Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering - Fall 2020 Magazine

FROM THE CHAIR

Dear colleagues and friends,

A

recent welcome event with first year students in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory offered what I believe was an illuminating snapshot of the world we now live in. The students and I gathered — about 100 of us in all — on a virtual meeting platform to launch the new year.

We were forming connections across the planet as the Coulter BME family — sitting in our offices or at kitchen tables or outside in yards or at bedroom desks — at exactly the same moment, and yet at all times of the day and night. It was a powerful moment to see these eager young faces from all over the world, shining in sunlight or lamplight, and to form those connections while social distancing. It reminded me of how important it is to create community and find ways to celebrate our diversity and shared humanity while still observing safe practices.

I remember telling these brilliant young people that we will all be stretched more than we’ve ever been stretched in this crazy and challenging and wonderful year. And I say wonderful because I have seen so many people — faculty, students — rising to the occasion, answering the call. That can certainly be said for the field of biomedical engineering, which is working harder and smarter to make the pioneering

discoveries and create the innovative, accessible technologies needed to advance health and healthcare.

I am incredibly proud of how our faculty and student colleagues in the Coulter Department have responded to the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, in the lab, in the classroom (virtual or otherwise), and out in the community. You’ll read some of these stories in this magazine. You’ll meet researchers working to develop better, faster tests to diagnose the virus or treat those who are critically ill. And you’ll meet teams of engineers and clinicians from Georgia Tech and Emory who are collaborating to protect medical staff on the front lines of the pandemic.

You will learn about faculty and their pioneering research creating new diagnostic and treatment pathways for cancer and neurological, eye, and cardiovascular disease.

You will also become acquainted with some of our most treasured resources — our students. They are winning astronaut scholarships and winning national recognition for their entrepreneurial pluck and creativity, and they’re partnering with faculty researchers on groundbreaking biomedical research, and in at least one case, volunteering at a mobile unit testing for Covid-19. And you’ll meet graduates of Coulter BME who are making an impact in the world — 10 former BME students are part of the first class of Georgia Tech Alumni Association 40 Under 40.

The world has changed, and our nimble research and educational enterprise will continue to evolve to meet new global health challenges. Coulter BME remains steadfast in our commitment to fostering the next generation of biomedical engineering leaders.

With warm regards, Susan Margulies, Ph.D. Wallace H. Coulter Chair, Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology & Emory University Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Injury Biomechanics Professor of Biomedical Engineering

BME at a Glance

2 1

BME graduate program in the nation

No.

U.S. News & World Report, Spring 2020

No.

in women BME graduates in the nation

2 1

No.

No.

Annual Research Awards

Fellowships

22% URMs

nearly

3/4

of BME undergrads engage in research

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

20

(NIH, NSF, AHA, Fulbright, Sloan, GEM, etc.)

309

undergraduate students

2

in underrepresented minority BME graduates in the nation

58

1,161 women

U.S. News & World Report, Fall 2020

$49M > $950,000/FTE (FY19)

60%

BME undergraduate program in the nation

graduate students

44% women

25% URMs

After graduating, 51% of BME PhDs go into academia 42% take an industry or government path

Faculty startups since 2015

Degree Programs Georgia Tech B.S. in BME Georgia Tech M.S. in BME Georgia Tech M.S. in Biomedical Innovation and Development Joint Georgia Tech & Emory University Ph.D. in BME Georgia Tech Interdisciplinary Ph.D. programs in: • Bioengineering • Bioinformatics • Computational Science • Machine Learning • Robotics Georgia Tech, Emory University, & Peking University Ph.D. in BME M.D./Ph.D. at Georgia Tech and Emory University

Leadership Susan Margulies

The Wallace H. Coulter Chair

Essy Behravesh

Director of Student Services

Paul J. Benkeser

Senior Associate Chair

Lakshmi (Prasad) Dasi Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies

Michael Davis

Associate Chair for Graduate Studies

Hanjoong Jo

Associate Chair for Emory

Joe Le Doux

Executive Director of Learning and Training

Machelle Pardue

Associate Chair Faculty Development

Johnna S. Temenoff

Associate Chair for Translational Research

Cheng Zhu

Executive Director for International Programs

The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) is a true success story in risk-taking and innovation — a visionary partnership between a leading public engineering school and a highly respected private medical school.

Fall 2020

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THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19

Faculty Take Up the Fight in the Pandemic Drugs, devices, diagnostics and more are the focus of more than a dozen Coulter Department research projects engineered this year to fight Covid-19. Following is a brief summary.

While scores of vaccines were under development worldwide, Coulter Department scientists were working on ways to make them more effective. NIH funded their efforts to screen and evaluate adjuvants to help Covid-19 vaccines further stimulate the immune system. Led by Krishnendu Roy, professor and Robert A. Milton Chair, the team began screening a library of various adjuvant combinations to identify those with the greatest potential to enhance protein- and RNA-based vaccines under development.

Covid-19 can bring seizures and other neurological complications, and it’s believed that cytokines in the nervous system play a role. Assistant Professor Annabelle Singer is building on her earlier success in manipulating brain cytokines to reduce neuroinflammation to determine whether the same approach will work on cytokines in the nervous system. Treating C19 infection in the nervous system remains an unmet need.

The lab of Associate Professor Gabe Kwong is developing a rapid antigen test for SARS-CoV-2 that provides results via a paper strip (similar to that used in home pregnancy tests). If successful, the one-hour test would dramatically accelerate diagnosis of the virus.

Determining which FDA-approved drugs now on the market might have an additional application for Covid-19 is the focus of a study by Suichi Takayama, professor and GRA Eminent Scholar. Takayama is using a high-throughput, 96-well lung model to screen cell culture models replicating the conditions in infected lung tissue.

Resuscitation bags used in hospitals and ambulances were the model for a new ventilator developed by researchers, including Susan Margulies, professor and chair of the Coulter Department.

Photo credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — Hannah A. Bullock and Azaibi Tamin

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THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19

Professor Phil Santangelo and his lab members.

The simple, low-cost ventilator was shared with Georgia hospitals for evaluation.

Gaining deeper insight into how the spike (S) protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 interacts with ACE2, the cell receptor targeted by the virus, is the research aim of Regents Professor Cheng Zhu. His lab performs biophysical measurements to better understand the in situ binding kinetics and affinity on the cell surface.

Invaluable information to fight Covid-19 exists inside vast libraries of peer-reviewed scientific articles. Assistant Professor Cassie Mitchell’s Laboratory for Pathology Dynamics is using machine learning to mine these libraries to find hidden patterns of knowledge relevant to the disease. Mitchell and others are creating “knowledge graphs” that link symptoms, drugs, antecedent diseases, genes, proteins and more to C19 and similar coronaviruses.

Predicting the severity of Covid-19 is crucial, and so is developing inexpensive, point-of-care tools to diagnose the disease. Assistant Professor Aniruddh Sarkar and collaborators are using microscale technology to achieve both goals. They’re developing devices for both high-throughput discovery and the electronic detection of C19 biomarkers.

Two Coulter Department biomedical engineers are working on RNA-based drugs to treat Covid-19. Assistant Professor James Dahlman is on a team — led by Professor Philip Santangelo — that has a strong portfolio of DNA and RNA research.

Could changes in the structure of viruses and bacteria on the surface of aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) deactivate pathogens?

How might silver nanoparticles grafted onto forests of aligned CNTs kill viruses on contact? Those are a couple of the questions being explored by Associate Professor Edward Botchwey to advance understanding of disease prevention. Findings will have implications for preventing Covid-19.

A few cell-generated enzymes known to cut the spike protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 — thus facilitating the virus’s entry into human cells — are the focus of current Covid-19 research.

But Associate Professor Manu Platt is broadening that exploration.

Platt is working to identify multiple other enzymes, or proteases, that have the same activation effect. He expects the added knowledge to provide clues as to why patients with diabetes and other preconditions are especially vulnerable to Covid-19.

BPAP breathing circuits are essential to Covid-19 respiratory care, but replacement parts are in high demand. The lab of Professor Scott Hollister helped redesign and 3D-print replacement parts that can be used multiple times, re-sanitized and adapted to the circuits.

A national initiative to speed the creation and use of diagnostics for Covid-19 was launched in spring 2019. Associate Professor Wilbur Lam, M.D. is one of three principal investigators leading efforts to validate newly invented diagnostic tests (See accompanying story).

Fall 2020

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THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19

A Simple Box That Saves Lives Engineers create a transparent barrier device to contain deadly germs To protect medical staff on the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic, Coulter Department innovators had to think inside the box.

and shoulders. Protected hand openings are built into the sides so medical practitioners can easily reach in to perform the procedure.

A team of engineers from Georgia Tech worked with anesthesiologists and medical professionals from Emory University to develop a way to protect physicians during the stressful moment when they have to insert or remove a patient’s breathing tubes.

The box provides an extra layer of protection for medical professionals in addition to their personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks and face shields. It’s also foldable and portable, so it can be easily transferred from room to room.

Intubation is a common treatment for patients who are critically ill with coronavirus. It’s also a risky procedure for doctors because inserting (and later removing) the breathing apparatus creates a fine spray of respiratory droplets, all bearing the deadly virus.

Susan Margulies, chair of the Coulter Department and co-inventor, says the idea initially came from meetings with Emory professionals responding to the Covid-19 crisis and Georgia Tech engineers who were eager to help.

The Coulter Department team’s solution: a cleverly designed barrier protection device … or in less technical terms, a box.

“As a department truly embedded on both campuses, this collaboration gives us the opportunity to create a direct relationship between the problems and the solutions,” Margulies said.

Made of a clear polycarbonate material, the transparent, foursided box is designed to be placed over the patient’s head

Above left: The barrier protection devices were designed and fabricated at Georgia Tech based on feedback from clinicians at Emory Healthcare. PHOTO: GEORGIA TECH. Above right: Jeremy Collins and Cinnamon Sullivan demonstrate the barrier protection device. Collins is associate professor of anesthesiology and executive vice chair of anesthesia at Emory, and Sullivan is assistant professor of anesthesiology, Emory University School of Medicine and the director of Global Health Anesthesiology at Emory University Hospital. PHOTO: EMORY HEALTHCARE

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Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19

Could a Smartphone Help Diagnose SARS-CoV-2?

The Coulter Department helps lead effort to fast-track new tests Better, faster testing for the SARS-CoV-2 virus is at the forefront of the nation’s fight against the pandemic — and in May, the National Institutes of Health tapped Coulter Department engineers to play a lead role in bringing such tests to market.

The trio — Georgia Tech, Emory University School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta — teamed up to form the Atlanta Center for Microsystems-Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies (ACME POCT). Funded with a $31 million NIH grant, the center is one of just five of its kind in the U.S.

