Launches Atlanta Pediatric Device Consortium
Posted: Wed, October 12, 2011

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has awarded the Georgia Institute of Technology, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory University and Saint Joseph’s Translational Research Institute (SJTRI) a two-year, $1.8 million grant to foster the development of medical devices focused on the special needs of children. The award will launch the new Atlanta Pediatric Device Consortium, which will provide assistance with engineering design, prototype development, pre-clinical and clinical studies and commercialization for novel pediatric medical devices. “By developing, testing and refining medical devices specifically for children, we hope to produce safer, more effective devices that will improve their lives,” said Barbara Boyan, the Price Gilbert, Jr. Chair in Tissue Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. The consortium will be led by Boyan, along with consortium co-directors Kevin Maher, a cardiologist and researcher specializing in pediatrics with appointments at the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Sibley Heart Center and Emory University, and Wilbur Lam, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist and bioengineer with appointments at Emory, the Aflac Cancer Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and the Coulter Department. Additional leadership will be provided by Franklin Bost, professor and director of design instruction in the Coulter Department; David Ku, a Regents professor with appointments in the Georgia Tech School of Mechanical Engineering and College of Management, and Emory’s Department of Surgery; and Nicholas Chronos, president of SJTRI.

Historically, devices designed for adults have been used in children. However, differences in body size and immune system responses between adults and children, and the lack of appropriate models to assess how a device might function in a growing child, can result in poor device performance and responses that are less than optimal. “There is little information as to what devices are working well for children and what complications occur,” explained Boyan, who is also a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. “In addition, the high cost of clinical trials for a small market like pediatrics has made conducting pediatric trials cost-prohibitive for many manufacturers.” The consortium will try to reduce these barriers by creating a product development pathway that will provide support for commercialization of devices for pediatric health care from initial concept to the completed product.

The consortium will provide assistance for pediatric medical devices from academic institutions and small businesses. The three technologies that will be investigated initially are: a smartphone attachment designed for at-home ear examinations; a renal dialysis device; and a gel designed to delay the re-fusion of a child’s skull bones after surgery for craniosynostosis.

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Robots as Rehab Assistants: NSF Emerging Frontiers Award Supports Development of Human-Machine Cooperation
Posted: Thu, October 6, 2011

Scientists at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology will develop a “therapeutic robot” to help rehabilitate and improve motor skills in people with mobility problems. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the scientists a $2M research grant over four years through its Division of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation. The project is called “Partnered Rehabilitative Movement: Cooperative Human-robot Interactions for Motor Assistance, Learning, and Communication.”

“Our vision is to develop robots that will interact with humans as both assistants and movement therapists,” explains principal investigator Lena Ting, PhD, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “We expect our project to have a long-term impact on quality of life of individuals with movement difficulties, such as those caused by Parkinson’s disease, stroke, and injury, by improving fitness, motor skills and social engagement.”

The robot developed through the project could enhance, assist and improve motor skills in humans with varying motor capabilities and deficits. Other applications of the technologies and theories developed could include the design of prosthetic devices or sports robots that entertain and improve fitness. The researchers also believe their work will advance understanding of how the brain controls movement and other functions. Madeleine Hackney, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (geriatrics) in Emory University School of Medicine is co-principal investigator of the project. Co-PIs at Georgia Tech are biomedical engineering assistant professor Charlie Kemp, PhD, and assistant professor of interactive computing science Karen Liu, PhD.

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NIH Awards Blueprint Training Grant in Computational Neuroscience
Posted: Wed, September 28, 2011

Faculty at Emory and Georgia Tech are training young scientists in how to use the tools of biomedical computation to solve challenging problems of neuroscience. A new five-year grant of $1.6 million from the National Institutes of Health will create a training center in computational neuroscience, one of only five national training centers supported by the NIH through its NIH Blueprint training grant program. The grant is entitled “From cells to systems and applications: computational neuroscience training at Emory and Georgia Tech.” Principal investigators are Garrett Stanley, PhD, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and Dieter Jaeger, PhD, professor of biology, Emory University. “The NIH Blueprint training grants are particularly innovative in that they combine undergraduate and graduate training programs and provide trainee support at both levels,” says Jaeger.

The core training group will initially consist of 16 faculty members from departments spanning Emory University School of Medicine (physiology, neurology, anesthesiology, biomedical engineering) and Emory College of Arts and Sciences (biology, psychology) as well as Georgia Tech (biomedical engineering, electrical engineering). “This impressive range of faculty and departments provides testimony to the highly collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of this field of study at Georgia Tech and Emory,” notes Stanley.

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2011 Immunology Engineering Workshop
Posted: Mon, September 26, 2011

BME Associate Professor Julie Babensee is chairing The Immunology Engineering Workshop on October 26, 8:30 am to 3:30 pm, in the Marcus Nanotechnology Bldg. The workshop will highlight recent research by Georgia Tech faculty in the area of immunology engineering with a view to identifying potential collaborations. Topics will include immunomodulation, biomaterials to control immune/inflammatory responses, systems biology, vaccine delivery systems, lymphatics, pathogen sensing and immune cell biomechanics. All interested faculty, students and postdoctoral fellows are invited to attend. The workshop is sponsored by IBB and the Georgia Tech College of Engineering.

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Stem Cell Signaling: Transformative NIH Grant Will Support Development of Tissue Regeneration Therapeutics for Traumatic Injuries
Posted: Tue, September 20, 2011

The National Institutes of Health has awarded nearly $2 million to researchers at Georgia Tech and Emory University to develop a new class of therapeutics for treating traumatic injuries and degenerative diseases.  The five-year project focuses on developing biomaterials capable of capturing certain molecules from embryonic stem cells and delivering them to wound sites to enhance tissue regeneration in adults. By applying these unique molecules, clinicians may be able to harness the regenerative power of stem cells while avoiding concerns of tumor formation and immune system compatibility associated with most stem cell transplantation approaches.

“Pre-clinical and clinical evidence strongly suggests that the biomolecules produced by stem cells significantly impact tissue regeneration independent of differentiation into functionally competent cells,” 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 want to find out if the signaling molecules responsible for scarless wound healing and functional tissue restoration during early stages of embryological development can be used with adult wounds to produce successful tissue regeneration without scar formation.” In addition to McDevitt, Coulter Department associate professor Johnna Temenoff and Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering professor Robert Guldberg are also investigators on the project.

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Transformative NIH Grant to Support Imaging of Lung Cancer During Surgery
Posted: Tue, September 20, 2011

If a tumor is more visible and easier to distinguish from surrounding tissues, surgeons will be more likely to be able to remove it completely. That’s the rationale behind a new $7 million, five-year “transformative” grant from the National Institutes of Health to a team of researchers from Emory, Georgia Tech and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.  BME Professor Shuming Nie, PhD, and his colleagues at the Emory-Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology have been developing fluorescent nanoparticle probes that hone in on cancer cells. The grant will support the team’s continuing work on the nanoparticles and instruments that visualize them for cancer detection during surgery. The project team includes May Wang, PhD, director of biocomputing and bioinformatics at the Nanotechnology Center and Sunil Singhal, MD, director of the Thoracic Surgery Research Laboratory at the Perelman School of Medicine. Nie is a professor and Wang is associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “At present, a significant group of patients who undergo surgery leave the operating room without a complete resection due to missed lesions,” Nie says. “Our main goals are to help surgeons distinguish tumor margins, identify diseased lymph nodes and micrometastases, and to determine if the tumor has been completely removed. Having these capabilities can be expected to make a major impact in reducing recurrence rates of lung cancer after surgery.”

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Cassie Mitchell Brings Home Two World Championships
Posted: Tue, September 20, 2011

BME research engineer Dr. Cassie Mitchell returned to Atlanta this week from the 2011 Union Cycliste International (UCI) Paracycling World Championships in Roskilde, Denmark, where she represented team USA and won two World championships in the Individual Time Trial and Road Race events.  In doing so, she became the first female quadriplegic handcyclist to win a world championship.  The time trial was a 10-mile sprint and the road race was a 30-mile circuit. The paracycling championships featured 435 athletes who participated from 61 different countries. Cassie said she felt very fortunate to hear the U.S. national anthem play twice as she received her two Gold medals. See a video interview of Cassie after the race here.

U.S.News and World Report Ranks BME Undergrad Program Second in the Nation
Posted: Thu, September 15, 2011

BME’s undergraduate program was ranked second in the nation by U.S.News and World Report in 2012, moving up from third last year. Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering ranked 5th in the undergraduate rankings for engineering programs at universities where the highest degree is a Ph.D.   The Institute ranked 7th among public universities and Emory University came in at No. 20 among all national public and private universities.

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Researchers are Working to Improve the Treatment for Premature Fusion of Skull Bones in Children
Posted: Wed, September 7, 2011

BME engineers and surgeons are working together to improve the treatment of babies born with craniosynostosis, a condition that causes the bone plates in the skull to fuse too soon. Treating this condition typically requires surgery after birth to remove portions of the fused skull bones, and in some cases the bones grow together again too quickly -- requiring additional surgeries. Researchers in the Center for Pediatric Healthcare Technology Innovation are developing imaging techniques designed to predict whether a child's skull bones are likely to grow back together too quickly after surgery. They are also developing technologies that may delay a repeat of the premature fusion process.

The research is a collaboration among center co-director Joseph Williams, clinical director of craniofacial plastic surgery at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and (all from the Coulter Department) center director Barbara Boyan, the Price Gilbert, Jr. Chair in Tissue Engineering; associate professor Niren Murthy; Chris Hermann, an M.D./Ph.D. student; and BME research scientist Rene Olivares-Navarrete.

"Following the first surgery, there's a clinical need to be able to screen children on a regular basis to predict when their skull bones are going to fuse together again so that the surgeons can determine if additional intervention will be required," said Boyan.  To address this need, the researchers have developed a non-invasive technique to monitor bone growth with computed tomography images. The research team has also designed a gel to be injected into the gap created between skull bones during the first surgery. The material would deliver specific proteins to the area to delay, but not prevent, bone growth. "During the initial surgery, injecting the gel may reduce the operation's severity if it eliminates the need for plates and screws to hold the skull bones in place afterward," explained Boyan, who is also a Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) Eminent Scholar and associate dean for research and innovation in the Georgia Tech College of Engineering.

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BME Teams Awarded New IBB Seed Grants
Posted: Wed, September 7, 2011

Two BME teams were recently awarded $100,000 seed grants as part of a new initiative from The Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB). The Petit Bioengineering and Bioscience Collaborative Grant program was created to support early-stage innovative biotechnology research collaborations among IBB faculty, with teams including one faculty member from Georgia Tech’s College of Science and one from the College of Engineering. 

Melissa Kemp, assistant professor in the Coulter Department and Greg Gibson, professor in the School of Biology, won their award for a project which aims to develop the measurement tools for relating variability in both genomic and protein information at the single cell level. “Studies of genomic data often fail to bridge the observed variation in DNA sequences to cellular function, in part due to the variation that is present by both types of measurement,” Kemp said, “with the technologies this project is developing, we will be able to compare population-averaged data to single cell measurements in order to gain new insight in relating genes to phenotype.” 

Michelle LaPlaca, associate professor in the Coulter Department and Al Merrill, professor in the School of Biology, are partnering to merge traumatic brain injury with lipid biology in the hopes of evaluating, for the first time, plasma membrane breakdown mechanisms and lipid signaling following traumatic brain injury.   “Traumatic brain injury remains a major clinical problem with few effective treatments and the devastating sequelae following this type of injury leads to chronic neural deficits,” LaPlaca stated.

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Suzanne Eskin Named Regent’s Researcher
Posted: Thu, August 11, 2011

The University System of Georgia Board of Regents has named BME Principal Research Scientist Suzanne Eskin Regent’s Researcher. This title represents the highest academic status bestowed by the University System of Georgia. It is meant to recognize a substantial, significant and ongoing record of scholarly achievement that has earned high national esteem over a sustained period.  Eskin was honored for her contributions research in vascular biology, cardiovascular tissue engineering and gene expression of vascular cells. She studies the comparative effects of mechanical forces accompanying blood flow and pressure on the blood vessel wall.

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Barbara Boyan Selected as Part of the Research Team Exploring Why Knee Osteoarthritis Afflicts More Women than Men
Posted: Thu, August 11, 2011

The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR) and its Interdisciplinary Studies in Sex-Differences (ISIS) Network on Musculoskeletal Health has awarded a group of researchers a $127,000 grant to lead a pilot project to understand whether biological differences between men and women affect the incidence and severity of knee osteoarthritis. Barbara Boyan, a faculty in the Coulter Department, is part of the team that will explore why knee arthritis is more common in women than men. The study will examine a variety of human tissues normally discarded during total knee replacement surgery that is performed for severe osteoarthritis.  The tissues will be analyzed for possible differences in pain fibers and hormone and vitamin D receptors between female and male patients. Mary O’Connor, chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida, is the study’s principal investigator.  Osteoarthritis (OA) is a major cause of disability in the aging population.  “Whereas OA is more common in young men than in young women, in older people, the disease is more prevalent and more severe in women,” said Boyan, chair of the ISIS Network on Musculoskeletal Health. “It is important to understand what the sex differences are and how they impact the development of treatments for the disease, particularly with respect to regenerative medicine strategies for restoring damaged cartilage.”  Undergraduate and graduate students in Biomedical Engineering will be participating in this first study of its kind.

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Cassie Mitchell Wins Spot on USA Paracycling Team
Posted: Thu, August 11, 2011

The United States Olympic Committee has named Coulter Department Research Engineer Cassie Mitchell to the 2011 USA paracycling team. She will be going to Roskilde, Denmark, for the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) World Championships in September and has her sights set on a potential spot for the 2012 Olympics in London, England. Cassie recently won all three events of the USA cycling national championships (criterium, road race, and time trial). She won the honor by winning a series of National Championship elite races for able-bodied and disabled cyclists alike, competing with athletes vying for a spot in upcoming international competitions, including the 2011 World Championships. Not only did she become a 4-time national champion by winning all of the races, she also unofficially set a new world record in her cycling classification as a quadriplegic (impairments in all 4 limbs) female. Cassie will be the first quadriplegic female to represent Team USA internationally. She rides a custom three-wheeled handcycle, propelled with only arm and chest muscles, that she helped to engineer. Cassie is a BME alumnus (2009, Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering, GT-Emory).

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Leaky Heart Valves: First In Vitro Study of Tricuspid Valve Mechanics Uncovers Causes for Leakage
Posted: Thu, August 11, 2011

A new study, published online in the journal Circulation on August 1, 2011, found that either dilating the tricuspid valve opening or displacing the papillary muscles that control its operation can cause the valve to leak. A combination of the two actions can increase the severity of the leakage, which is called tricuspid regurgitation. “We think this is the first in vitro investigation into the mechanics of the tricuspid valve, and that our findings into the mechanisms that cause tricuspid regurgitation could lead to improved diagnosis and treatment,” said Ajit Yoganathan. With funding from the American Heart Association, Yoganathan and Coulter Department graduate student Erin Spinner conducted experiments with porcine tricuspid valves to determine possible causes of tricuspid regurgitation. The valves were attached to a plate designed to create physiological dilation and then placed inside a right heart simulator. In their future work, the Coulter Department researchers plan to look at the effect of pulmonary hypertension on the tricuspid valve, because tricuspid regurgitation usually develops in association with pulmonary hypertension — which is abnormally high blood pressure in the lungs. They also plan to work with their clinical collaborators to extend their findings to humans.

    Circulation Article

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Robots for Humanity
Posted: Tue, August 2, 2011

Since his stroke 10 years ago, Henry Evans has been unable to scratch an itch or shave his own face. But now, even though he is mute and quadriplegic, he can scratch himself and shave his cheek with the aid of a Personal Robot 2 (PR2) in a laboratory setting. These successes come out of a new project called Robots for Humanity, a collaboration of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Willow Garage and Henry and Jane Evans of Palo Alto, Calif. The initial steps show great potential for the role of personal robots in assisting individuals with disabilities.

“This is just the beginning,” said Charlie Kemp, director of the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech and assistant professor of biomedical engineering. “We hope to really push on these technologies so robots like this can actually help people every day.“

    Robots for Humanity Video Blog

    ABC News Coverage

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Detecting Disease: New Contrast Agents Detect Bacterial Infections with High Sensitivity and Specificity
Posted: Tue, July 19, 2011

A new family of contrast agents that sneak into bacteria disguised as glucose food can detect bacterial infections in animals with high sensitivity and specificity. These agents — called maltodextrin-based imaging probes — can also distinguish a bacterial infection from other inflammatory conditions. “These contrast agents fill the need for probes that can accurately image small numbers of bacteria in vivo and distinguish infections from other pathologies like cancer,” said Niren Murthy, an associate professor in the Coulter Department. “These probes could ultimately improve the diagnosis and treatment of bacterial infections, which remains a major challenge in medicine.” The imaging probes were described in the July 17, 2011 advance online edition of the journal Nature Materials. Coulter Department postdoctoral fellows Xinghai Ning and Seungjun Lee led the project. University of Georgia Complex Carbohydrate Research Center postdoctoral associate Zhirui Wang; and Georgia State University Department of Biology associate professor Eric Gilbert and student Bryan Subblefield also contributed to the work. More Information.

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Barabino Profiled on AAAS Website
Posted: Thu, June 30, 2011

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently profiled BME's Gilda Barabino as part of their Member Spotlight. Here is an excerpt of Barabino's profile Walk into Dr. Gilda Barabino’s office at Georgia's Institute of Technology in Atlanta and scan the room. Each wall is lined with shelves, filled with thick science journals, hardback copies of Langston Hughes poems, and soft vintage novels by James Baldwin. Tucked between the shelves, a poster with a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the bold words, “The Right to be Free.”  It is a commemorative of Brown vs. the Board of Education, the landmark 1954 case where the Supreme Court ruled that state laws establishing "separate but equal" public schools for white and black students was unconstitutional. The ruling paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement. For Barabino, an African American woman, the words on the wall are more than an inspirational slogan. They serve as a “daily reminder” on how far black people have advanced in America. Gazing up at the poster, Barabino, says, "The best science is conducted when we have the most inclusive group of people involved. You can’t possibly have the best minds at the table if you exclude certain groups.”

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BME Team Wins Design Competition With ECG Made from Recycled Smart Phones
Posted: Mon, June 27, 2011

BME team of Joshua Lee, Joseph Kim, Eric Gaupp and Benjamin Chism won the top prize of $5000 in the 2011 International E-Waste Design Competition for their project CardioReach. This project involves an electrocardiograph (ECG) device made of components found in e-waste. From the project description: “Our plan is to acquire smart phones through donation programs and re-purpose them to become the CardioReach. The costs of developing our device will be minimal and significantly less than alternative ECG devices in developing countries. The CardioReach technology is currently in early stage development, and a functional prototype is expected to be made by August 2011.” The project started as a BME Capstone Design Project. See their You Tube video here.

Engineers Control the Environment to Direct Stem Cell Differentiation
Posted: Mon, June 27, 2011

New research presented by Todd McDevitt at the June 16th 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. "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 McDevitt. "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.

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McDevitt Interviewed on CNN International
Posted: Wed, June 1, 2011

Todd McDevitt, BME associate professor and director of the Stem Cell Engineering Center, was interviewed live on CNN International recently about the state of stem cell research in the United States and around the world, as well as the risks and benefits of stem cell treatments. See the interview here.

BME Grads Issued Patent for former Capstone Project
Posted: Wed, June 1, 2011

Ashish Patil, Nikhil Dewan, Karan Raturi and Michael Gadaleta, BME class of 2009, were recently issued a patent for a project they started in the BME Capstone Design Course. After graduation they launched their start-up, Medivity, with support from ATDC.  According to Ashish, who stopped in to see Franklin Bost on a recent trip to Atlanta, “We're garnering a good amount of interest from potential partners and we're pushing forward on all fronts.”  Medivity focuses on the research and development of GI endoscopic accessories, enabling a range of conventional procedures to be deployed using a “no-scar” methodology. Medivity products complement and improve current technologies for Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery procedures.  They aim to become a market leader in endoscopic accessories, beginning with their first product, PuncSure.

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New Programs Foster Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Posted: Wed, June 1, 2011

Three new initiatives designed to provide both education and resources to campus innovators were recently announced. The new initiatives include: Georgia Tech Integrated Program for Startups, GT:IPS:  GT:IPS combines a streamlined licensing program with organized support for faculty and student inventor-entrepreneurs.  A new program designed for early stage for-profit, not-for-profit and policy startups that are both internal and external to Georgia Tech called Flashpoint has been announced (flashpoint.gatech.edu). The Flashpoint program will offer 12 to 20 startups the opportunity to tap into Georgia Tech’s entrepreneurial expertise and funding support provided through Georgia Tech’s Edison fund and an investment fund managed through Imlay Investments.  Bio-impact Commercialization Team (BCT): The BCT is a focused, institutional commitment to translational research in biomedicine and projects funded by the Coulter Foundation. A team with expertise in the bio-medical device space will work closely with faculty members and the venture capital community to facilitate translational research and commercialization.

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Chun Yong Named Goldwater Scholar
Posted: Thu, April 7, 2011

Chun Yong, a junior biomedical engineering student, was awarded a Goldwater Scholarship for the 2011-2012 academic year. The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was created to encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. Yong is a 2010 Petit Research Scholar and has won several President’s Undergraduate Research Awards and held a Russ Bell Undergraduate Research Scholarship. This summer, he will be attending the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships program. Yong is co-founder of a new Biomedical Research and Opportunities Society and executive vice president of the American Medical Student Association. In 2003, Yong and his family moved to Georgia after living in Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia. He is providing for his family as well as doing research, which focuses on insulin-dependent diabetes. In addition, Katy Hammersmith, a biomedical engineering sophomore, received Honorable Mention from the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program.