NIH launched a $1.5 billion initiative called RADx (Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics) to encourage scientists, “We are vetting and whittling down thousands of Covid-19 engineers and inventors to submit — or further develop — diagnostic tests the NIH will receive from across the technologies they’d already created to diagnose the virus. country to 10 to 20 meritorious projects, which our Center will shepherd toward manufacturing and scale up with Key to this effort are microchip-enabled devices, the objective of national deployment this fall,” says Lam, engineered with MEMS-based sensors, microfluidics who is both a practicing physician with CHOA and a and smartphone-based systems. An advantage to this professor in the Coulter Department. microsystems approach: It can lead to diagnostic tests used in places outside traditional hospitals, such as the The center operates on the front lines, assessing, home, community or doctor’s office. validating and conducting clinical trials, as well as advising in manufacturing and scale-up of relevant To identify which newly developed microsystems Covid-19 tests. It’s using a fast and competitive threetechnologies are most promising, NIH turned to a trio of phase selection process to identify the best potential Atlanta institutions, with Coulter Department Professor sensors, smart phones and wearable technologies that Wilbur Lam serving as principal investigator. can serve as at-home or point-of-care tests for the virus.

On the Front Lines of Covid-19 Testing For student Kyra Halbert-Elliott, volunteering several days a week is a way to serve her community Plenty of people worry about Covid-19. Kyra Halbert-Elliott decided to do something about it.

For months, the third-year Coulter Department student would suit up in full PPE, several days a week, and head off to volunteer at a Houston, Texas, mobile testing unit. Traveling with her team in a bus once used for on-the-go dentistry, she would collect samples, work the registration desk and perform a range of other activities.

“As a pre-med student, I knew I wanted to support my community in a clinical manner,” Halbert-Elliott says.

“I found the [Houston] Medical Reserve Corps through a volunteer website that I used in high school and immediately applied.”

Halbert-Elliott’s work began in April 2020, after Georgia Tech transitioned to online learning and

she returned home to Texas. She made the time to volunteer even while finishing her spring semester coursework and conducting virtual research for the Coulter Department’s Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics Lab. Her team of Harris County employees and volunteers started nearly every day at 6:30, conducting hundreds of tests outdoors, then preparing kits and bar codes inside the bus. Being fluent in Spanish helped Halbert-Elliott converse with area residents.

“Testing is a first step in being able to contact trace and prevent further spread of the coronavirus,” she says. “Many people in Houston are waiting too long to go into the hospital because they are afraid of becoming infected. Getting tested can help encourage people to get treated for their symptoms before it’s too late.”

Fall 2020

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THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19

BME Researcher Frank Hammond Develops Wearable Tech to Help Treat Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

A prototype of the soft pneumatic vest developed in the lab of Frank Hammond.

Frank Hammond, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, has developed a vest that may change how clinicians treat at-risk patients battling acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which can be caused by Covid-19.

The vest is designed to be a safer, efficient alternative to proning, in which patients are placed on their stomach, using gravity to help redistribute the blood flow away from damaged areas to reach healthy regions of the lung — increasing oxygen uptake.

So Hammond’s team designed a soft pneumatic ventilation-perfusion vest that redistributes blood

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Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

to uninflamed, oxygen-rich areas of the lungs, increasing ventilation and, ideally, improving patient outcomes. “We’re manipulating pulmonary blood flow with this vest,” says Hammond, who has a joint appointment in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and is partnered with Emory physician Maxwell Weinmann to address the problem.

“We completed a functional prototype, and Dr. Weinmann is working toward a clinical trial to learn about the long-term impacts of simulated proning,” Hammond adds. “Based on preliminary results, we will pursue NIH and other sources of funding to further develop these important devices and facilitate mass-production using economical manufacturing methods.”

THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19

BME Researchers Contribute to National mHealth Covid Study Professor May Dongmei Wang was part of a 60-person task force exploring how mobile health technologies could be used to address Covid-19 and future pandemics.

Organized by researchers at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation), the team reviewed mobile health (mHealth) technologies in a study published in the IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology. The team found that mHealth technologies are viable options to monitor Covid-19 patients and can be used to predict symptom escalation for earlier intervention.

Wang is the principal investigator of the Bio-MIBLab (Biomedical Informatics and Bioimaging Lab), where her team focuses on predictive, preventative, pervasive, personalized and precision health. The team’s specialty is developing advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.

“We were invited to join this large international task force to provide insight on mHealth data collection, harmonization and infrastructure for analysis,” says Wang, a researcher in both the Petit Institute for

Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Institute for People and Technology at Georgia Tech. “The idea is to use mHealth effectively for Covid-19 patient precision staging, contact tracing and monitoring to ultimately ease the effects of the global pandemic.”

Her lab has 10 years of research experience in mHealth data analytics for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. This made Wang’s team the perfect addition to the enterprise.

During the pandemic, her lab has been developing advanced artificial intelligence techniques, such as deep learning-based algorithms for clinical decision support, assisting Covid-19 clinic physicians in fair resource allocation.

“To be able to activate a diverse group of experts with such a singular focus speaks to the commitment the entire research and science community has in addressing this pandemic,” said Paolo Bonato, director of the Lab and lead author on the study said. “Our goal is to quickly get important findings into the hands of the clinical community so we continue to build effective interventions.”

Fall 2020

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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Protecting the Retina Before It’s Too Late Coulter Department engineers show how early intervention in diabetic retinopathy can prevent vision loss The first symptoms of diabetic retinopathy are hardly noticeable. A little blurry vision may come and go; you might have difficulty reading. A little later, floating dark spots or cobweb-like streaks can appear — and for many, loss of sight follows.

ERGs measure electrical activity in the retina, which can be used to diagnose diabetic retinopathy. But conventional ERGs use heavy, complicated equipment that requires an expert to operate. The test is time-consuming and usually takes place in an ophthalmologist’s office.

Diabetic retinopathy is a leading cause of blindness in American adults. Coulter Department professor Machelle Pardue is investigating how the condition develops and which “early warning signs” can help clinicians diagnose and treat the disease before it’s too late.

But the convenience of the hand-held portable ERG makes it a promising tool for screening patients in a pharmacy or primary care clinic. “The fact that this one is really small and portable, as well as having the pupil tracker, makes it very unique,” Pardue added.

In a recent pilot study, Pardue’s team used a hand-held portable electroretinogram (ERG) device to detect earlystage diabetic retinopathy. Patients who showed signs of the condition received levodopa, a drug that’s commonly used to treat Parkinson’s disease.

Levodopa isn’t approved by the FDA to treat diabetic retinopathy, but early studies have suggested it might be effective. Studies such as Pardue’s provide important evidence.

“We’re trying to detect [diabetic retinopathy] much earlier, when we can use drugs that are actually going to prevent the progression of the disease,” says Pardue.

Pardue’s team found that the hand-held portable ERG has the sensitivity to detect early retinal dysfunction in diabetic patients. And early indications are that treatment with levodopa can restore inner retinal function to normal levels within two weeks.

Above right: Coulter Department Professor Machelle Pardue performs an electroretinogram on U.S. Army Veteran Michael Brooks, who participated in her study. PHOTO: JOEY RODGERS FOR VA

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Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

A Miniature Organ That’s Inside Out When they stumbled on a new “organoid,” Coulter Department engineers also found a better way to study cancer Thanks to an unexpected discovery in the lab, Coulter Department researchers created an unprecedented biological structure: a geometrically-inverted organoid which also turns out to be an especially effective tool for studying cancer.

Organoids (think miniature organs) are three-dimensional, self-organized collections of cells that act like normal human tissue. They aren’t totally new. But this particular organoid?

It’s inside out. And that is new.

In Shuichi Takayama’s Coulter Department lab, researchers use organoids to study breast cancer. These lab-grown “mini organs” offer a closer look at how cancer cells progress in a biological structure that resembles human tissue.

Typical mammary organoids have an important membrane located on the organoid’s interior surface. But with these inverted organoids, that membrane is on the outside.

That makes it significantly easier for cancer researchers to seed and monitor the cancer cells in their experiments.

The Takayama team’s creation of the inside-out organoid was actually a fortuitous mistake, and with intriguing results. But once they realized the organoid’s value, they immediately set to work figuring out how to reliably reproduce it.

Eric Parigoris

Eric Parigoris, a Ph.D. student researcher in the Takayama lab, says, “We did more of an analysis to determine what materials and methods induce this, and now we have a robust, reproducible protocol to intentionally induce an inverted or basal-in type phenotype in our organoids.”

The discovery will also aid the work of cancer researchers at other institutions, by providing a new and effective way to conduct in vitro experiments with cancer cells.

The Takayama team’s creation of the inside-out organoid was actually a fortuitous mistake, and with intriguing results.

Shuichi Takayama

Fall 2020

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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

New Hope for Neuropathy Sufferers Researchers shed light on one of cancer’s most distressing aftereffects Each year, around 1.8 million people are diagnosed with cancer. More than half receive chemotherapy — and of those, about 40 percent will experience a neurological condition called neuropathy.

Neuropathy brings pain, fatigue and loss of muscle coordination that can last for years. But groundbreaking new research from the Coulter Department reveals that it’s not necessarily a side effect — it’s actually caused by an interaction between chemotherapy and the cancer itself.

Cope

In a study conducted on rats, principal investigator Tim Cope and postdoc researcher Nick Housley found the firstever evidence that cancer and chemotherapy combine to exacerbate the damaged neurons found in neuropathy.

“There was some distress caused by cancer alone and some distress from chemo alone, but when you put the two things together, it was off the charts, seven times the trauma to neurons of the two things added together,” says Housley.

More importantly, the study found reason to doubt the current medical understanding that neuropathy is untreatable.

Conventional wisdom says neuropathy is caused by structural damage to neurons, such as tears or shrinkage, which can’t be repaired. Instead, the researchers found that the problem neurons seem to be misfiring. In other words, they’re functioning incorrectly — but that could be fixed.

“Many things the neuron relies on to live and function were unscathed on the gene expression level,” says Cope. “That’s potentially good news for patients and for fixing neuropathy because it means there may be just one thing or a few things to fix to restore normal functioning.”

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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Flickering Light Mobilizes Brain Chemistry That May Fight Alzheimer’s Alzheimer’s disease confounds all attempts to treat it. But in recent years, experiments using flickering light have shown promise. Researchers at Georgia Tech have tapped into how the flicker may work.

Coulter Department Assistant Professor Annabelle Singer co-led the study (with Levi Wood, assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering), which showed that exposure to light pulsing at 40 hertz — 40 beats per second — causes brains to release a surge of signaling chemicals that may help fight the disease.

phosphorylated tau protein forms similar junk known as neurofibrillary tangles suspected of destroying mental functions and neurons.

After many decades of failed Alzheimer’s drug trials costing billions, flickering light as a potentially successful Alzheimer’s therapy seems surreal even to the researchers.

“Sometimes it does feel like science fiction,” said Singer, who will share the results from the groundbreaking human trials at this year’s American Neurological Association annual meeting.

Above: Researcher Annabelle Singer models an experimental visor and earphones that play 40 Hertz light and sound.