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Pediatric Nanomedicine Center Links Research Efforts of Biomedical Engineers at Emory/Georgia Tech with Physicians of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
Posted: Wed, March 30, 2011

A new center devoted to pediatric nanomedicine now links biomedical engineers in the Coulter Department with physicians at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, in a first-of-its-kind collaboration. The Center for Pediatric Nanomedicine (CPN) brings an unprecedented focus on developing nano-scale therapies for treating a range of pediatric diseases, including pediatric heart disease and thrombosis, infectious diseases, cancer, sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis. “Because nano-scale structures are compatible in size to biomolecules, nanomedicine provides unprecedented opportunities for achieving better control of biological processes and drastic improvements in disease detection, therapy and prevention,” says Gang Bao, PhD, CPN Director and the Robert A. Milton Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

The CPN is part of the Emory-Children’s Pediatric Research Center led by the two institutions, including partnerships with Georgia Institute of Technology and Morehouse School of Medicine. Paul Spearman, MD, Children’s chief research officer and vice chair for research in the Emory University Department of Pediatrics heads the Emory/Children’s Pediatric Research Center.

“Nanomedicine is expected to dramatically exceed what has occurred in the field thus far, and our belief is that it will revolutionize medicine,” says Bao. “We plan to make this new pediatric nanomedicine center a leader in applying these unique discoveries to treating and curing children’s diseases.”

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Researchers Predict Age of T Cells to Improve Cancer Treatment
Posted: Thu, March 3, 2011

Manipulation of cells by a new microfluidic device may help clinicians improve a promising cancer therapy that harnesses the body's own immune cells to fight such diseases as metastatic melanoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and neuroblastoma. 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.

A research team led by Coulter Department Assistant Professor Melissa Kemp has 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 Kemp. "Knowing this information will help facilitate the clinical development of appropriate T cell expansion and selection protocols."

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Vaccine Development: Virus-Mimicking Nanoparticles Can Stimulate Long Lasting Immunity
Posted: Thu, February 24, 2011

Live viral vaccines such as the smallpox or yellow fever vaccines provide immune protection that lasts several decades, but despite their success, scientists have remained in the dark as to how they induce such long lasting immunity. Researchers at Emory University and Georgia Tech have designed tiny nanoparticles that resemble viruses in size and immunological composition and induce lifelong immunity in mice. The particles, made of biodegradable polymers, have components that activate two different parts of the innate immune system and can be used interchangeably with material from many different bacteria or viruses.  “These particles could provide an instant way to stretch scarce supplies when access to viral material is limited, such as pandemic flu or during an emerging infection,” said senior author Bali Pulendran, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory School of Medicine. Emory postdoctoral fellow Sudhir Pai Kasturi worked with Niren Murthy, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, to create tiny particles studded with molecules that turn on Toll-like receptors. “Given the ability of these nanoparticles to tune T and B cell responses, I anticipate they will be the focus of numerous vaccine developments in the future,” said Murthy.

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Automated ICU Sedation: Computer System for Evaluating Sedation Level Shows Strong Agreement with Clinical Assessment
Posted: Tue, February 15, 2011

Researchers from  Georgia  Tech, Emory and the Northeast Georgia Medical Center are one step closer to their goal of automating the management of sedation in hospital intensive care units (ICUs). They have developed control algorithms that use clinical data to accurately determine a patient’s level of sedation and can notify medical staff if there is a change in the level. 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.” The algorithm returned the same results as the assessment by hospital staff 92 percent of the time. The presentation was authored by Wassim Haddad, GT aerospace engineering, Allen Tannenbaum, GT/Emory BME and GT ECE, Behnood Gholami, GT ECE and James Bailey, Northeast Georgia Medical Center.

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Georgia Tech/Emory Startup with Roots in BME Receives $5.1 Million Investment for Improved Heart Surgery System
Posted: Thu, February 10, 2011

A Georgia Tech and Emory University medical device startup that developed a system to simplify and standardize the technique for opening and closing the beating heart during cardiac surgery has received a $5.1 million investment. Apica Cardiovascular has licensed the 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. The technology upon which Apica Cardiovascular is based has its roots in the BME laboratory of Ajit Yoganathan, Regents Professor and Associate Chair for Research in the Coulter Department. “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 Yoganathan. Apica Cardiovascular co-founders are James Green, Vinod Thourani, Jorge Jimenez and Yoganathan.

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Nanoparticles May Enhance Circulating Tumor Cell Detection
Posted: Thu, February 10, 2011

Tiny gold particles can help doctors detect tumor cells circulating in the blood of patients with head and neck cancer, researchers at Emory and Georgia Tech have found. The detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is an emerging technique that can allow oncologists to monitor patients with cancer for metastasis or to evaluate the progress of their treatment. The gold particles, which are embedded with dyes allowing their detection by laser spectroscopy, could enhance this technique’s specificity by reducing the number of false positives. “The key technological advance here is our finding that polymer-coated gold nanoparticles that are conjugated with low molecular weight peptides such as EGF are much less sticky than particles conjugated to whole antibodies,” says Shuming Nie, PhD, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “This effect has led to a major improvement in discriminating tumor cells from non-tumor cells in the blood.” The results are published online in the journal Cancer Research.

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Young Athletes and ACL Tears: 3-D MRI Technology Puts Them Back in the Game
Posted: Tue, January 25, 2011

New technology has made it possible for surgeons to reconstruct ACL tears in young athletes without disturbing the growth plate. John Xerogeanes, MD, chief of the Emory Sports Medicine Center, and colleagues in the laboratory of Allen R. Tannenbaum, PhD, professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, have developed 3-D MRI technology that allows surgeons to pre-operatively plan and perform anatomic anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery. ACL tears are one of the most common injuries in children who participate in sports including football, basketball, soccer and gymnastics. Traditional treatment for ACL injuries in kids has been rehabilitation, wearing a brace and staying out of athletics until the child stops growing - usually in the mid-teens - and ACL reconstruction surgery could then safely be performed.

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Recognizing Invaders: Study Maps Process Used by T Cells to Discriminate Pathogens from the Body’s Own Cells
Posted: Thu, January 20, 2011

Researchers have for the first time mapped the complex choreography used by the immune system’s T cells to recognize pathogens while avoiding attacks on the body’s own cells.  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 BME Professor Cheng Zhu.  “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 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.

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Georgia Tech Team Helps Decode Newly Sequenced Strawberry Genome
Posted: Tue, January 18, 2011

An international research consortium has sequenced the genome of the woodland strawberry, according to a study published in Nature Genetics. The consortium of 75 researchers from 38 institutions that sequenced the genome included Mark Borodovsky, a Regents professor with a joint appointment in the Coulter Department and the Georgia Tech School of Computational Science and Engineering, and Paul Burns, who worked on the project as a bioinformatics Ph.D. student. Once the consortium uncovered the genomic sequence of the woodland strawberry, Borodovsky and Burns led the efforts in identifying protein-coding genes in the sequence. Using a newly developed pattern recognition program called GeneMark.hmm-ES+, Borodovsky and Burns identified 34,809 genes, of which 55 percent were assigned to gene families. "GeneMark.hmm-ES+ is a hybrid program that uses both DNA and RNA sequences to predict protein-coding genes," said Borodovsky. "Our approach to gene prediction in the strawberry genome proved highly effective, with 90 percent of the genes predicted by the hybrid gene model supported by transcript-based evidence," added Borodovsky. In the long term, breeders will be able to use the information to create plants that can be grown with less environmental impact, better nutritional profiles and larger yields

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Engineering Better Interface Between Brain and Machine
Posted: Tue, January 4, 2011

Whether controlling movement of a prosthetic limb or the curser on a computer monitor, neural implants show great promise -- at first. However, their widespread use is hampered by a lack of reliability over time; and clear evidence of the reasons for the failures remains elusive. Now, a research team led by a group of biomedical engineers at Georgia Tech and Emory University are seeking to improve brain-machine interface by irrefutably identifying why current methods fail. DARPA has funded $4.5 million for three years to support the multi-disciplinary team as they seek reasons for the failure of neural implants.  The research team includes: Ravi Bellamkonda (PI), Garrett Stanley and Niren Murthy from the Coulter Department; Mark Allen and Rob Butera from ECE; Jud Ready from GTRI; Themis Kyriakides from Yale University and Tracy Cui from University of Pittsburgh. “This research is a great match between our desire to develop new, innovative ways to interface technology to the human nervous system, and DARPA’s desire to overcome the scientific hurdles that are thwarting the development of the next generation of neuro-controlled prosthetic devices,” said Bellamkonda.

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Capstone Design Team Presents Research at State Capitol
Posted: Tue, January 4, 2011

BME Capstone Design Team of Chris Jorgensen, Kevin Rego, Nick Patel and Tahir Haque will accompany their clinical advisor, Dr. James Fonger to the State Capitol on February 9 to present their project Cardio SX: A Novel Device for Stem Cell Delivery to the Beating Heart to the House Science and Technology Committee. The Committee, chaired by State Rep. Amos Amerson, meets to consider policy that relates to science and technology as well as to learn of unique initiatives and research taking place in the field. President Peterson is scheduled to be there to speak briefly about the excellent work our students are doing. Cardio SX is a device which can deliver stem-cell therapy to the surface of a beating heart with a steerable needle and under direct vision. The aim of the stem cell therapy is to repair damaged heart tissue. Dr. Fonger is the Executive Director of Surgery for the St. Joseph’s Translational Research Institute, and a practicing cardiothoracic surgeon. The team has already begun the patent application process for the device.

Wendy Newstetter Co-Authors Book on Cognition and Learning on Frontiers of Science
Posted: Tue, January 4, 2011

Wendy Newstetter is a coauthor of a new book titled Science as Psychology: Sense-Making and Identity in Science Practice. Coauthors are Nancy Nersessian, GT College of Computing, and Lisa Osbeck and Kareen Malone of University of West Georgia. Here’s an excerpt from the book jacket: “Science as Psychology reveals the complexity and richness of rationality by demonstrating how social relationships, emotion, culture and identity, are implicated in the problem-solving practices of laboratory scientists. The authors gather and analyze interview and observational data from innovation-focused laboratories in the engineering sciences to show how the complex practices of laboratory research scientists provide rich psychological insights, and how a better understanding of science practice facilitates understanding of human beings more generally. The study focuses on how social, personal and cognitive processes are intricately woven together in scientific thinking.

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Coulter Department Brings New Level of Hands-On Experience for BME Students;
MEAs from Axion BioSystems Allow State-of-the-Art Experimentation in Cellular Communications
Posted: Tue, January 4, 2011

The Coulter Department is upgrading their undergraduate teaching laboratories with five new state-of-the-art microelectrode arrays (MEAs). With this acquisition, the Coulter Department now offers one of the best-equipped neurophysiology labs dedicated for biomedical engineering student use. MEAs are a grid of micro-scale electrodes, embedded in a culture dish, and are used to study and probe the complex signaling of electrically active tissue, such as brain or heart tissue. The equipment is produced by Axion BioSystems, a company co-founded by GA Tech alum Tom O’Brien in 2008 using technology licensed from the Institution. With MEA technologies, undergraduate students can begin to tackle significant challenges in neuroscience, from unlocking the mysteries of learning and memory to developing methods for restoring vision. This technology will allow students to explore and interact with not only brain tissue, but also the heart, spinal cord, bone, and pancreas, all of which produce electrical signals.

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ME/BME Team Wins Top Prize at ME Capstone Design Expo
Posted: Tue, December 14, 2010

This semester five teams of BME seniors opted to join fellow seniors in Mechanical Engineering to form multidisciplinary capstone design teams. The team of BME students Chris Giardina, Khaled Kashlan, Rebeca Bowden, Jorge Bara; and ME students Kanitha Kim and Shane Saunders won the top prize of $500 with their design for a surgical instrument for cataract surgery. The AutoRexis, a set of rotating dual-arc blades, will make the most difficult step of cataract surgery safer, more cost-effective, and easier to learn by ophthalmologists. Congratulations to the winning team, their advisor, Dr. Timothy Johnson, Emory School of Medicine, and class instructors for the multi-disciplinary teams, Professors Franklin Bost and Craig Forest (ME).

Additional multi-disciplinary BME-ME teams developed devices that received recognition in the competition.  Katherine Baker, Amy Cheben, Nathan Hibbs, Megan Richards, Jenny Taylor and Michael Zhao won a second place prize of $300 in the Expo with their design of Mammospan, a breast tissue expansion system for breast reconstruction. Their advisor was Dr. Albert Losken, Emory School of Medicine.  The team of Asia Bailey, Sahil Batta, Brittanny Boyer, Rob DeBernard, Nolan Ivie and Jamie James won 6th place in the competition with their design for the Urolock, a device to attach the urethra to the bladder during prostate surgery. The team’s advisors were Drs. Gil Foster and Anthony Malizia of Malizia Clinic.

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Robot Cody Provides a Bed Bath
Posted: Tue, November 23, 2010

Cody, a robot with compliant arms and a specialized "bath mitt" has demonstrated capabilities that could be used for automated bed baths. Cody was developed by the Healthcare Robotics Laboratory under the direction of Coulter Department Associate Professor Charlie Kemp. This could potentially be useful for individuals unable to perform these functions for themselves. A human operator directs Cody to the area of skin to be cleaned. Cody uses a camera and a laser range finder to gather data, and then autonomously performs the cleaning function. Cody has also been programmed for safety precautions, such as joints that are made with low stiffness to soften potential accidental impact, control methods that exert adequate pressure (well below the threshold to cause damage), and a "stop" button to shut off movement. This work was reported at the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots (IROS) in Taipei last month, and represents a step forward in the use of robots in the healthcare arena.

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Stanley Lab Research Reveals Neural Basis of Rapid Brain Adaptation
Posted: Tue, November 23, 2010

You detect an object flying at your head. What do you do? You probably first move out of the way — and then you try to determine what the object is. Your brain is able to quickly switch from detecting an object moving in your direction to determining what the object is through a phenomenon called adaptation. A new study led by Coulter Department Associate Professor Garrett Stanley details the biological basis of this ability for rapid adaptation: neurons located at the beginning of the brain’s sensory information pathway that change their level of simultaneous firing. This modification in neuron firing alters the nature of the information being relayed, which enhances the brain’s ability to discriminate between different sensations — at the expense of degrading its ability to detect the sensations themselves. “Previous studies have focused on how brain adaptation influences how much information from the outside world is being transmitted by the thalamus to the cortex, but we show that it is also important to focus on what information is being transmitted,” said Stanley. In addition to Stanley, Coulter Department research scientist Qi Wang and Harvard Medical School Neurobiology Department research fellow Roxanna Webber contributed to this NIH-supported work.

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Biros-Led Team Wins Gordon Bell Prize for Supercomputing
Posted: Mon, November 22, 2010

A team led by George Biros has won the Association for Computing Machinery’s Gordon Bell Prize for the world’s fastest supercomputing application. The award was announced at the Supercomputing 2010 conference, Nov. 18 in New Orleans. Biros is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in Georgia Tech’s School of Computational Science & Engineering and the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. Biros and 11 teammates from Georgia Tech, NYU and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) created a blood-flow simulation of 260 million deformable red blood cells flowing in plasma. The simulation amounted to successful resolution of 90 billion unknown dimensions in space, and topped the previous largest blood-flow simulation by four orders of magnitude. “Our long-term goal is to investigate the design of diagnostic microfluidic devices and develop a quantitative understanding of blood clotting mechanisms. The main challenge in modeling blood flow is resolving the hydrodynamic interactions between erythrocytes with the surrounding plasma,” Biros said. The simulation is described in a paper, "Petascale Direct Numerical Simulation of Blood Flow on 200K Cores and Heterogeneous Architectures,” presented at SC10.

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BME Professor Gilda Barabino Organizes Interdisciplinary Sickle Cell Symposium
Posted: Thu, November 4, 2010

One hundred years after Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) was first recognized, researchers have yet to find a cure or effective treatment for the deadly genetic disease which affects millions worldwide, 70,000 in the U.S. alone. On November 4 and 5, the Sickle Cell Disease Symposium brings together local and national experts across disciplines and institutions to share ideas and devise new strategies to tackle the complexities of SCD. Coulter Department Professor Gilda Barabino, who organized the symposium, said, "A number of conferences have been held to mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of SCD, but to our knowledge none that are designed to support research collaborations and integrated approaches to SCD. We expect to strengthen and expand existing collaborations and form new ones, maintaining that momentum through a unique new website linking researchers." The Sickle Cell Symposium is funded by Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and the offices of the Georgia Tech President and Provost and hosted by Georgia Tech at the Petit Institute of Bioengineering and Bioscience.

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Johnna Temenoff Chosen to Attend NAE Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium
Posted: Thu, November 4, 2010

Coulter Department Professor Johnna Temenoff has been selected to attend the 2010 National Academy of Engineering's (NAE) Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium, December 13-16 in Irvine, California. The program brings together a group of emerging engineering leaders (ages 30-45) from industry, academe, and government labs to meet each other, and through this interaction facilitate collaboration in engineering, the transfer of new techniques and approaches across fields, and establishment of contacts among the next generation of engineering leaders. The program is highly selective, with only 53 engineers being chosen from a nationwide pool of nominees representing all engineering disciplines.

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Biros Team a Finalist for Supercomputing's Gordon Bell Prize
Posted: Wed, November 3, 2010

Associate Professor George Biros is a finalist for the ACM Gordon Bell Prize, which goes annually to the world’s fastest supercomputing application. Biros’ team presented a high-fidelity numerical simulation of blood flow by directly resolving the interactions of 200 million deformable red blood cells flowing in plasma. The simulation amounted to 90 billion unknowns in space. In terms of the number of cells, the team improved the state-of-the art by several orders of magnitude; the previous largest simulation, at the same physical fidelity as ours, resolved the flow of 14,000 cells. Biros has a joint appointment in Biomedical Engineering and the College of Computing.  Named for supercomputing pioneer Gordon Bell, the award will be given at the SC10 conference in New Orleans, Nov. 13-19.

NIH Renews $16M Center Focused on Developing a Clinically Viable Technology to Treat Single-Gene Disorders
Posted: Fri, October 29, 2010

The Nanomedicine Center for Nucleoprotein Machines, directed by Coulter Department Professor Gang Bao, has received an award of $16.1 million for five years as part of its renewal by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The eight-institution research team plans to pursue development of a clinically viable gene correction technology for single-gene disorders and demonstrate the technology’s efficacy with sickle cell disease. The center is one of eight NIH Nanomedicine Development Centers established in 2005 and 2006. The centers have highly multidisciplinary scientific teams that include biologists, physicians, mathematicians, engineers and computer scientists. Through an intense competition, the NIH selected four centers for second phase funding, including the one led by Georgia Tech. In addition to experts in the Coulter Department and the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech, researchers from Medical College of Georgia, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NYU Medical Center, MIT, Stanford and Harvard University are also members of the center.

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Todd McDevitt in Recent News Coverage of Stem Cell Research
Posted: Tue, October 19, 2010

Coulter Associate Professor Todd McDevitt is featured discussing stem cell research on Fox 5 News October 11. See the video here.  Additionally, McDevitt is in both Sunday’s and Monday’s Atlanta Journal Constitution, in stories related to the use of embryonic stem cells on an Atlanta patient with a spinal injury and the overall impact of stem cell research on the state of Georgia. Here is an excerpt from that story: “… In McDevitt's lab at Georgia Tech, the engineering side of stem cell research is the specialty. The up-and-coming researcher directs a unique lab that uses engineering principles to find ways to manipulate stem cells so that they can be used in therapies effectively. Among his projects is working on the technology to turn a stem cell into a heart muscle cell that could help repair damage from a heart attack.”

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Charlie Kemp Demos PR-2 Robot on CNN
Posted: Tue, October 19, 2010

Coulter Department Assistant Professor Charlie Kemp and graduate student Travis Deyle from the Healthcare Robotics Lab made a live appearance on CNN’s “The Big I” news program last Friday, October 15. A multi-disciplinary Georgia Tech team, led by Kemp, is using a PR2 robot, GATSBII, from Willow Garage to research how robots might one day assist older adults at home. They discussed their research on RFID-guided robots as GATSBII used RFID to deliver a medicine bottle to CNN’s Ali Velshi during the live demo.

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Thioketal Nanoparticles: Researchers Develop Oral Delivery System to Treat Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
Posted: Tue, October 12, 2010

Coulter Department researchers have developed a novel approach for delivering small bits of genetic material into the body to improve the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases. Delivering short strands of RNA into cells has become a popular research area because of its potential therapeutic applications, but how to deliver them into targeted cells in a living organism has been an obstacle.

In the Oct. 10 online edition of Nature Materials, researchers describe how they encapsulated short pieces of RNA into engineered particles called thioketal nanoparticles and orally delivered the genetic material directly to the inflamed intestines of animals.  “The thioketal nanoparticles we designed are stable in both acids and bases and only break open to release the pieces of RNA in the presence of reactive oxygen species, which are found in and around inflamed tissue in the gastrointestinal tract of individuals with inflammatory bowel diseases,” said Niren Murthy, an associate professor in the Coulter Department.