Below: A flickering light strip used to expose mice to 40 Hertz light stimuli in the lab.

Though the work (published in the Journal of Neuroscience in February 2020) was conducted on healthy mice, the study was directly connected to human trials, in which Alzheimer’s patients were exposed to 40 Hz light and sound. Insights gained in mice at the Georgia Institute of Technology are informing the human trials in collaboration with Emory University. Results from the trials will soon be published.

One of the surging signaling molecules in the study on mice is strongly associated with the activation of brain immune cells called microglia, which purge an Alzheimer’s hallmark — amyloid beta plaque, junk protein that accumulates between brain cells.

Alzheimer’s destroys up to 30 percent of a brain’s mass, carving out ravines and depositing piles of amyloid plaque, which builds up outside of neurons. Inside neurons,

Fall 2020

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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Peering Into ‘Visual Behavior’

A Blood Test from the Comfort of Home?

Coulter Department engineers explore how spatial attention helps the brain see more, faster

Researchers create an alternative that can be completed in minutes

Imagine you’re driving down a busy street, looking for a blue house on the right. And while you’re seeing the whole dynamic scene, your brain knows to pay special attention to the right side of the street — especially anything blue.

Why should a simple blood test, one of the most common medical tests around, still be so complex to carry out? Francisco Robles, a professor in the Coulter Department, asked this question — and then developed a solution.

This is the kind of spatial attention that comes easily to people with neurotypical brains. But for people with autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit disorders or schizophrenia, prioritizing areas within a visual field does not come so naturally.

Coulter Department researcher Bilal Haider is investigating how brains use spatial attention to process what they see more quickly and effectively. His team wants to know the exact circuits and synaptic mechanisms involved — how they work and where they might go wrong.

Their research is funded by a $2.1 million, five-year award via the BRAIN Initiative, an international research project in pursuit of a more detailed picture of the human brain.

Most people get a blood test at least once a year with their annual check-up. And doctors also perform blood tests when patients are ill or experiencing unexplained symptoms.

But while it’s easy enough to take a blood sample, completing the testing is a complex process. The lab work requires expensive equipment, highly trained technical experts and chemical additives called reagents.

“Even though this is the most common test, you can’t just go into a CVS or any clinic to have it performed,” explains Robles. “You have to send it to a specialized lab, and the process can take days.”

Haider’s lab works with transgenic mice, which they’ve demonstrated are an excellent model system for studying how neural circuits mediate visual behavior. According to the researchers’ most recent findings, paying attention to a specific area enhances neural responses to all visual stimuli in that area.

Haider compares these responses to “turning up the volume.”

So Robles and his team set out to develop an alternative. Building on their past work in molecular imaging, the Coulter Department researchers introduced a novel solution: an optical assay, which uses visual imaging to provide diagnostics. Robles’ approach can analyze tens of thousands of live cells in minutes.

And while it’s fascinating to better understand how neurotypical brains work, the research can also shed light on better ways to treat or manage conditions like autism, schizophrenia or ADD.

In Robles’ test, the blood sample doesn’t need any special preparation.

So the test could be completed at your doctor’s office while you wait — or even in the comfort of your own home.

“We want to understand how circuits rapidly move attention this way or that way, turn it on and turn it off,” says Haider. “Once we can get a handle on that, we can really start to understand how we might be able to enhance normal attention and remedy attention deficits.”

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Medical professionals refer to a blood test as a “complete blood count,” or a CBC. With its measure of crucial metrics like red blood cells, white blood cells and plasma, a CBC can detect issues like anemia, leukemia and infections.

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

“We basically need just a few microliters of blood to get all of the information we need,” says Robles. “This can potentially be used as an at-home device, so patients can monitor their own blood counts at home, eventually.”

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Left: Manu Platt outside his lab. Right: Cathepsins eat away at collagen and elastin.

Stopping Enzymes from Behaving Badly New research sheds light on a trio of cathepsins that wreak havoc “Crazy powerful” enzymes called cathepsins can wreak havoc on proteins that make up tendons, arteries and other parts of the body. Keeping them from doing this has been problematic: Experimental drugs have brought harsh side effects.

But a research team led by Coulter Department Associate Professor Manu Platt this year developed a computational tool to help scientists better study three cathepsins as a group, rather than individually — and better understand what makes these enzymes effective vs. reckless.

When functioning effectively, cathepsins get rid of unneeded proteins in human cells. But badly behaving cathepsins attack proteins outside of cells that support other cells — as evidenced by the trio of cathepsins K, L and S around which Platt and his team built their model.

These rogue attacks on necessary proteins can promote illnesses like cancer, atherosclerosis and sickle cell disease.

And because cathepsins themselves are proteins, they can even cannibalize each other.

“You take a group of cathepsin Ks, and they eat each other,” Platt observes. “Why? Because they’re just closer to each other than to what they would otherwise eat.”

Through lab experiments and mathematical calculations, Platt and his team arrived at a computational model that functions as an online tool for researchers. Using the model, scientists can adjust the three cathepsins in group settings, as well as their levels of available targets and inhibitor chemicals.

Such exploration, Platt says, has a bearing on drug development to thwart the work of the reckless cathepsins.”

If we don’t know how these cathepsins are working with and against each other in complex systems, similar to how they exist in our bodies, then we are going to have a hard time getting anything into the medicine cabinet to inhibit them,” he says.

Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fall 2020

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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

New Insights Into Immune Cell Function A pioneer in mechanoimmunology sheds light on a blossoming field Despite all that scientists know about the immune system, there are still aspects of immunology that remain a mystery. But an intriguing new field called mechanoimmunology may provide some answers.

Mechanoimmunology is the study of how immune cells respond and adapt to the mechanical forces that surround them, infinitesimally pushing, pulling and tugging. And the Coulter Department’s Cheng Zhu is one of field’s foremost experts.

In a Perspective article published in the journal Nature Immunology, Zhu shared an overview of the field — including his own team’s significant contributions — and his insights into how mechanoimmunology might evolve in the future.

Zhu pointed to recent studies that show mechanical forces have an impact on immune cells’ interactions and functions. These studies, he explained, are the foundation of the field.

Zhu’s own team is exploring the various kinds of mechanical forces that immunoreceptors may encounter. They’re also investigating the effects these forces have on essential cell functions.

Many of immunology’s remaining mysteries involve the body’s response to cancer. For example: What triggers cancer-fighting CAR-T cells to do their work? Zhu thinks mechanoimmunology can provide some insights.

T-cell research in the Zhu lab.

“What we learn going forward may be important in helping to design the next generation of CAR-T therapies and further training the immune system to defend against cancer,” he says.

“Ultimately, it’s about saving lives.”

Zhu believes his team’s foundational research in mechanoimmunology will lead to real-world treatments, such as cell-based therapies and anti-cancer vaccines.

New BME Researcher Making Impact in Study of Phase Separation Felipe Quiroz, who joined the Coulter Department in 2020 as an assistant professor, has wasted little time in producing impactful research, with the release earlier this year of a paper in the journal Science.

the reasons why associated skin barrier disorders are exacerbated by environmental extremes, while providing insights that open the potential for targeting phase behavior to therapeutically treat disorders of the skin’s barrier.

The goal of the Quiroz lab is to decode and utilize the repetitive language apparent in nature’s recurrent use of “My lab pursues innovative approaches for synthesis, repeat elements (across genomes, RNAs, proteins and manipulation and sequencing of repetitive DNAs, as well material systems). Using a genetic engineering approach, as unprecedented characterization of post-translational he investigates the ability of repeat elements to encode modifications in repeat proteins,” Quiroz said. “Ultimately, self-assembly behavior, namely through liquid-liquid we aim to use our understanding of nature’s repetitive phase separation, a concept he covers in the paper. language to build self-assembling nanotechnologies, as well as devise therapeutic approaches for human Through the biophysical lens of liquid-liquid phase disorders involving phase separation, repetitive DNAs separation, the team’s findings shed fresh light on the and repeat proteins that are intrinsically-disordered.” enigmatic process of skin barrier formation, illuminating

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Nisha Rockwell Family Inspiration, Sense of Community Forges a Path to BME Students entering the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory for the first time are the vanguard of a new reality for higher education, an age of virtual learning and hybrid classes, an answer to a global pandemic.

This is a mostly well-traveled and worldly-wise cohort of young people who now are exploring the universe of their ambitions through keystrokes and a digital portal. Their unique experiences in historic times will help create a map for the scholars who follow.

Nisha Rockwell is from Prattville, Alabama, a small town just north of Montgomery. The oldest of three children, her family has a higher education background: Nisha’s father is an editor at Air University, and her mother is an academic advisor at Troy University.

Though she is eager to live in Atlanta on the Georgia Tech campus, Nisha chose to stay home to reduce the risk of exposure to Covid-19. “Having a high-risk family, I did not want to go to campus, then possibly be sent back home and directly expose my family to the virus,” she said. “The at-home virtual option is going good so far, although I would much rather have a normal school year on campus and without a global pandemic.”

She added, “Nobody in my family has been sick with the virus, but we have had many scares, and it was super scary waiting for the test results to get back. One of my best friends recently got tested positive for the virus, and I am just hoping her university will give her the proper care.”

but I’ve never made friends solely through online, so I don’t have that many friends from Georgia Tech yet. There is a group-chat for all of the at-home students, though, so I’m very thankful to have them. Also, after spending 13 years of my life learning in face-toface classroom settings, I have been so accustomed to learning that way, so learning through a screen and typing for discussions is a big change for me. I’m still trying to adapt to the change.

Why did you choose BME at Georgia Tech: I have always loved the STEM disciplines and helping others. With my dad being a disabled veteran, I spent a lot of my childhood seeing people in difficult situations at hospitals. I know BME would provide me a way to use my love of STEM to improve the lives of others, including other disabled veterans. Georgia Tech has been my dream school for a while now. It has one of the best BME programs in the nation and is in Atlanta, a city full of opportunities and culture. After touring Georgia Tech in November last year, I immediately felt a sense of community. I knew that if I attended Georgia Tech, I would learn so much, inside and outside of the classroom, and have a true sense of belonging.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? I love dancing (having studied a form of classical Indian dancing for seven years), driving around town with my friends, or traveling with my family. During the pandemic, however, I spend most of my free time hiking with friends, watching movies with my family, or learning a new form of dance.

Tell us about taking classes virtually: The best part is I get a little bit of extra time with my family, and I can wear my pajamas and eat during class. I think the two most challenging parts are the different learning techniques and difficulty making friends. I am a huge extrovert and have a lot of friends from my high school,

What are your hopes for your future student experience? For your career? I hope I can finally make it to campus! I also plan on becoming very involved at Georgia Tech, having just applied to FLOs [Future Leadership Organizations] a few days ago. For my career, I hope to improve at least one person’s life through my work.

Do you have advice or tips for other students? Make a planner. I have been given so many due dates already, but using a planner makes it easy for me to see what I need to do each day. Someone recommended that I use Notion, and I highly recommend it also. Also, if you are on campus, please get tested!

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Faculty Co-chair National Conference Spotlighting Black Biotech Researchers Founded by a Coulter Department professor, AfroBiotech Conference debuted in Atlanta in 2019 Coulter Department professors Karmella Haynes and Manu Platt co-chaired the first-ever AfroBiotech Conference, which debuted October 27-29, 2019 in Atlanta.

Hosted by the Society for Biological Engineering, AfroBiotech Conference was founded to “highlight the achievements of African Americans in biotechnology” and “inspire a new generation of diverse biotechnology professionals.”

With close to 100 attendees, the three-day conference featured researchers from around the country, hailing from industry and government agencies as well as academic institutions. They presented their research in areas such as regenerative medicine, DNA synthesis and genome editing and design.

Haynes

Platt

Haynes was inspired to create the conference as a showcase of scientists who “often aren’t seen at other conferences that cover the same technical areas, which I think underscores the ‘invisibility’ and marginalization of African-American scientists.”

Haynes notes that several of the speakers, as they shared their scientific insights, also addressed their experiences as under-represented minorities in their fields — “the hurdles, discrimination and their strategies for thriving in spite of these barriers.”

Building on these conversations, the time between sessions created important opportunities for networking and mentoring. And students from Project ENGAGES, a Georgia Tech partnership with seven minority-serving public high schools in Atlanta, also got to see minority representation in the sciences from a personal perspective.

The second AfroBiotech Conference will take place virtually on October 26-28, 2020, and feature dozens of nationally accomplished researchers and distinguished speakers.

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Attendees of the inaugural AfroBiotech Conference in Atlanta.

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Engineering Upgrades to the Human Immune System A Coulter Department researcher fine-tunes T-cell activity so the immune system works smarter When the immune system mounts a defense against an invader, it deploys T-cells, the “trained assassin” immune cells that can attack bacteria, viruses, cancer cells and other pathogens.

The Coulter Department’s Gabe Kwong explores the role T-cells play in human health from many angles. He works to expand the ability to assess T-cell activity — and even direct and control it.

For example, Kwong is developing a non-invasive, sensor platform that measures T-cell activity after an organ transplant. “If T-cells are being overactive,” Kwong explains, “you can track that with our miniaturized biological sensors to probe the graft for early signs of transplant rejection.”

This approach offers a significant improvement on the conventional method of measuring T-cell activity following organ transplants, in which clinicians conduct a biopsy using a large needle to remove a sample of the patient’s tissue.

Kwong is also developing a T-cell therapy to fight cancer. Typically, tumors learn how to evade attacks from T-cells by turning them off, which is part of why the immune system struggles to defeat cancer on its own.

Kwong is engineering T-cells that can be activated by the heat from a laser, much like a remote control. So when a tumor turns off an attacking T-cell, Kwong’s remote control light beam can turn it back on.

“We treat [T-cells] like a living drug, a smart drug, because those T-cells know where to go, can recognize tumor cells and kill them,” Kwong says.

And in preclinical models, Kwong’s team has observed promising results: His next-generation T-cell therapy shows long-lasting effects against tumors.

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A Road Less Traveled Engineer David Frakes’ journey from Wall Street to Silicon Valley and back to Tech David Frakes’ brand-new biomedical engineering lab might “I think all of these different fields that I’ve been in — acacurrently be sitting empty, but he has big plans for it. Soon demia, industry, entrepreneurship — have now led me back it will be filled with computers, flow loops, 3D printers, to Tech,” said Frakes. “I’m an academic who cares about students and dreams. Frakes, who has four degrees from making an impact on industry through my research. The the Georgia Tech College of Engineering — an undergrad experiences I’ve had in industry and as an entrepreneur in electrical, a master’s in mechanical, another master’s in really position me uniquely to now do the research I want to electrical and then a PhD in biomedical engineering — has do at Tech. So, it’s all those pivots and different experiences returned to Tech as an associate professor. He intends to that really rounded out my toolbox.” focus on medical devices and computer vision and work with other researchers at Tech to create a more interdisciplinary Excelling at Research lab that runs like a startup.

Frakes’ journey shows a circuitous career rather than a traditional straight line. He’s taken detours along the way Frakes has a unique story that ultimately brought him back that have only enhanced his knowledge base and crystalto Tech. He has pivoted between industry and academia lized his long-term goals, particularly in the focus areas of for the past 25 years, with a few stops in the startup world his research. along the way. After finishing his degree programs at Tech in 2003, he worked on Wall Street for a few years, but Most of the biomedical work Frakes has done in academia returning to research was always in the back of his mind. So, is on medical devices and computer-based simulation and after working in the financial sector, he was ready to return planning of surgeries, which made him a perfect candidate to academia. An opportunity opened up at Arizona State to come back to the Coulter Department of Biomedical EngiUniversity (ASU), where Frakes taught and ran a research neering (BME) as a faculty member. His research program lab. Seven years into his work at ASU, he took a sabbatical at ASU had two threads: the first focused on medical device to work at Google, where he stayed for five years. And modeling for surgical planning and a second was dedicated now, finally, he is back in academia at Tech. That’s Frakes’ to computer vision and image processing. Although these journey in a nutshell, but what really drives him is a passion distinct lines of research may seem unrelated, Frakes to make an impact. focuses on both because they are his passion.

“I’ve always followed a model of doing what I’m really passionate about, and I think if you do that then things just tend to take care of themselves further down the line,” said Frakes. “If you love what you’re doing, then that gives you the opportunity to be great at it.”

And Frakes was right. His medical research has led him back to Tech. And the computer vision work at ASU landed him the opportunity of a lifetime to work at Google and later Apple on the iPhone 11 family of products.

Creating Value in Industry

Initially, it was Frakes’ work at ASU that prompted Google to fund his work in computer vision, and when the time came for Frakes to take a sabbatical, Google recruited him to run a program within the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group.

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“It’s an absolute pressure cooker of rapid technology translation,” said Frakes of the group. “You don’t even walk in with a project, you have to come up with one once you get there, and it was my diverse skillset and innovating mindset that made Google think I was up for this challenge. Google ATAP hires you so you can come in and scale and amplify yourself to do something bigger and go further than you’ve ever gone.”

Granted, technical depth is a prerequisite to work at Google, which Frakes had from both his degrees at Tech and work at ASU. But it was the fact that he was a different type of program leader, willing to take thoughtful risks in the right direction, that set him apart. Frakes was also no stranger to high pressure competition, having been a two-sport letterman in football and track and field at Tech.

While at Google, Frakes leveraged the thread of his research focused on computer vision, and his work there led to a colleague bringing him over to the Camera & Photos Division at Apple, where he worked on the iPhone 11 series as Lead of Camera Software.

“I’ve always followed a model of doing what I’m really passionate about, and I think if you do that then things just tend to take care of themselves further down the line. If you love what you’re doing, then that gives you the opportunity to be great at it.”

DAVID FRAKES

An Entrepreneurial Spirit

Google also recognized Frakes for his innovative drive and ability to scale a product and take it to market.

During his time as a PhD candidate at Tech, Frakes created a startup that is still in existence today, 4-D Imaging, out of VentureLab and then ATDC. This first foray into the startup world led Frakes to continue to pursue entrepreneurship when he got to ASU.

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“Product-driven research and subsequently commercialization is a big focus of mine, and creating startups helps to take a product to market and really make a difference in people’s lives,” said Frakes.

“To be in a market at scale is what I consider to be impactful. I’m passionate about translating my research into real-world applications that can impact an industry.”

While at ASU, Frakes started EndoVantage, a company that focuses on neurosurgical DAVID FRAKES planning, which was just acquired by Rapid AI earlier this year. EndoVantage was built in his lab with one of his students and a partner who as much by his clinical collaborators as they were by him. The is head of the Interventional Neuroradiology origins of some of Frakes’ most successful research has come program at Mayo Clinic. EndoVantage solves a surgical planning from doctors explaining the problem and ideating on how to problem in a new way that gives doctors new capabilities to solve it. determine how they are going to treat patients. Specifically, the Surgical Preview platform lets doctors see how different medical “You must work closely with your clinical collaborators,” said devices will fit a patient before surgery so that they can choose Frakes. “Again, it’s something I’m really passionate about — the right one. After the technology became FDA approved and doing the product-driven research to create something that is got into the market, EndoVantage was acquired by a larger going to be useful to a doctor and impact patients.” company.

“Now it’s out there and hopefully saving people’s lives, and it’s being used by doctors at scale,” said Frakes. “So that’s the impact I hope to see with my other work that’s moving forward as well. To be in a market at scale is what I consider to be impactful. I’m passionate about translating my research into real-world applications that can impact an industry.”

Next Steps at Tech

Frakes just began his career at Tech this fall. He plans to collaborate early and often with other faculty members who are more established as he gets his lab off the ground. He’s also already teaching.

“My earliest work in the lab will probably be in the medical device space and designing a new device for transcatheter interventions in the brain and heart,” said Frakes. “I have a really strong technological foundation for this that I’m bringing over from ASU, plus the experience from EndoVantage. Once the lab is fully staffed, I’m hoping we can optimize the device design for performance across the patient population.”

Frakes also plans to connect some of the more macro work he’s done with medical devices, specifically for cerebral aneurisms, with the cellular-level work that’s being done with collaborators at Georgia Tech.

Along with setting up his lab and teaching, Frakes is pursuing a new Industry University Collaborative Research Center at Tech.

The Center will involve many different companies working with faculty at universities who are doing research that can drive product creation forward in industry.

“I saw this as a perfect opportunity when I got to Tech because I speak both languages — academia and industry — and I’m excited to bring these two things together,” said Frakes. “I’ve run large programs like this at scale before, and I think we can do it at Tech too.”

As for the culture of his lab, Frakes plans to run it less like a conventional lab and more like a startup or a rapid technology translation incubator. He’s excited that it will be an environment where students can innovate and have the space to consider alternatives in biomedical engineering that have never before been explored.

Although right now he’s only a lab of one, the future for Frakes and BME promises innovation, collaboration and a desire to change the medical industry and make a difference in patients’ lives.

“I couldn’t be more excited to be back at Tech and under two great leaders in Susan [Margulies] and Steve [McLaughlin],” said Frakes, who is also excited to be back in the classroom. “I’m “I’d like to bridge the gap to better understand how to treat teaching an emerging technology law class for engineers right pathologies like an aneurism with a medical device,” said Frakes. now and then problem-based learning next — both great oppor“So, discovering what actually happens to the cellular response tunities to plug in some of the latest advances from industry that that then catalyzes healing.” our students can really learn from.”

Frakes will also work closely with clinicians, as he has in the past. The problems he’s chosen to work with were determined

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GEORGIA PARMELEE

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Revolutionary Research Robot Co-created

by BME’s Charlie Kemp Unveiled for Use at Home or Work After three years in stealth mode, Hello Robot unveiled the Stretch Research Edition, heralding a future where robots help people in their homes and workplaces.