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"SpectroPen” Could Aid Surgeons in Detecting Edges of Tumors
Posted: Tue, October 12, 2010

Biomedical engineers are developing a hand-held device called a SpectroPen that could help surgeons see the edges of tumors in human patients in real time during surgery. Scientists at Emory School of Medicine, Georgia Tech, and the University of Pennsylvania describe the device in an article published in the journal Analytical Chemistry. “This technology could allow a surgeon to directly visualize where the tumors are, in real time. In addition, a post-surgery scan could check tumor margins,” says Shuming Nie, PhD, a professor in the Coulter Department. “A major challenge is to completely remove the tumor as well as identify lymph nodes that may be involved.” Statistics indicate that complete removal, or resection, is the single most important predictor of patient survival for most solid tumors. The SpectroPen can be used to detect fluorescent dyes, and also scattered light from tiny gold particles, a technology that Nie and his colleagues have been refining.

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NIH Awards $14.6M Translational Cardiovascular Nanomedicine Center for Atherosclerosis Research
Posted: Mon, October 4, 2010

Gang Bao, Coulter Department professor and director of the Center for Translational Cardiovascular Nanomedicine (CTCN), has been awarded $14.6 million from NIH to lead a research team in developing nanotechnology tools and methodologies for detecting and treating atherosclerosis. The award will support the interdisciplinary CTCN as the second phase of the Program of Excellence in Nanotechnology (PEN), originally established in 2005 with funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH. This Center integrates the biomedical engineering expertise of Georgia Tech and the cardiology strengths of Emory’s School of Medicine. The broad and long-term goal of the PEN is to improve the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States.

“In the last five years, we developed a suite of nanotechnology approaches for diagnosing and treating cardiovascular disease and demonstrated their efficacy in terms of potential clinical application,” said Bao. “For the next five years, we will focus on translating these technologies into clinical utility and would like to have some of these nanotechnologies ready for human clinical trials by the end of this five-year period.”

Also contributing from the Coulter Department are professors Don Giddens, Xiaoping Hu, Hanjoong Jo, Shuming Nie, and W. Robert Taylor; associate professors Niren Murthy and May Dongmei Wang; and assistant professor Michael Davis. Giddens is also dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering. Taylor is also the director of Emory’s Division of Cardiology.

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Manu Platt Receives : $1.5M NIH New Innovator Award for Sickle Cell Research
Posted: Thu, September 30, 2010

Manu Platt has received a $1.5 million NIH Director’s New Innovator Award to support a project aimed at reducing strokes in children with sickle cell disease. “Current therapies to prevent strokes in children with sickle cell disease have substantial side effects, so we need to create better ways to predict which patients need intervention,” said Platt. “My goal is to use experimental and clinical data to develop a mathematical model for predicting stroke risk in children with sickle cell disease to allow for earlier intervention.” If these methods are successful, they could be expanded to broader categories of cardiovascular disease, such as atherosclerosis, myocardial infarctions and heart valve stenosis. The NIH Director’s New Innovator Awards support exceptionally creative new investigators who propose highly innovative projects that have the potential for unusually high impact.

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$1.48 M Awarded for Single Molecule Probes
Posted: Thu, September 23, 2010

Phillip Santangelo, assistant professor in the Coulter Department, has received an R01 NIH/National Institute for General Medicine Sciences award to develop single molecule sensitive probes for the study of virus replication, assembly and budding. The $1.48 million project will focus on the human respiratory syncytial (hRSV) virus. hRSV is recognized as the most important viral agent of serious pediatric respiratory tract disease. Worldwide, acute respiratory tract disease is the leading cause of mortality due to infectious disease, and hRSV remains one of the pathogens deemed most important for vaccine and antiviral development. He will collaborate with James E. Crowe, Jr., MD, The Departments of Microbiology and Immunology, and Pediatrics and The Vanderbilt Vaccine Center; Vanderbilt University Medical Center for the 5-year study.

BME Professor Co-leads $3 million IGERT Grant on Stem Cell Bio-manufacturing
Posted: Tue, August 17, 2010

NSF has awarded $3 million to fund a unique research program specifically focused on developing engineering methods for stem cell production. While stem cell research is on the verge of broadly impacting many elements of the medical field — regenerative medicine, drug discovery and development, cell-based diagnostics and cancer — the bio-process engineering that will be required to manufacture sufficient quantities of functional stem cells for these diagnostic and therapeutic purposes has not been rigorously explored. The program will be co-led by BME associate professor Todd McDevitt and GTEC director Robert Nerem. Students in the program will be able to take advantage of the core facilities provided by the new Stem Cell Engineering Center at Georgia Tech, which is directed by McDevitt. The award will support 30 new Ph.D. students over the next five years and brings together more than two dozen faculty members from Georgia Tech, Emory University, the University of Georgia and the Morehouse School of Medicine. In addition, plans are being made for students to participate in international research collaborations with the National University of Ireland at Galway, Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge and the University of Toronto. “We anticipate this program will produce the future leaders and innovators in the field of stem cell bio-manufacturing who will contribute significantly at the interface of stem cell engineering, biology and therapy,” said McDevitt.

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NIH EUREKA Award Will Enable Design of New Brain Tumor Treatment
Posted: Wed, August 11, 2010

Coulter Department Professor Ravi Bellamkonda has received an NIH EUREKA grant to design a new way to treat invasive brain tumors by capturing the migrating cells that spread the disease. The research team plans to develop a system that will excavate brain tumor cells by directing them away from their location in the interior of the brain to a more external location where they can be removed or killed. Nanofiber-based polymer thin films coated with biochemical cues will be aligned in the brain to provide a corridor for tumor cells to follow to a gel-based ‘sink’ where they will be captured and safely removed or encouraged to die through chemical signaling. “We believe this is the first attempt to exploit the invasive, migrating properties of brain tumors by engineering a path for the tumors to move away from the primary site to a location where treatment can occur,” said Bellamkonda.

The National Cancer Institute is providing more than $1 million for the EUREKA grant. The EUREKA -- Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration -- program helps scientists test new, unconventional ideas or tackle major methodological or technical challenges. For the project, Bellamkonda, and his collaborators Tobey MacDonald, director of pediatric neuro-oncology at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and Barun Brahma, pediatric neurosurgeon, are focusing on treating medulloblastomas -- highly malignant brain tumors that account for more than 20 percent of pediatric brain tumors. “Our plan is to deliver the tumor to the drug -- by directing tumor cells to a specially engineered gel that can be removed or designed to kill the cells -- rather than the current strategy of delivering the drug to the tumor, which is problematic due to the irregular vasculature and poor diffusivity of the tumor tissue,” explained Bellamkonda. The initial partnership between the researchers began with seed funding from the Georgia Cancer Coalition and Ian’s Friends Foundation.

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Altered Fluorescent Dyes Show Improved Detection Ability, Stability and Shelf Life
Posted: Thu, July 22, 2010

By swapping out one specific hydrogen atom for an isotope twice as heavy, BME researchers have increased the shelf life and detection ability of fluorescent probes that are essential to studying a variety of inflammatory diseases, including cancer and atherosclerosis. The probes detect and measure reactive oxygen species, which play an important role in disease processes. “By replacing a hydrogen atom with a deuterium atom during the synthesis of several fluorescent probes, we increased the stability and shelf life of the dyes, and also improved their ability to detect smaller concentrations of reactive oxygen species,” said Niren Murthy, Coulter Department associate professor. Murthy indicated that although the kinetic isotope effect had been used to improve drug stability, it has never been used to improve probe development. Robert Taylor, Coulter Department professor and Director of Emory’s Cardiology Division, and postdoctoral fellows Kousik Kundu, Seungjun Lee and Sarah Knight also contributed to this research, published in the July 2010 early view of the journal Angewandte Chemie International. “This new process of replacing hydrogen with deuterium is potentially valuable because the positive results are universal among many different types and classes of probes,” explained Murthy. The work was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

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Murthy/Davis Teams Develop Imaging Agents for Necrotic Cells
Posted: Tue, July 20, 2010

Researchers from the Coulter Department have devised a way to exploit the properties of extracellular DNA to create an imaging agent for injured tissue. Niren Murthy and Mike Davis recently published a paper in Organic Letters describing the creation of “Hoechst-IR.” This imaging agent essentially consists of the DNA-binding compound Hoechst 33258, attached to a dye that is visible in the near-infrared range. A water-loving polymer chain between the two keeps the new molecule from crossing cell membranes and binding DNA inside the cell. Murthy’s group teamed up with Davis to show that after an artificial heart attack, mice injected with Hoechst-IR have the compound accumulate in the heart’s necrotic zone – where cardiac muscle cells are dying. They also demonstrated accumulation of the compound in the lungs of mice in a model of sepsis. Murthy says his group is exploring other applications of  this approach.  “We are currently looking at the synthesis of new molecules with new applications,” he said. “We believe this approach will be quite powerful and we are excited by the possible future directions our research will take this platform.”

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Nie Lab Shows Multicolor Quantum Dots Aid in Cancer Biopsy Diagnosis
Posted: Wed, July 7, 2010

Research led by Coulter Department Professor Shuming Nie demonstrates how multicolor quantum dots linked to antibodies can distinguish the Reed-Sternberg cells that are characteristic of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Quantum dots are nanometer-sized semiconductor crystals that have unique chemical and physical properties due to their size and compact structure.  Reed-Sternberg cells have a distinctive appearance, but in lymph node tissue, they are usually surrounded by other white blood cells. The authors describe identifying them as a task like "finding a needle in a haystack."   "Our multicolor quantum dot staining method provides rapid detection and identification of rare malignant cells from heterogeneous tissue specimens," says Nie. The quantum dot technique could be useful for other types of cancer, where distinguishing cancer cells based on surface or genetic markers can point oncologists towards "targeted therapies" designed for one particular type of tumor. The research appears in the July 15 issue of Analytical Chemistry.

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Coulter Department Spotlighted in GRA Annual Report
Posted: Thu, July 1, 2010

The newly released 2009 annual report from the Georgia Research Alliance features the Coulter Department’s four GRA Eminent Scholars, Xiaoping Hu, Eberhard Voit, Barbara Boyan and Don Giddens. Here’s an excerpt from the report: “It’s rare for a public and private university to forge a joint academic department. And it’s extraordinary when that joint department is ranked no. 2 in the nation. Since its founding 12 years ago, the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering – a marriage of medical expertise at Emory University and engineering savvy at Georgia Tech – has earned international renown for its exploration into cancer and cardiovascular disease. GRA’s early investment in the enterprise has paid off: Today, the Coulter Department is a research powerhouse that has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.”  See the GRA annual report here.  See the Emory Health Now blog featuring the report here.