Created by a team led by Coulter Department Professor Charlie Kemp and Google’s former director of robotics, Aaron Edsinger, Stretch boasts a simple and capable design that makes it adept at performing a variety of useful tasks, such as assisting an older parent at home, stocking grocery shelves, and wiping down potentially infectious surfaces at the workplace.

With its compact wheeled base and slender telescoping arm, Stretch reaches important places, picking up objects on the floor or at the backs of countertops. The device’s small size lets it navigate tight spaces, and it is sensitive to even light contact, enabling it to physically interact with people and its surroundings, bringing a whole new utilitarian vibe to robotics, according to Kemp, a researcher in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (both at Georgia Tech).

“When it comes to mobile robots with arms, we’ve been in the age of toys and monstrosities,” says Kemp, Hello Robot’s CTO. “Stretch changes that.”

Previous robots with comparable capabilities have been prohibitively expensive, awkwardly large, complex machines. According to Kemp, at just over 50 pounds, Stretch can be easily maneuvered in living or working

Aaron Edsinger, CEO of Hello Robot, gives Stretch a test run.

Kemp

environments; be transported in the back of a car; and is designed as a cost-effective tool for other researchers.

Kemp owns equity in and works for Hello Robot, which is commercializing robotic assistance technologies developed in his lab.

Stretch boasts a simple and capable design that makes it adept at performing a variety of useful tasks, such as assisting an older parent at home, stocking grocery shelves, and wiping down potentially infectious surfaces at the workplace.

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Device Developed in Coulter Department Beats the Heat in Operating Rooms Every year in the U.S. there are approximately 650 fires in hospital operating rooms. Fiber optic light cables are one of main sources of ignition in these fires, but they’ve only recently been recognized as a potentially serious threat. While these sources of light are crucial, they can exceed a temperature of 500 degrees F, presenting a potential danger.

But an Atlanta-based company using technology developed at Georgia Tech has developed an innovative product to address this fire risk, and it’s making an impact in operating rooms across the country.

Rains

“Preventing fires and burns from fiber optic light cables is as simple as covering up the light source when it isn’t being used,” says James Rains, CEO and co-founder of the company, Jackson Medical, and professor of the practice in the Coulter Department, where he oversees the Capstone program. “GloShield is really a simple piece of equipment.”

GloShield is a fiber-optic cable safety cover that is simple to use and provides maximum burn protection for a small investment. Generally compatible with all major light cables, and simple to integrate into an existing surgical workflow, GloShield has been used in more than 19,000 surgeries across the U.S. (including Emory hospitals).

Rains and his partners (whose company is also making and providing face shields during the Covid-19 pandemic) have ensured that their devices are made entirely in the U.S., and they hire Georgia Tech graduates for new positions. The fledgling company, having experienced its greatest growth yet in 2019, is receiving funding support from the Georgia Research Alliance, Georgia Tech VentureLab, and the Global Center for Medical Innovation in Atlanta.

The GloShield device.

PHOTO: JACKSON MEDICAL.

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STAT Credentialing Program Puts BME Students Close to the Action A new program has opened the door to greater access to the clinical environment for Coulter Department students.

STAT Credentialing was launched last year to expose budding biomedical engineers to experiences in the clinic and the associated challenges in the Grady and Emory hospital systems. The program has so far enabled 300 undergraduate and graduate students to synergize their classroom learning with real clinical experiences.

“Students are trained on hospital safety protocols and get the necessary testing and background checks, which allow them to get credentialed for access to hospital facilities, safely,” noted James Rains, professor of the practice in the Coulter Department, who launched the program with fellow BME faculty member Jeremy Ackerman, a physician.

“This is an amazing opportunity for students,” Rains added. “I don’t know of any other institution offering this kind of access for students working on medical devices and other solutions for challenges in health care. And we’re actually sharing our experience with other institutions so they can apply this at their universities.”

The program was made possible by support from the Imagine, Innovate, and Impact Nexus grant from Emory’s School of Medicine.

BME students Annika Clawson and Robert Bridenhagen.

Curtain Call for a Cardiovascular Legend With his 2020 retirement, Ajit Yoganathan leaves a lasting impact He invented the science of prosthetic heart valve engineering. He leveraged years of flow and physiology data into new understanding of the cardiovascular system.

He even co-founded the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory and Georgia Tech — and a related research enterprise at Georgia Tech, the Petit institute of Bioscience and Bioengineering.

And for Ajit Yoganathan — aka “Dr. Y,” who retired in June 2020 after 41 years at Georgia Tech — all are legacies never to be forgotten.

It’s hard to overstate the impact that Yoganathan and his Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics (CFM) lab has had on human health.

He and his team studied and evaluated all designs of prosthetic heart valves that have been implanted in patients in the U.S. His research yielded planning software to guide challenging surgeries in babies and children suffering from serious cardiac birth defects. And he helped prepare the next generation of CV health pioneers by mentoring more than 125 master’s students, doctoral students and postdoc trainees.

“Ajit leaves a remarkable legacy on the field of cardiovascular research and on our Coulter Department,” says Professor Susan Margulies, the Wallace H. Coulter Chair of BME. “He is a visionary member of our Coulter BME family who was our first associate chair in translational research, launched our Master’s in Biomedical Innovation and Development and forged lasting relationships between our department and industry.”

Phil Ebeling,retired chief technology officer at medical giant Abbott Laboratories, said of Yoganathan, “There just aren’t many people, frankly, in any industry with such universal name recognition and integrity.”

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Coulter BME Big 10 Ten biomedical engineers honored in Alumni Association’s 40 Under 40 Program The Georgia Tech Alumni Association unveiled is inaugural 40 Under 40 Program earlier this year, recognizing the achievements of Tech alumni who are improving the human condition while under the age of 40. Among the 40 honorees, 10 hail from the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. We sat down with each biomedical engineer to hear a little more about their experiences and what they are doing today.

ARNAB CHAKRABORTY Graduation Year: 2013 Company: Flow MedTech International Corp.

Role: Co-founder & CTO How do you feel your achievements are improving the human condition? At Flow MedTech, we set up a Corporate Social Responsibility program and helped sponsor a free clinic in India where we provided medicine to 1,000+ individuals. In 2016, I co-founded a nonprofit in Tennessee to encourage entrepreneurship. I have been thrilled to be a part of startups and organizations working on education and healthcare technology to impact those with special needs.

We installed innovative software and virtual reality into schools and learning centers to teach vocational, academic, and life skills in ways previously not possible.

As someone under the age of 40, what has motivated you to achieve so much at this point in your life? I truly believe there is greatness and passion in everyone, and so, I have this inner motivation to do whatever it takes to bring that out in myself and create something I believe will make a positive difference in the world. Having the ability to work on innovative projects in multiple industries makes me so excited, as I can learn about these industries while being creative and helping engineer solutions to improve the quality of people’s lives in diverse ways!

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ALLEN CHANG Graduation Year: 2008 Company: NuVasive Role: Co-founder & Project Engineer As someone under the age of 40, what has motivated you to achieve so much at this point in your life? The seed of service was planted in me through AmeriCorps, mostly through 1-on-1 work. While individual service is important, building a medical solution was my way of impacting as many fellow humans as I can. Also, I had a lumbar spine injury as a teenager, so there’s a good chance I will need help in the future. Selfishly, I want to push the innovations forward so the best solutions will be available when that time comes.

As the founder of a company, what has given you the drive to be an entrepreneur? Did you have a specific experience at Tech that led to you wanting to create your own company?

My startup company Vertera Spine was acquired by NuVasive in 2017.

I’ve stayed with the company for two main reasons: personal career development and aligned mission. Coming from a startup, I could learn from the wealth of knowledge and technical expertise present and gain experience navigating through a larger company. More importantly, the company’s mission aligns well with my personal goals. With more resources, the Porous PEEK technology is growing more rapidly with NuVasive, ultimately transforming more patients’ lives.

CHRIS HERMANN Graduation Year: 2006 Company: Clean Hands Safe Hands Role: Co-founder & CEO As someone under the age of 40, what has motivated you to achieve so much at this point in your life? I have seen a huge disconnect between engineering and medicine. There have been countless times when I saw that there could be huge improvements to the medical field with the application of relatively simple engineering

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principles and technology. I learned about the serious problem of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), and how hand hygiene is a major contributor. When we first started looking into this problem, we were shocked to learn that nothing had been done to address it in more than 150 years despite it being the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. It took several years of hard work solving some difficult problems, but we have finally cracked the code and now cut HAIs by over 65 percent across all of our hospitals.

As the founder of a company, what has given you the drive to be an entrepreneur? Did you have a specific experience at Tech that led to you wanting to create your own company? I ended up as an entrepreneur by accident. My original plan was to go and have a career in academic medicine running a research lab. When we got started on tackling the problem of hand hygiene, we never thought about forming a company. We started working on the problem, and things slowly but surely continued to grow. Things continued to get really exciting for us, and we started having a very real impact on the lives of patients. Fast forward a couple of years, and we are now one of the fastest-growing companies in the country and just reached an important milestone: more than 20 percent of the beds in Georgia now use our technology.

SHAWNA KHOURI Graduation Year: 2014 Company: Tulsa Innovation Labs Role: Virtual Health Manager Bonus: Co-founder of TendoNova How do you feel your achievements are improving the human condition? I’ve had the distinct pleasure of sowing seeds of impact at several scales. First, as a co-founder of a medical device startup (TendoNova) based on a technology that I co-invented, we will directly improve the lives of those with chronic tendon pain. Through my previous experience at Biolocity, I helped catalyze the formation and success of over 20 startups and multiple technology licenses to industry at Emory and Georgia Tech.

While more removed from the direct technology development, I see the enabling impact I’ve made helping these technologies bridge a critical development gap. Finally, through Tulsa Innovation Labs, I will be making city-wide impact as we establish Tulsa’s niche as a Virtual Health Hub. As the founder of a company, what has given you the drive to be an entrepreneur? Did you have a specific experience at Tech that led to you wanting to create your own company? Where I’ve gotten to as an entrepreneur has much to do with experiences I had at

Georgia Tech. As an undergraduate, I placed second in InVenture Prize with my BME classmates for an emergency medicine product. The attempted commercialization of that technology taught me much about medical technology development. This experience also prompted my return to Georgia Tech to earn my Masters in Biomedical Innovation and Development to better understand medical device strategy and commercialization. Through this course, we built a strong team, identified a true unmet clinical need, developed a sound business case, and built enough traction to earn some grant funding through the Georgia Research Alliance to continue prototyping the device that would ultimately lead to the formation of TendoNova.

What led you to become involved in the company you currently work for? This new role [with Tulsa Innovation Labs] is a natural extension of the work I had done with Biolocity at Georgia Tech and Emory. Biolocity is an incubator and philanthropic fund that helps to commercialize faculty innovations with the ability to impact human health. In that role, I was privileged to work alongside world-class clinicians, scientists and engineers to provide complementary expertise around business and product development to unlock the potential of these projects.

CHRIS LEE Graduation Year: 2012 Company: Huxley Medical Role: Chairman & CEO How do you feel your achievements are improving the human condition? As co-founder, President and CEO, I led Vertera to translate, manufacture and sell the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared load-bearing porous polymer device. Despite numerous competitive attempts, it is still the only porous polymer strong enough to withstand the FDA’s stringent mechanical testing guidelines for spinal and orthopedic implants.

And since our commercial launch in 2016 and acquisition by NuVasive (NASDAQ: NUVA) in 2017, our devices have improved the lives of more than 10,000 patients suffering from chronic neck and back pain around the world. Since leaving NuVasive, I have started another medical device company (Huxley Medical) and have invested in several others that I hope will exceed Vertera’s impact on improving the human condition.

As the founder of a company, what has given you the drive to be an entrepreneur? Did you have a specific experience at Tech that led to you wanting to create your own company? As a first-generation Chinese American born in this country, my entrepreneurial drive was instilled by my parents. Both made their journey to America under

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non-ideal circumstances. When he was 14, my father immigrated to New Jersey with my grandmother to help my grandfather start his restaurant. And my mother was a refugee of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She escaped China to Hong Kong with her two younger sisters and immigrated to Louisiana to receive a college education in a language she barely understood. Despite their struggles acclimating to a foreign country, both graduated near the top of their class in pharmacy school. After their wedding, my parents only had $20 in their combined savings account — and yet, my father decided to start his own pharmacy. My parents saved every penny my father made from that pharmacy and lived off my mother’s salary as a retail pharmacist.

And when I decided to start Vertera, they were the first to invest. They also covered my mortgage and credit card expenses for three years as I attempted to follow in their footsteps to live the American dream. If my parents instilled my entrepreneurial spirit, Georgia Tech, gave me my initial entrepreneurial know-how. I would not be a successful serial entrepreneur if it were not for my Ph.D. advisor, Barbara Boyan, and the TIG:ER (Technology Innovation: Generating Economic Results) program at Georgia Tech.

KAMIL MAKHNEJIA Graduation Year: 2015 Company: Jackson Medical Role: Co-founder & CEO How do you feel your achievements are improving the human condition? My work has a direct impact on patients’ lives and safety. For patients and their families, surgeries can be scary with potential for complications and risks. By developing GloShield, Jackson Medical’s flagship surgical safety solution, I’m proud to enhance patient safety and peace of mind.

As someone under the age of 40, what has motivated you to achieve so much at this point in your life? Hard work and perseverance and serendipity. But a lot of my success is attributed to the guidance, wisdom and support from fantastic mentors and advisors.

Ultimately, making a positive impact and helping others by being able to give back meaningfully is what keeps me motivated throughout this journey.

As a graduate of BME, what advice do you have for other students that aspire to make a difference in organizations that involve bioengineering or in the medical field? As biomedical engineers, we’re in a unique position to directly better the lives and health of people. It’s important to keep this altruism central in your career. Yes, there will always be deadlines and budgets to meet. Meet them with peoples’ lives and health in mind, and you’ll have a fulfilling career.

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Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

IDICULA MATHEW Graduation Year: 2017 Company: Hera Health Solutions Role: CEO How do you feel your achievements are improving the human condition? As CEO at Hera, I work with our team to develop long-acting treatments through our bioerodible drug delivery technology. Today more than ever, offering quality and controlled medications over extended periods of time is often troublesome and requires invasive procedures. Current solutions on the market make it necessary for expensive and complicated removal procedures.

Now, just imagine that if these issues exist in the U.S., what it’s like in other countries with limited access to healthcare. Our proprietary biodegradable implants created by using existing generic drugs in combination with already FDA-approved structural materials will deliver trusted medication over extended periods of time.

As someone under the age of 40, what has motivated you to achieve so much at this point in your life? I had sort of a classic ‘immigrant/American dream’ childhood. My entrepreneurial family is from the southern part of India, a state called Kerala. Growing up, I was always immersed in a fast-paced environment that allowed me to learn a lot about perseverance from my parents. I spent most of my weekends at our family business. Having the front row seat and being able to participate while watching my parents grow their small businesses throughout my childhood is still my biggest internal inspiration.

As a graduate of BME, what advice do you have for other students that aspire to make a difference in organizations that involve bioengineering or in the medical field? During my first week as a freshman at Georgia Tech, I remember walking into our counselor’s office to talk about my schedule and the possibility of switching to other majors. He urged me to come back to him, but only after I took the first introductory BMED class. And of course, I never looked back.

Through the class projects in that introductory class, I was fascinated by how innovation in biomedical/bioengineering can make an astounding difference in people’s lives. This still resonates with me today as I work with our team at Hera Health Solutions. As we develop our technologies and new products in our pipeline, we still continuously and actively ask questions to our end users. We are always seeking new ways to enhance their experience, and our product has been modified many times because of the feedback. Often times, identifying the right problem is tougher than finding a solution.

F E AT U R E S T O R I E S

IGNACIO MONTOYA Graduation Year: 2020 Company: HINRI Labs Role: Executive Director How do you feel your achievements are improving the human condition? I am on a relentless quest to cure, find solutions for, and overall transform the quality of life of people suffering from paralysis caused by spinal cord injuries. In this quest, today I find myself in Los Angeles evaluating and participating in a revolutionary clinical trial that’s allowing me to see, feel and witness extraordinary, life-changing results firsthand with my own body. And I just feel blessed.

As someone under the age of 40, what has motivated you to achieve so much at this point in your life? My motivation to persevere, fight and always strive for more comes from the core values and principles I hold dear, which, in turn, are demonstrated in the characteristics that have forged my character. When I was four years old, my mother passed away. At six, I moved to the U.S. from Cuba in search of liberty and a dream. At 21 I was selected for a rated pilot slot in the U.S. Air Force. And at 22 I was involved in an accident where I died for 15 minutes, was in a coma for three months, and woke up to find out that 75 percent of my body was completely paralyzed and that I only had a one percent chance of recovery. But that one percent is all I’ve ever had throughout all those experiences (and many, many more). It’s the waking up to a new world full of medical complications and unmet needs that essentially drove me to escape the hospital, shift course to become a biomedical engineer, and dive as deep as I possibly can to fast-track an already existent cure for paralysis.

DAVID SOTTO Graduation Year: 2009 Company: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Role: Strategy Officer How do you feel your achievements are improving the human condition? I have been incredibly lucky to work alongside governments undergoing structural reform of their national health systems. Design and implementation of equitable health systems is one of the most powerful tools we have to ensure that everyone can live a safe and healthy life. Health is also inextricably linked to economic opportunity, which has become even more apparent throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

What inspired you to become involved in the company you currently work for? Is their company mission and vision a big part of why you work for them? If so, please elaborate. The Gates Foundation is guided by the belief that every life has equal value and works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. The explicit emphasis on equity, commitment to improved health outcomes and focus on the world’s most vulnerable populations was a major reason for why I chose to work here. It’s such a privilege to engage in global dialogue in support and service of public, private and social sector actors working together to solve some of the world’s largest problems. Having a hand in shaping strategy at both the programmatic and initiative level while learning from experts in the field on how we can and should evolve to better deliver impact still feels like a bit of a dream job to me.

LAUREN TROXLER Graduation Year: 2012 Company: Abbott Role: Staff R&D Clinical Engineer How do you feel your achievements are improving the human condition? My work focuses on developing non-surgical treatment options for patients with “leaky heart valves.” Diseased heart valves do not close properly, allowing blood to flow in the wrong direction and causing significant life-threatening symptoms if left untreated.

Abbott’s MitraClip™ Mitral Valve Repair System is the world’s leading transcatheter device for select patients with mitral regurgitation, who cannot undergo surgery and need treatment. Similarly, Abbott’s TriClip™ Tricuspid Valve Repair System — currently approved in the EU and an investigational device in the U.S. — utilizes the proven technology of the MitraClip device to treat patients with tricuspid regurgitation. It is my responsibility to connect real-life clinical needs to the product’s design and intended use. I influence and lead the way new products are designed and tested and also generate and share evidence to ensure our products meet global regulatory requirements and are safe and effective. In five years, I have helped bring four life-saving products to the market, treating over 100,000 patients worldwide.

As a graduate of BME, what advice do you have for other students that aspire to make a difference in organizations that involve bioengineering or in the medical field? Don’t worry about not being an expert at everything. Bioengineering encompasses so many topics — focus on identifying what you’re interested in and what you’re excited about, then become great at that subject. Be the expert whose name comes to mind when that subject arises in conversation. Not only will this propel your career, but it will also guarantee you are always working on what you are passionate about.

Fall 2020

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GIFTS AND GRANTS

Better Care, Hope For A Cure

BME Design Garden will Nurture Innovation

A $1.5 million gift from Erin Hoffmann and Michael Schroepfer aims to propel research in treatment of single ventricle heart defects

Gift from Terrence Hahn and Joanne Stanescu launches development of dedicated space for student teams

Forty years ago, babies born with a single ventricle heart defect (SVD) seldom lived past infancy. Since then, advances in surgery techniques have given children with SVDs a much better chance of survival — but more work must be done so they can live long, healthy lives.

To aid in this effort, the nonprofit foundation Additional Ventures, created by Erin Hoffmann and Michael Schroepfer, awarded the Coulter Department a $1.5 million grant to advance work on treatment and care for children with SVDs. Currently, around 1 out of every 20,000 newborns have the heart defect.

“This funding allows us to harness the expertise of researchers throughout Georgia Tech and Emory University to identify new interdisciplinary approaches for novel functional cures for children born with single ventricle heart defects,” says Susan Margulies, chair of the Coulter Department.

She added, “The grant will stimulate new research applications and will enable some of that promising research to reach the marketplace where it can make a difference in children’s lives.”

The $1.5 million award is part of a larger $5.7 million innovation Fund. All the recipients of the fund will focus on cutting-edge research to better understand the root causes of SVDs and develop curative efforts.

“With rapid advances in areas like genomics, single-cell technologies and tissue engineering, now is the time to coordinate efforts to accelerate progress,” said Kirstie Keller, Additional Ventures’ Director of Scientific Programs.

Fund recipients also include the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Stanford University School of Medicine.

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Innovation and entrepreneurship in “The Design Garden project is so cool — a biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech dedicated work space for student teams always begins with student teams scoping working on projects outside of classroom out the needs of real people, or meeting hours,” says James Rains, professor of with clinicians, patients and collaborators the practice in the Coulter Department, from all over the world. And it pays off who oversees the Capstone program. every year in the form of national awards “This is a ‘garden,’ so we expect there will and recognition for these young biomedibe some cross-pollination taking place as cal engineers. teams will be co-located with other teams, inspiring each other, or making new For example, in just the last year alone connections with each other.” student teams from the Coulter Department took first place in design compeThe department’s premiere design class titions held by the National Institutes of is BME Capstone, in which students work Health, Johns Hopkins University and with clinicians and industry sponsors to Rice University. And at Georgia Tech, BME create working solutions to unmet clinical teams have taken home the top prizes needs. Capstone students currently share in a range of programs and competitions, space with all other Capstone teams. including the Capstone Expo, InVenture There is not enough time for all teams to Prize, Ideas-2-Serve and CREATE-X. work concurrently, or to set up a “home base” for their team to meet in repeatedly.