Jo Lab’s New Model of Atherosclerosis Identifies Genes Turned On/Off by Disturbed Blood Flow
Posted: Thu, June 24, 2010

A new animal model of atherosclerosis has allowed researchers to identify a host of genes turned on or off during the initial stages of the process, before a plaque appears in the affected blood vessel. The model is the first to definitively show that disturbances in blood flow determine where atherosclerosis will later appear, says senior author Hanjoong Jo, Ada Lee and Pete Correll professor in the Coulter Department. BME/BioE graduate student Chih-Wen Ni is first author of the paper, published June 15 in the journal Blood. “We have developed a model where we disturb blood flow in the carotid artery by partial ligation, and atherosclerosis appears within two weeks,” he says. “This rapid progression allows us to demonstrate cause and effect, and to examine the landmark events at the beginning of the process.” Just 48 hours after the partial ligation, the team dissected the carotid arteries from the mice and used genome-wide microarray technology to identify hundreds of genes that were turned on or off in the endothelial cells. The team showed that the gene LMO4 – not previously known to be involved in atherosclerosis -- is turned on in their animal model and also in human coronary arteries. Scientists studying breast cancer think LMO4 is involved in tumor migration and invasion, making an interesting parallel between atherosclerosis and cancer, Jo says. He says his laboratory is now probing which genes are most important in atherosclerosis and searching for ways to manipulate them with drugs or genetic techniques, with an eye towards possible diagnostic and pharmaceutical applications.

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Mark Borodovsky's Research on Evolution of Multicelluar Fungi Featured on Cover of PNAS Journal
Posted: Mon, June 21, 2010

Coulter Department Regents Professor, Mark Borodovsky and his lab will be featured on the cover of the June 29th PNAS journal. The journal highlights the article entitled "Insights into evolution of multicellular fungi from the assembled chromosomes of the mushroom Coprinopsis cinerea (Coprinus cinereus)."

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Ravi Bellamkonda named Associate Vice President for Research
Posted: Wed, June 16, 2010

Effective 8/1/2010, Coulter Department Professor Ravi Bellamkonda will assume the position of Associate Vice President for Research for Georgia Tech. Bellamkonda will divide his time evenly between teaching and research in the Coulter Department and his new position, reporting to Executive Vice President for Research Steve Cross. Bellamkonda’s new responsibilities include assisting with oversight of the Interdisciplinary Research Centers, developing research strategies and conducting program reviews for those centers, directing the Focused Research Program and helping to create the Advanced Studies Institute next fiscal year. He will also assist the EVPR in the establishment and growth of local, regional and global partnerships that further GT’s research mission. Bellamkonda is currently co-chairing an Institute-wide task force focusing on, "Creating Social and Economic Value through an Innovation Culture at Georgia Tech."

Manu Platt Receives Grant to Study HIV and Cardiovascular Disease
Posted: Wed, June 16, 2010

NIH and the International AIDS Society have awarded Coulter Department Assistant Professor Manu Platt $150,000 a year for two years to research "Cardiovascular Disease & HIV-1: Vascular Biomechanics and Remodeling." Manu is the PI on the grant and Coulter Assistant Professor Rudy Gleason is the co-PI with collaborator Roy Sutliff at Emory VA Hospital. The grant stems from a program he was chosen to attend in South Africa last summer on scholarship to introduce new investigators to the field of HIV research. Platt will be attending the International AIDS Society meeting in Vienna this July to meet and network with the other grantees of the program.

Garrett Stanley Gives Talk on Sensory Pathways of the Brain at Max Planck Institute
Posted: Thu, June 10, 2010

Garrett Stanley was one of only 6 research scientists from the United States invited to take part in a symposium at the renowned Max Planck Institute in Germany this month. The symposium was sponsored by two institutes of the Max Planck Society. The first is a long-standing institute based in Tuebingen, Germany called "Biological Cybernetics." The second is a newly forming institute that is still defining its direction, but is based on "Active Sensing and Autonomous Systems." Garrett was one of a few speakers invited in to help shape the direction of the newly forming institute. His talk was titled "Gating information flow in sensory pathways of the brain: from neural activity to perception."

Doctoral Student Ashley Brown Honored by TERMIS
Posted: Thu, June 10, 2010

Ashley Brown won a "50 best abstracts" award from the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) for her submission for the 2010 European Union Meeting to be held in Galway, Ireland, June 13-17. Ashley, a BioE/BME Ph.D. student from Coulter Department Assistant Professor Tom Barker's laboratory, was recognized for her research, "Design of integrin specific fibronectin type III domains for control of epithelial cell phenotype."

BME Professor and COE Dean Giddens Elected President-Elect of ASEE
Posted: Wed, June 2, 2010

The American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) has elected BME Professor Don Giddens to serve as President-Elect for 2010-2011. Giddens will assume this position at the 2010 Annual Conference to be held in Kentucky in June 2010. In 2011, he will assume the position of ASEE President. Giddens was the founding chair of the Coulter Department and currently serves as Dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech and Coulter Department Professor. As President-Elect and President, Giddens plans to emphasize innovations in education in today’s rapidly changing world; stress the vital importance of diversity in engineering programs; assist in engaging ASEE more closely with other critical organizations, such as the NAE and NSF; and will serve as a spokesperson for engineering and engineering technology education.

Lena Ting Teaches Neuroscience to Tibetan Monks in India
Posted: Wed, June 2, 2010

Coulter Department Associate Professor Lena Ting is part of a group of neuroscience faculty going to Dharamsala, India in June to teach western science concepts to Tibetan monks. The course is part of the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, a “Landmark Undertaking for the Convergence of Science and Spirituality,” and is based on the Dalai Lama's vision to bridge modern science and ancient monastic traditions. Ting will teach sensorimotor integration and basic neuroscience concepts to 80 Tibetan monks over an 8-day period.

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Todd McDevitt Awarded Seed Grant for Collaborative Translational Research
Posted: Tue, June 1, 2010

BME Associate Professor Todd McDevitt and Dr. Traci Goodchild of Saint Joseph’s Translational Research Institute (SJTRI) were awarded a $50,000 Georgia Tech – SJTRI Seed Grant for the project “Improved Cardiac Function and Cellular Retention Using a Novel Acellular Matrix.” The Georgia Tech and SJTRI Seed Grant program funds pilot research projects that are conducted by scientists from both institutions. A panel consisting of principals from both Georgia Tech and SJTRI reviewed ten applications and selected two to fund based on potential for successful collaboration and future translation of discoveries to clinical applications.

New Technique Detects Enzyme Implicated in Cancer, Atherosclerosis
Posted: Tue, June 1, 2010

An enzyme implicated in osteoporosis, arthritis, atherosclerosis and cancer metastasis -- cathepsin K -- eluded reliable detection in laboratory experiments in the past. Now, a research team led by Coulter Department Assistant Professor Manu Platt has developed an assay that reliably detects and quantifies mature cathepsin K using a technique called gelatin zymography. "This assay is important because researchers and pharmaceutical companies need a dependable method for sensitively detecting a small amount of cathepsin K and quantifying its activity to develop inhibitors to the enzyme that can fight the diseases while minimizing side effects," said Platt. He described the new protocol in the June issue of Analytical Biochemistry. Platt’s team is currently investigating whether cathepsin K activity is different in the cells of individuals with metastatic and non-metastatic breast and prostate cancers, and the role of cathepsin K in cardiovascular diseases, such as stroke, in children with sickle cell anemia. They are also examining whether cathepsin K plays a role in the inflammation associated with HIV.

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Mapping Tumor Heterogeneity With Quantum Dots
Posted: Tue, May 25, 2010

One important discovery made about cancer over the past decade is that as a tumor develops, the molecular identity of its cells begins to diverge. As a result, any given tumor is likely to contain groups of cells with differing genetic makeup, growth rates, and more importantly, susceptibility to specific drug therapies. Now, using a mixture of four quantum dots linked to antibodies that can detect cancer-associated proteins, a research team led by Coulter Department Professor Shuming Nie has developed a method for mapping the molecular heterogeneity of human prostate tumor biopsies obtained from cancer patients. This method should be applicable to other types of tumors. BME Associate Professor May Dongmei Wang and Post-doctoral Fellow Richard Moffitt were also part of the team that developed this new method of characterizing tumor biopsies. The investigators reported their work in the journal ACS Nano.

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BME Doctoral Graduate Rekha Nair Wins Whitaker Fellowship
Posted: Thu, May 20, 2010

Rekha Nair has been named a 2010 Scholar in the Whitaker International Fellows and Scholars Program. This prestigious and highly competitive award from the Whitaker Foundation sends emerging leaders in U.S. biomedical engineering to undertake research in a host institution outside of the United States. Nair recently completed her PhD in Biomedical Engineering in the McDevitt Laboratory. She will use her award to continue her research in regenerative medicine as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Molly Stevens, Research Director for Biomedical Material Sciences in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Imperial College London.

Modeling Control of the Electric Power Grid on the Brain
Posted: Wed, May 19, 2010

May 16-19, the Coulter Department hosted a meeting of research collaborators intent on studying living neural networks (LNNs) of rat brain cells in BME Associate Professor Steve Potter’s lab to see how those cells process dynamic situations, adapt and learn.  From those studies, the researchers hope to create a "biologically inspired" computer program to manage and control complex power grids. Their project “Neuroscience and Neural Networks for Engineering the Future Intelligent Electric Power Grid” is being led by PI Ganesh Kumar Venayagamoorthy, Missouri University of Science and Technology, in collaboration with co-PIs Potter, Ron Harley, Georgia Tech Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Donald Wunsch, Missouri S&T.  The study is funded by the NSF Office of the Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation. View a video of Steve Potter discussing LNNs here. View the project website here.

Tom Barker’s Research Shows Promise for Better Control of Blood Clots
Posted: Wed, May 19, 2010

A new study led by Tom Barker, an assistant professor in the Coulter Department, reveals factors that could lead to better inhibition of blood clots. Fibrin, the primary ingredient of blood clots, stems the loss of blood at an injury site. But beyond this essential work, fibrin can also cause heart attack, stroke and tissue damage by forming clots that block blood vessels. A new study published online in the journal Blood reveals factors that could improve the binding of synthetic fibrin knobs to holes and the structures of these knobs in solution. The study also identifies a novel synthetic knob that displays a 10-fold higher affinity for fibrinogen holes than current synthetic knobs. Barker’s research team includes postdoctoral fellow Sarah Stabenfeldt and Computational Engineering graduate student Jared Gossett who focused on modeling the binding and characterizing the structure of the peptides in solution. This research was supported by the NIH and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation.

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Michelle LaPlaca Testifies before Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs on Traumatic Brain Injuries
Posted: Wed, May 12, 2010

Coulter Department Associate Professor Michelle LaPlaca, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs on May 5 to address the progress in traumatic brain injury (TBI) research, diagnosis, and treatment. One of the goals of the hearing was to gather information on academic-VA collaborations and assess clinical implementation of scientific and technologic advances. In her testimony, Dr. LaPlaca called for more programs that encourage and fund pre-clinical experiments; more cross-agency collaborative funding mechanisms; and more proactive informatics analysis due to the complexity of emerging data. Emphasis was placed on current challenges to finding treatments for TBI and the need for integration of results obtained from laboratory studies, pre-clinical studies and clinical trials. She was the only representative from academia asked to testify at the hearing. View her testimony at 1:33 into the recording here.

Cardiovascular Surgery Planning Cited as Breakthrough by IEEE-USA; Ajit Yoganathan Featured in TV Segment
Posted: Tue, May 11, 2010

BME Regents’ Professor Ajit Yoganathan is featured in a television segment discussing cardiovascular surgical planning for children. Together with collaborators at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Yoganathan and his research team in the Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics Lab created a virtual tool to give surgeons a new way to predict and improve the outcome for pediatric heart patients. This innovative research was cited as an “engineering breakthrough” by IEEE-USA. Discoveries and Breakthroughs Inside Science is produced by Ivanhoe Productions and the American Institute of Physics and is distributed to 200 television stations around the world.

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Charlie Kemp’s Healthcare Robotics Lab Receives Award to Develop Assistive Robotics for Older Adults
Posted: Thu, May 6, 2010

BME Assistant Professor Charlie Kemp and an interdisciplinary team of collaborators have been awarded the use of a PR2 personal robot to develop open source applications for assistive robotics. The research team will be placing the PR2 in the GT Aware Home to create easier ways for older adults to interact with robots. The awards, sponsored by Willow Garage, were announced this week at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Alaska. Kemp will serve as PI for the project and thrust leader for software development. GT Psychology Professor Wendy Rogers will be the thrust leader for human-robot interaction. Co-PIs from Georgia Tech are James Rehg, Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines; Andrea Thomaz, College of Computing; Tracy Mitzner, Psychology; and Brian Jones, GT Aware Home Research Initiative.

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Melissa Kemp To Receive Prize for Innovative Measurement Methods
Posted: Thu, May 6, 2010

In recognition of her exceptional contributions in systems biology, BME Assistant Professor Melissa Kemp has been selected to receive the CSB2 Prize for Innovative Measurement Methods. Professor Kemp’s development of approaches to measure changes in protein oxidation state and integrate ROS signaling with signaling by kinases and transcription factors was cited by the selection committee for its innovation and broad potential. As this year’s recipient, she will deliver a plenary presentation at the 2010 Conference on the Systems Biology of Human Disease in June at Harvard Medical School. The award is sponsored by Merrimack Pharmaceuticals and is given annually by the Council for Systems Biology in Boston (CSB2), a group formed to build links between academic and industrial laboratories active in the areas of systems and computational biology.

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BME Graduating Senior James Molini Wins Prize for “Waste to Watts” Project
Posted: Wed, April 28, 2010

BME graduating senior James Molini, and EE student Patrick Caputo have won the $10,000 Tomberg Prize in the Dell Social Innovation Competition, a contest that awards seed funding to student-led ventures that help people in need. Their venture, "Waste to Watts," was one of only two entries chosen to receive a cash prize. In addition, James and Patrick have been invited to give a presentation to angel investors and philanthropists on May 5 in Austin, Tex. “Waste to Watts” is a business plan and design for a low-cost, modular back-up power supply that will run devices ranging from EKGs and patient monitors to computers and household lights for several hours when the power goes out. The most expensive components of the device are made of repurposed electronic waste, one of the world's fastest growing pollution problems. James and Patrick plan to ship prototype units with student-volunteers from Duke University to hospitals in Africa this summer to acquire a proof of concept.

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Pro Golfer Anthony Kim Visits Bellamkonda Lab
Posted: Thu, April 22, 2010

Anthony Kim, one of PGA Tour’s top-ranked golfers, visited the Bellamkonda Lab to learn more about a collaborative brain tumor research project between Ravi Bellamkonda and Barun Brahma, a pediatric neurosurgeon at CHOA. Kim supports this project through Ian's Friends Foundation, a nonprofit committed to advancing pediatric brain tumor research. A camera crew recorded the visit for the PGA and TV profiles. Professor Bellamkonda said, “We appreciate Anthony Kim’s visit and support to our lab, as well as ongoing support for this research from Ian’s Friends Foundation, Georgia Cancer Coalition, National Cancer Institute and the NSF.” The visit must have brought Kim luck – he finished third in the Masters Tournament.

Alumni News: CFM Lab Alum Wins Grant, Starts Endowment
Posted: Thu, April 22, 2010

While conducting research as a doctoral student in Professor Ajit Yoganathan’s Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics (CFM) Lab, David Frakes (EE, MS ECE, MS ME, PhD BIOE) began to develop the technology that became the core of 4-D Imaging, Inc., a start-up he co-founded with fellow Georgia Tech alum Richard Pracht (MS EE). His research in the CFM Lab focused on connected motion models for the interpolation of MRI image data. Last month, 4-D Imaging received an SBIR grant to develop a solution for mitigating the effects of atmospheric turbulence distortion in video used for military surveillance and targeting systems. In appreciation of his Georgia Tech mentors and education, Frakes (now an assistant professor at Arizona State University) started the David H. Frakes Endowment to support the CFM Lab.

BME Student Honored on Capitol Hill
Posted: Wed, April 14, 2010

BME undergraduate Ruchir Karmali was among 75 students nationwide honored for their research achievement on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, April 13. Ruchir presented Assessing the rise and impact of state funding for stem cell research (Research advisor: Aaron Levine, Public Policy) to members of Congress, congressional staff, federal government officials and others in attendance. She was the only student from Georgia Tech and one of only two in the state selected to attend the event.

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Ravi Bellamkonda Wins Cancer Research Award
Posted: Tue, April 13, 2010

Professor Ravi Bellamkonda is one of six researchers selected by the Georgia Cancer Coalition (GCC) as recipients of the 2010 Cancer Research Awards, made possible through voluntary donations to the Georgia Cancer Research Fund on State Income Tax forms. Bellamkonda will receive a one-year, $50,000 grant to study how to mark brain tumor margins using a dye visible to the naked eye, so as to provide accurate visual cues to the surgeon during surgery.

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Johnna Temenoff to Receive ASEE Distinguished Author Award
Posted: Mon, April 12, 2010

Assistant Professor Johnna Temenoff, and co-author Dr. Tony Mikos, Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University, have been chosen to receive the 2010 ASEE Meriam/Wiley Distinguished Author Award in recognition of their textbook, Biomaterials: The Intersection of Biology and Materials Science (Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008). The award and a $2000 honorarium will be presented to Drs. Temenoff and Mikos at the ASEE Annual Conference in June. More than 70 textbooks spanning all engineering disciplines were nominated for the award, which is given every two years to the best undergraduate engineering textbook. This marks the first time the prestigious award is going to authors of a biomedical engineering text.

Fourteen BME Students Awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
Posted: Mon, April 12, 2010

Of the 128 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships awarded in Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering, and 37 awarded across Georgia Tech, 14 went to students from the Coulter Department or a Coulter Department lab. Congratulations to our newly named Fellows and their faculty advisors:


Professor Gang Bao: Renee Cottle, David Sotto
Barker: Lizhi Cao, Vincent Fiore
Professor Ravi Bellamkonda: Kristin Loomis
Assistant Professor Melissa Kemp: Theodore Chen
Assistant Professor Manu Platt: Phillip Keegan, Ivana Kennedy, Weiwei Aileen Li, Marilyn Markowski
Associate Professor Steve Potter: Ming-fai Fong
Associate Professor Garrett Stanley: Daniel Millard
Associate Professor John Oshinski: Jonathan Suever
Associate Professor May Wang: Andrea Barrett

Jaydeep Srimani Named Goldwater Scholar
Posted: Fri, April 9, 2010

Jaydeep Srimani, an undergraduate student from Professor May Wang’s MIBLab has been named a 2010 Goldwater Scholar. The highly competitive award was created to encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. Jaydeep plans to continue research on modeling and simulations, pursue a graduate degree in biomedical engineering and eventually teach at the university level.

BME Senior Andrea Barrett Wins Prestigious Hertz Fellowship
Posted: Thu, April 1, 2010

BME graduating senior Andrea Barrett, has won a Hertz Fellowship, one of the most prestigious and generous fellowships for graduate study. The no-strings-attached fellowship — worth $250,000 and lasting up to five years — allows exceptional scientists and engineers the freedom to innovate as part of their graduate studies in science and engineering. Barrett was selected from an elite pool of more than 600 applicants and was one of only four women chosen. During her time in the Coulter Department, Barrett conducted research in the laboratory of BME Associate Professor May D. Wang with support from the President's Undergraduate Research Award. During her undergraduate career, Andrea also conducted summer research at Harvard Medical School with Dr. George Church, Osaka University in Japan with Dr. Satoshi Kawata, and the National Cancer Institute with Dr. Stuart Yuspa. Andrea is also Georgia Tech President’s Scholar, a Fleet Scholar and a Goldwater Scholar. With support from the Hertz Fellowship, Andrea will pursue doctoral studies in clinical translation of genomics.

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Immune System Key: New Study Questions Earlier Conclusions about the Kinetics of T Cell Receptors
Posted: Wed, March 31, 2010

Research led by Coulter Department Professor Cheng Zhu questions much of what had been believed about the kinetics of T cell receptors. Based on two techniques that mechanically study receptors as they operate on T cell membranes, the findings could lead to a reevaluation of earlier conclusions. “We compared parameters that had been measured by using purified T cell receptor molecules to the parameters we measured from T cell receptors on the surfaces of cells, and we found dramatic differences,” said Dr. Zhu. “We don’t yet fully understand why the T cell receptor behaves differently when it is located on the surface of a cell compared to when it is purified in solution, but this may be a warning to reconsider earlier conclusions.” The research, done in collaboration between Georgia Tech and Emory University, was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The research was published March 31 in the journal Nature.

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Gilda Barabino Organizes NSF Minority Faculty Workshop at MIT
Posted: Wed, March 24, 2010

BME Professor Gilda Barabino served as lead organizer for the NSF Minority Faculty Development Workshop (MFDW) held March 21 - 24 at MIT’s Cambridge campus. The workshop, “Engineering Faculty Success,” was designed to equip tenure-track science and engineering faculty with tools and strategies to better navigate their careers. Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson joined MIT Provost Rafael Reif in opening the workshop. MFDW is a primary activity of the Minority Faculty Development Forum founded by Dr. Barabino as the principal investigator on the NSF grant that supports it. "The number of minority faculty in engineering departments nationwide is not keeping pace with the number of minority engineering students. With this program, we hope to strengthen the engineering research and teaching community. We have a responsibility to mentor undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented groups by forming lasting networks, demystifying the tenure process, and helping young academics secure major grant funding," said Barabino. The workshop was co-organized by Georgia Tech and MIT.

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Tom Barker to Participate in Special NIH Workshop
Posted: Thu, March 18, 2010

Professor Tom Barker has been invited to participate in a NIH Special Workshop, “Establishing Gradients in the Tumor Microenvironment" sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and chaired by Drs. Linda Griffith (MIT), Melody Swartz (ÉPFL), and Suresh Mohla (NCI). The workshop will bring together ~20 scientists from various disciplines. These include accomplished investigators who: study extracellular gradients in cancer and development (both from computational as well as experimental perspectives), develop tools for studying cell response to gradients (including microfluidic and biomaterials tools to create controlled gradients, and imaging methods to visualize gradients), or study biomechanical forces (e.g., flow and stress) on such gradients. The workshop will be held in Bethesda, MD on May 26 - 28, 2010.