The interest in design is high: Out of The result is wasted time and missed approximately 1,200 current BME opportunities for collaboration between students, about 700 will participate in students. design courses annually. And students are looking for more opportunities to Students get a dedicated, limited amount design and innovate, which is why the of time in the BME Design Studio. The Coulter Department is in the process of Design Garden, Rains says, “will give creating a Design Garden space, thanks them complete support so they don’t have to a $250,000 gift from donors Terrence to pack it up and go to work in a coffee Hahn and Joanne Stanescu through their shop, or their dorm or a lobby. They’ll have Pietas Foundation. the space and the resources. This is a big win for the Coulter Department.”

GIFTS AND GRANTS

Gleason Awarded Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grant for Wireless Wearable Monitoring System of Infants Dr. Rudy Gleason, associate professor in the “The hospitals we work with in Ethiopia really Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical don’t monitor [the infants] very often — they Engineering at Georgia Tech, has been awarded have maybe one probe that they go around and a $200,000 Call-to-Action Grant funded by the monitor heart rate and blood/oxygen as they Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for his work have time,” said Gleason. “So, I thought if we with fellow mechanical engineering assistant have a device like this that can continuously professor W. Hong Yeo on developing a wireless monitor four key parameters — heart rate, wearable device for continuous monitoring respiration rate, blood/oxygen level and of neonates in Ethiopia. Neonates are infants temperature, it could detect a lot of the key under the age of four weeks, and they are at causes of neonatal mortality that occur in the highest risk of mortality, particularly in the places like Ethiopia in the developing world,” developing world. said Gleason.

“The problem we’re trying to address is neonatal mortality,” said Gleason. “Over the last 20 to 30 years, we’ve done a really good job at reducing childhood mortality rates, but actually if you look at the neonatal mortality rates, they’ve almost flatlined. This first month of life period is when about half of all child mortality happens, and a good chunk of that happens in the first week of life.”

Gleason and Yeo have developed a small, wireless, wearable electronic device that would stick on an infant’s chest like a Band-Aid and would offer real-time, continuous monitoring of temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate and blood oxygen concentration, with alarms for high risk conditions. It could provide timely indication to mothers and health care workers regarding hypothermia, apnea, asphyxia, respiratory distress, hypoxemia, oxygen oversaturation, neonatal infections and sepsis.

The funding will support a clinical pilot study among 50 neonates in the Neonatal Unit at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where Gleason and his research team will work with hospital staff to collect essential data, assess the efficacy, improve usability and participant acceptability, and assess the feasibility, market, and cost of local manufacturing of this all-in-one wearable device.

“We’re going to pilot this in hospitals, but I think the long-term version for this could be a first seven day-of-life baby monitor that a mother has connected to an app on her phone,” said Gleason. “That would be amazing. There’s a little bit of research between now and then to get that to work, but it can totally be an application. And even here in the U.S., we have sudden infant death syndrome, encephalopathy, etc., and this could potentially catch all those things. I think this is an opportunity to save the lives of many babies.”

Rudy Gleason with a group of Ethiopian children.

This device is the latest of many developments from the Gleason lab to address healthcare challenges in Ethiopia and other developing countries.

Gleason and Yeo have developed a small, wireless, wearable electronic device that would stick on an infant’s chest like a Band-Aid and would offer real-time, continuous monitoring of temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate and blood oxygen concentration.

Fall 2020

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GIFTS AND GRANTS

Nelms Gift Supporting Two Student Programs Advisory board leader provides major funding for BME scholarships For many alumni, after they have discarded their caps and gowns and framed their degrees and moved on with their lives after university, there is a natural desire to give something back to the institution, or institutions, that set them on their paths. For some alumni, giving back takes on many different forms.

Angela Gill Nelms is part of this second group.

Nelms, who earned her bachelor of science in biomedical engineering from the Coulter Department in 2007, is now the chief operating officer for Florence Healthcare, a software provider for clinical research. But she gives a lot of her time, energy, and resources — intellectual and financial — to the department and Georgia Tech, and to so much else.

In addition to serving as chair of the Coulter Department’s advisory board, she’s also been a guest BME lecturer and is a member of the Georgia Tech College of Engineering’s external advisory board. And during the summer of 2020, she provided a generous estate gift of $1.25 million designed to sustain two programs that will be helping Coulter Department students for years to come.

The Angela G. Nelms International Experience Scholarship Endowment Fund will support BME students seeking international experiences, and the Angela G. Nelms Scholarship will be awarded to BME undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need and who are participating in one or more programs offered through the Center for Career Discovery and Development, with first preference given to qualified students participating in unpaid or low-paying internships or co-op programs.

And somehow, Nelms still finds the time to be a mom, to actively engage in international outreach and compete in mega-races (triathlons, marathons). This year she was awarded the Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award.

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Santangelo Using NIH Grant to Prevent HIV in Women Around the world, women are disproportionately affected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, three out of every four new cases of HIV is found in a young girl. There is a clear need for a long-lasting approach to prevent HIV, and the solution might just come from a Georgia Tech lab.

Phil Santangelo, a professor in the Coulter Department, received an NIH R01 grant for $3.5 million (announced in September 2020) to develop a low-cost, self-applied, mRNA-based system to deliver neutralizing antibodies to prevent HIV. “The whole point is to develop approaches that give women some control over their health,” Santangelo said. “Our long-term goal is to create a whole suite of mRNAbased prophylaxis to prevent infection from a wide range of pathogens.”

Santangelo and his collaborators wrote about their new paradigm in a paper they published in the journal Molecular Therapy. “Broadly neutralizing antibodies represent an option to improve HIV prophylaxis, but intravenous delivery, cold-chain stability requirements, low cervicovaginal concentrations and cost may preclude their use,” the researchers wrote.

They describe an approach in which neutralizing antibodies are delivered to the female reproductive tract using synthetic mRNA — expression is achieved quickly through the aerosol delivery of unformulated mRNA in water. The team’s data showed that the preventive effects last at least a month, “but we’re working on improvements that could make it last considerably longer,” said Santangelo, who also received an NIH grant ($800,000 in September 2019) to develop a new mRNA-mediated reversible immunocontraception method, a non-hormonal solution in which antibodies are introduced into the female reproductive tract to inhibit sperm function.

“There is a clear need for new approaches to non-hormonal female contraceptives that are easy to use by women and have a controllable duration of action,” Santangelo said.

F A C U LT Y G R A N T S & A W A R D S

What Makes a Type of Lymphoma Resist Treatment?

That’s one of the questions Ankur Singh seeks to answer with $2.3 million NIH grant A new arrival to the Coulter Department this year will build on his earlier work to develop next-generation treatments of lymphoma.

Ankur Singh joined Georgia Tech in 2020 after seven years at Cornell University, and this year he was awarded a five-year, $2.3 million grant to explore why diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) becomes resistant to conventional treatments — and then engineer better ones.

Every year, more than 18,000 patients are diagnosed with DLBCL, a type of cancer that affects white blood cells. While some of these patients can be cured with current therapies, others relapse, or their cancer becomes resistant to available treatments.

Singh is investigating how mutations in the cancer cells can cause this resistance. He’s also exploring the potential of a new therapeutic target: a specific type of protein in the lymphoid tissue. The protein is called MALT1.

“Prior targeted therapies, such as Ibrutinib, the Bruton Tyrosine Kinase (BTK) inhibitors, only work in a fraction of patients. We believe MALT1 has a stronger potential,” says Singh.

In addition, Singh is engineering innovative methods for cancer research.

He created an organoid, a lab-created miniature organ, that mimics a lymph node. And he’s also worked with long-time collaborator Ari Melnick to create “lymphoma-on-a-chip technology,” which can grow tumors in a controlled lymph node-like microenvironment.

These innovations provide a unique platform to study patient tumors, enabling researchers to focus more efficiently and effectively on creating successful new therapies.

Dyer (right) assists a student in the lab.

Eva Dyer Wins McKnight Technology Award Coulter Department Assistant Professor Eva Dyer was one of three recipients of the prestigious 2020 McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Awards.

Supported by the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience (MEFN), the awards recognize researchers’ projects for their ability to fundamentally change the way neuroscience research is conducted. Each of the projects were awarded $200,000 over the next two years, advancing the development of groundbreaking technologies used to map, monitor and model brain function.

Since the McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award was established in 1999, the MEFN has contributed more than $14.5 million to innovative technologies for neuroscience through this award mechanism. The MEFN is especially interested in work that takes new and novel approaches to advancing the ability to manipulate and analyze brain function. Technologies developed with McKnight support must ultimately be made available to other scientists.

Dyer, a researcher in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech, focuses her work on the development of machine learning algorithms to compare large data sets of neural activity and find both macro- and neuron-level patterns that correspond to specific states and behaviors in freely-behaving animals.

Singh (left) with researcher Shivem Shah in his laboratory. PHOTO: DAVE BURBANK

“It has been a thrill to see the ingenuity that our applicants are bringing to new neurotechnologies,” said Markus Meister, chair of the awards committee and professor of biological sciences at the California Institute of Technology. “This year, we faced a tough choice among many exciting developments, and our awards span a broad range, from computational methods for big data from the brain, to fancy optics for the control of light beams, to a clever molecular strategy for surveying protein expression in neurons.”

Fall 2020

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F A C U LT Y A W A R D S

Susan Margulies Elected to National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine BME school chair, Susan Margulies, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in February 2020 and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) in October 2020. She was one of 86 new NAE members and one of 100 new NAM members for this year. Only seven percent of members have been elected to two academies (of the three) in the same year.

Election of new NAE members recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”

Election to NAM is one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. “It’s the honor of a lifetime to be recognized by these national academies for the impact we’ve have on understanding lung injuries in the critical care unit and traumatic brain injuries in children,” said Margulies, who is one of just three women on the Georgia Tech faculty accorded NAE membership — one of the highest professional distinctions an engineer can receive. She is only the second Georgia Tech faculty member to hold the NAM honor, the first being Robert Nerem.

“Our work is deeply collaborative, and I am grateful to the engineers, scientists, physicians, and patients who are partners in our journey,” Margulies added.

Margulies, a researcher in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Tech and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Injury Biomechanics at Emory, was elected to both national academies, “for elaborating the traumatic injury thresholds of brain and lung in terms of structure-function mechanisms,” according to the NAE announcement and “for identifying how and why injuries occur in children’s brains and lungs through the development and use of novel platform technologies and models, and for translating basic discoveries to three therapies, in pre-clinical trials, according to the NAM announcement.