BME Researchers Identify a Gene that May Play a Key Role in Atherosclerosis and Other Diseases
Posted: Tue, March 16, 2010

Coulter Department Professor Gang Bao has found that a gene called HuR plays a critical role in inducing and mediating an inflammatory response in cells experiencing mechanical and chemical stresses. An NIH-funded study published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that a gene called Hu antigen R (HuR) plays a critical role in inducing and mediating an inflammatory response in cells experiencing mechanical and chemical stresses. BME Professor Hanjoong Jo also contributed to this research.

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BME Faculty to Serve on NIH CSR College of Reviewers
Posted: Thu, March 11, 2010

Professors Ravi Bellamkonda, Xiaoping Hu, Hanjoong Jo, and Shuming Nie are among those from the Coulter Department who have accepted invitations to serve on the inaugural College of Reviewers for the NIH Center for Scientific Review. Membership in the College is by invitation only to a select group chosen for their broad experience, expertise and a record of excellence in reviewing grants. Members of the College will act as first stage experts for translational and other multifaceted research topics by providing critiques of grant applications.

Platt Lab Develops New Method for Cathepsin K Detection
Posted: Thu, March 11, 2010

Recent research led by Assistant Professor Manu Platt involves a new method for detecting cathepsin K activity at extremely small concentrations. This enzyme has been implicated in osteoporosis, cancer metastasis, atherosclerosis, arthritis, and other tissue destructive diseases, but measuring its activity has been difficult due to limitations in previously developed assays. The highly sensitive method developed by the Platt Lab may have potential application for detecting the severity of these diseases in their earliest stages. The research "Detection of Femtomole Quantities of Mature Cathepsin K with Zymography" will be published in the journal Analytical Biochemistry. The first four co-authors on this paper are undergraduates! Aileen Li and Zach Barry are BME undergrads; Catera Wilder and Josh Cohen were visiting students.

Gilda Barabino Chairs AIMBE Diversity Committee
Posted: Thu, March 11, 2010

Professor Gilda Barabino has been appointed Chair of the AIMBE Committee for Under-Represented Minorities (CURM). As such, she will direct AIMBE's efforts to celebrate the contributions of minority medical and biological engineers; address disparities and prejudices in the education and promotion of minority medical and biological engineers; and address issues of health disparities as they apply to medical and biological engineering. Since her induction as an AIMBE Fellow in 2007, Dr. Barabino has served as Co-Chair for CURM, as a member of the Women in Medical and Biological Engineering Committee and as Co-Chair of the 2009 Annual Event.

Ted Chen Named Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher
Posted: Thu, March 11, 2010

BME student, Ted Chen has been named a 2010 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher, College of Engineering. Ted has been conducting his research in Assistant Professor Melissa Kemp’s lab since 2007, using proteomics tools for studying the role of hydrogen peroxide in T cell signaling. Ted will receive the award at the GT Undergraduate Research Spring Symposium on March 16.

BME Students Named Finalists in InVenture Prize Competition
Posted: Fri, February 26, 2010

Congratulations to BME undergraduates, Neil Shah, Brandon Michael Fox, and Rohan Trivedi, for making it to the finals in the InVenture Prize competition. Eight teams were chosen to present their inventions during a live Georgia Public Broadcasting show hosted by Miles O’Brien and Bahareh Azizi and televised from the Ferst Center on March 17. Their invention is an EEG Brainwave Analysis Headset to prevent drowsy driving. Robert Thomas Lindemann and Ganesh Mulayil Nair, students from Aerospace Engineering, partnered with the three BME students on the finalist team. Winners will receive a cash prize ($15,000 for first place, $10,000 for second place) and a free U.S. patent filing by GT’s Office of Technology Licensing. A $5,000 “People’s Choice” award, provided by the GT Research Corporation, will also be presented. The audience and viewers will help select the winner of this award by voting on the Internet or texting in their favorite finalist.

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Gang Bao Heads Research Arm of New $25-million NSF Center
Posted: Wed, February 24, 2010

Gang Bao, professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory, has been named to oversee the research arm of a new $25-million Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems (EBICS) Center to be operated by MIT, Georgia Tech and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  The EBICS Center -- established by the NSF  as part of its Science and Technology Centers Integrative Partnerships program -- aims to advance research in complex biological systems, create new educational programs based on this research, and demonstrate leadership in its involvement of groups traditionally underrepresented in science and engineering. Georgia Tech will receive more than $1.6 million per year to support the research and educational efforts in the EBICS Center, administered through GTEC.  
Bao will coordinate the Center’s four research areas, which include:

• Investigating how individual cells integrate biological, biochemical and physical cues from their environments to determine their ultimate states and biological behaviors.
• Determining the emergent behaviors and interactions of cell clusters, including the transition from single cell to multi-cell behavior, the nature of communication between cells, and how this leads to functional coordination among cell populations.
• Creating and characterizing simple cellular machines that perform increasingly complex tasks, such as sensing, information processing, protein expression and transport.
• Developing enabling technologies to ensure the goals of the other three areas can be met.

Among those contributing to the Center’s research efforts are Melissa Kemp, Todd McDevitt and Manu Platt, all assistant professors in the Coulter Department.  Robert Nerem, who is an associate director of EBICS and the director of GTEC, will work closely with the other associate directors to achieve the Center’s educational and research goals, and oversee its diversity objectives. In addition to Nerem, other Georgia Tech and Emory researchers involved with the Center are Yuhong Fan, an assistant professor in the School of Biology; Andrés García, a professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering; Young-sup Yoon, an associate professor of cardiology at the Emory University School of Medicine; and Steve Stice, professor and director of the Regenerative Bioscience Center at the University of Georgia.

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Todd McDevitt Honored as Outstanding Research Mentor
Posted: Thu, February 18, 2010

Todd McDevitt, BME Assistant Professor, will receive the 2010 Junior Faculty Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award at the Georgia Tech Faculty Honors Luncheon in April. Dr. McDevitt was chosen for the honor because of his outstanding work encouraging and supporting students in their research efforts. Many of the students Dr. McDevitt has supervised in his lab have co-authored peer-reviewed publications, and received numerous awards and honors for their research, including two undergraduates who presented alongside graduate students and post-docs at the annual BMES meeting. Congratulations, Dr. McDevitt!

BME Student Anthony Schwartz Named Co-op Student of the Year
Posted: Mon, February 15, 2010

Anthony Schwartz, a senior BME student, has been named 2009 Co-op Student of The Year by the Cooperative and Experiential Education Division (CEED) of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). His selection was based on the quality of co-op work experience, published papers, recognition by the employer, involvement in the community, and overall contributions to cooperative education.

Anthony joined the) Co-op Program in Summer, 2006, and since then has co-oped four work terms at C.R. Bard, a provider of medical products and services in the vascular, urology and oncology areas. At Bard, Anthony has worked closely with the engineering staff on two of the division’s largest projects: A suburethal sling device for the treatment of female stress urinary incontinence; and a surgical implant for anterior and posterior female pelvic floor repair. Speaking about his co-op assignment, Anthony said it was the single best decision of his collegiate career.

In addition to Anthony’s regular co-op duties at Bard, he worked as a research assistant in a preclinical study. Among Anthony’s other accomplishments are the upcoming publication in the International Urogynecological Journal of a paper that he co-authored, and his being the first co-op to receive the Bard Caught on the Spot Award, given to employees who go above and beyond their normal job duties. Anthony also volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Relay for Life. After graduation, he plans to travel before applying to medical school.

Silent Barrage Wins International Competition
Posted: Thu, February 11, 2010

Silent Barrage, an art and science collaboration between the Potter lab and a group from the University of Western Australia, has won first place and 18,000 Euros in VIDA 12.0, a prestigious international competition honoring excellence in artistic creativity utilizing new technologies and artificial life. Silent Barrage investigates the nature of thoughts, free will, and neural dysfunction. The installation consists of 32 sculptural robotic objects. Each of the objects amplifies and represents the electric activity that occurs in a real biological neural network being grown and nurtured in a Petri dish in BME Associate Professor Steve Potter’s lab. The behavior of each robotic object is dependent on the signals generated by the neural network. The internet serves as the interface between the robotic body and its remote brain. Audience movements are picked up and transmitted to the neural network, completing a closed feedback loop between the robotic objects (and viewers) in the gallery and the neurons in the lab. Like most art, it is easier to see than to explain. Watch the video here. Congratulations to Steve Potter, Doug Swehla and Stephen Bobic from the Potter Lab and Phil Gamblen, Guy Ben-Ary and Peter Gee from SymbioticA at The University of Western Australia on this honor.

Johnna Temenoff Wins 2010 Junior Faculty Teaching Award
Posted: Wed, February 10, 2010

BME Assistant Professor Johnna Temenoff has been selected to receive the 2010 Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award from the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Georgia Tech. The award recognizes teaching excellence, educational innovation, impact on student lives and teaching/research connections. Dr. Temenoff will receive a $1000 award and recognition at the April 15 Faculty Honors Luncheon and the New Faculty Orientation Dinner in August. Congratulations, Dr. Temenoff!

Yoganathan Lab Awarded NIH Grant for Fontan Surgical Outcomes Study
Posted: Thu, January 14, 2010

The NIH recently awarded BME Regents’ Professor Ajit Yoganathan a $3.1 million grant for a four-year clinical study of surgical repair of single ventricle heart defects in infants. The Yoganathan Lab will collaborate with colleagues at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Cincinnati Children's Hospital to correlate Fontan procedures with patient outcomes. Approximately 6,000 to 8,000 children a year are born with this heart defect, which if left untreated, kills most infants within a year.

This is one of six NIH grants for Dr. Yoganathan’s research team, five of which have been funded since July 2009.

Todd McDevitt Named 2010 Young Investigator by the Society for Biomaterials
Posted: Wed, January 6, 2010

BME Assistant Professor Todd C. McDevitt has been awarded the 2010 Young Investigator Award from the Society for Biomaterials (SFB). The Young Investigator Award recognizes an individual each year who has demonstrated outstanding achievements and leadership in the field of biomaterials research. McDevitt will receive the award at the 2010 Annual Meeting to be held in Seattle next April. This marks the third time in the last seven years that a BME faculty member has received this honor. BME Associate Professors Niren Murthy and Julia Babensee received the award in 2008 and 2005, respectively. In addition to the being named the 2010 SFB Young Investigator, McDevitt was recently appointed as a Petit Faculty Fellow in the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and named the Director of the new Stem Cell Engineering Center at Georgia Tech, which is scheduled to officially launch in 2010.