Using an integrated biomechanics approach, Margulies’ research program spans the micro-to-macro scales in two distinct areas, traumatic brain injury and ventilator-induced lung injury. Her work has generated new knowledge about the structural and functional responses of the brain and lungs to their mechanical environment. Margulies came to Georgia Tech in 2017 from the University of Pennsylvania, where she’d been a professor of bioengineering.

Margulies is the Wallace H. Coulter Professor and Chair in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, a shared department between the two schools. She is also a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Injury Biomechanics. Her research interests center around traumatic brain injury in children and ventilator-induced lung injury with a focus in these areas on prevention, intervention and treatments.

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Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Don Giddens Receives ASEE Lifetime Achievement Award Former engineering dean and founding biomedical chair recognized for sustained contributions to engineering education at Georgia Tech Don Giddens, who helped launch the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech Emory and then guided Tech’s College of Engineering, as its dean, through an era of unprecedented growth, received an American Society of Engineering Education’s (ASEE) Life Achievement Award in 2020.

“Truly, this is really a great honor, recognizing the role of education and the affect it has on young people, from K-12, through college and post-graduate training,” says Giddens, who retired as dean of engineering in 2011, then served a year as president of ASEE. “It’s been a pleasure to see so many of them grow in their lives and careers. There is a propagation effect at work in engineering education. That’s one of the main purposes of the ASEE.” Giddens, who first arrived at Georgia Tech in 1958 and received all of his degrees there (in aerospace engineering), joined the faculty in 1968, eventually becoming director of the School of Aerospace Engineering (1988-1992). He left Georgia Tech to become dean of engineering at Johns Hopkins, but was lured back in 1997 to help establish and lead the Coulter Department, a unique pairing of two of the nation’s leading institutions — a public engineering college and private medical school.

“Helping to get that department up and going is one of the things that I am proudest of, career wise,” Giddens says.

In his nine years as Georgia Tech’s dean of engineering (20022011), the college became the largest engineering school in the nation. In that span, Giddens granted almost 13,000 undergraduate, 7,700 masters and 2,500 doctoral degrees, and research funding coming into the college grew sharply ($77 million in 2002 to $204 million in 2010).

“I was committed to growing the college because I really felt like we were able to take advantage of our sheer size to have an impact,” Giddens says. “A large number of minorities and women were granted degrees, and our college was recognized as a top five school. All of that, I think, spoke to our quality and diversity, as well as size. Those are things that I fondly look back on.”

F A C U LT Y A W A R D S

BME Major Faculty Awards & Honors Julia Babensee

Charlie Kemp

Francisco Robles

Cristi Bell-Huff

Wilbur Lam • Lab on a Chip/Dolomite Pioneers of

Annabelle Singer

• Biomaterials Science and Engineering (FBSE), • Distinguished Faculty Award from Facebook IUSBSE, Fellow Reality Labs (FRL) • National Keen Rising Star Award

Mark Borodovsky

Miniaturization Lectureship • NIH Technology Accelerator Challenge, Third Prize (for startup company, Sanguina)

• Donaldson Charitable Trust Research Synergy Fund Award, 2020 • National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 2020 EU-US Frontiers of Engineering Symposium

• ACM-Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Wei Sun and Health Informatics (BCB) Outstanding • American Society of Mechanical Engineers Achievement Award Susan Margulies (ASME), Fellow • International Society for Computational Biology • National Academy of Engineering, Member Johnna Temenoff (ISCB), Fellow • Georgia Research Alliance, Trustee • Biomedical Engineering Society, Fellow • American Institute for Medical and Biological James Dahlman Denis Tsygankov Engineering’s (AIMBE) College of Fellows, • Gene Delivery and Gene Editing Focus Group • NSF CAREER Award Chair-Elect Young Investigator Award • American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy Eberhard Voit Cassie Mitchell (ASGCT) Outstanding New Investigator • NSF CAREER Award • Society of Mathematical Biology, Fellow • BMES Young Investigator Award • American Neurological Association’s Derek May Wang Denny-Brown Outstanding Young Investigator Eva Dyer • International Academy of Medical and Award • Sloan Fellow in Neuroscience Biological Engineering, Fellow

Stanislav Emelianov

Chethan Pandarinath

Ross Ethier

Machelle Pardue

• IEEE, Fellow

• Biomedical Engineering Society, Board of Directors

Don Giddens

• American Society for Engineering Education, Lifetime Achievement Award

• Sloan Fellow in Neuroscience • ARVO Gold Fellow

Manu Platt

• AIMBE, Fellow

James Rains

• Georgia Bio Innovation Award

Younan Xia

• Clarivate Analytics, Highly Cited Researchers in Chemistry and Materials Science

Ajit Yoganathan

• AIMBE Professional Impact Award for Education • American Association for Thoracic Surgery, Honorary Fellow

Cheng Zhu

• YC Fung Best Paper Award — Molecular & Cellular Biomechanics

Awards Spotlight: James Dahlman, Ph.D. Colleagues and peers are taking notice of Assistant Professor James Dahlman. In 2020, two national societies bestowed “new investigator” awards recognizing his work in gene-related technology.

Early in the year, the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy named Dahlman “Outstanding New Investigator Award”; and in the spring, the Controlled Release Society announced Dahlman as recipient of its “Young Investigator Award.”

Georgia Tech colleagues also designated Dahlman as the 2020 recipient of the “Outstanding Achievement in Early Career

Research.” And last fall, the Biomedical Engineers Society recognized him with the “2019 Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award,” which celebrates a young investigator whose published work demonstrates “originality and ingenuity.”

Dahlman’s lab works at the interface of drug delivery and genomics by applying “big data” and “technology development” approaches to nanomedicine. He and his students have developed DNA-barcoded nanoparticles to measure how hundreds of nanoparticles deliver mRNA and siRNA in multiple cell types in vivo, all from a single animal.

Dahlman explained that using DNA barcodes allows researchers to overcome what had been a laborious and time-consuming process. Now hundreds of different nanoparticle types can be tested at once to see which are more effective to safely deliver drugs.

His research has spawned the launch of a company, Guide Therapeutics.

Fall 2020

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STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Biomedical Engineering Elevated to an Art Form The second annual Coulter Department art contest highlights student creativity from both sides of the brain Art and biology boast a long and beautifully intertwined history, as artists and scientists alike have strived to convey the complexities of anatomy and physiology through illustrations and sketches.

Launched in 2019, the Coulter Department’s biomedical engineering art contest pays tribute to that history while enabling the inherent creativity of student artists and innovators to shine.

The second annual contest announced three winners, drawn from a pool of 35 submissions from 18 students. Victoria Lozano Escarra, an undergraduate, took first place for a vibrantly colored drawing titled “Flowering Skull.” She wrote that her work “explored the relation between the human body, both metaphorically and physically” and “drew inspiration from the medical illustrations from Frank H. Netter and old botanical illustrations.”

Ph.D. candidate Jungeun Lim was awarded second place for her image “Watery stars to extinguish a fire.” In her artist statement, Lim wrote, “This is a confocal image for blood vessels co-cultured with brain organoid in microfluidic in vitro model … In terms of their function and appearance, watery stars (star-shaped astrocytes) seem to extinguish a fire (feature of blood vessels).”

Undergraduate Danielle Brown took third place honors. The winner of last year’s competition, Brown wrote that her 2020 drawing, titled, “Anorexia (SKIN AND BONES”), is a “mixture of both art and anatomy… This is a mental illness and disorder that BMEs and psychiatrists have been looking into for a long time.”

This year’s submissions were judged by the Biomedical Engineering Alliance for Minorities (BEAM) student group. The top 10 pieces will be displayed in Georgia Tech’s Whitaker Building Art Display throughout the year.

Top to bottom: First place “Flowering Skull” by Victoria Lozano Escarra, second place “Watery stars to extinguish a fire” by Jungeun Lim, and third place “Anorexia (SKIN AND BONES) by Danielle Brown.

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STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Coulter Department Undergrads Win Big in the DEBUT Challenge Two student teams from the Coulter Department entered a nationwide biomedical engineering competition with a total of $80,000 worth of prizes at stake. Both won, taking home a combined $30,000.

The DEBUT Challenge is sponsored each year by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). DEBUT (Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams) asks undergraduate student teams to develop technology solutions to unmet needs in any area of healthcare.

And the Coulter Department teams delivered.

Danae Argyropoulou, Madhumita Baskaran, Pranav Dorbala and Alison Wong captured second place and a $15,000 prize for inventing a device to rapidly screen for C. difficile, a deadly infection resistant to antibiotics.

Meanwhile, Bailey Klee, Rachel Mann and Nick Quan won the HIV/ AIDS Prize and $15,000 for their creation of a protective scalpel-blade packaging that minimizes the risk of scalpel injury to healthcare practitioners (which comes with a risk of blood-borne disease transmission). They call it Sharp Protector.

Both teams drew inspiration from lots of real-world research.

“Feedback we have received from both physicians and judges has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Mann, who helped create Sharp Protector.

“Nearly every surgeon, doctor and nurse we have taken our device to has a story of a time when they cut themselves using a scalpel. This reinforced the need for a device like the one we designed.”

The C. diff team (a.k.a. C. Differently) had a similar experience. “We were able to see the problem firsthand at numerous hospitals around the Atlanta area,” says Argyropoulou. “Every healthcare provider we talked to reiterated the need for better testing methods, so we knew that the work we were doing was impactful and necessary.”

The teams received their prize money during a ceremony at the annual Biomedical Engineering Society conference in Philadelphia.

The Best Thesis of the Year is One With Heart A Coulter Department graduate captures Georgia Tech’s Sigma Xi Best Ph.D. Thesis Award for his detailed computer model of the heart It’s no exaggeration to say that the competition is incredibly stiff when it comes to Georgia Tech’s best thesis of the year.

This year, the “Sigma Xi Best Ph.D. Thesis Award” went to Andres Caballero, a Coulter Department graduate who recently received his Ph.D. Caballero now works as a postdoc in the lab of Wei Sun, a professor in the Coulter Department.

Caballero’s award-winning thesis, titled “Computational Modeling of Left Ventricle-Valve Dynamics Using a Fluid-Structure Interaction Framework,” details his creation of an unprecedentedly accurate computer model of the human heart during the cardiac cycle. His model shows both the heart valves’ structural response, as well as the three-dimensional dynamics of blood flow. It incorporates imaged-based cardiac wall motion, anatomically accurate valve geometries, nonlinear hyper

elastic constitutive models and material properties matched to people’s age and gender.

Caballero’s model is a big improvement on formerly available versions, which provide incomplete and detaillacking data on the functioning of the human heart.

For clinicians, Caballero’s computer model will be an especially valuable tool. Doctors can use the model to better understand a patient’s unique cardiac anatomy and blood flow — without having to conduct an invasive procedure on the patient. That will make it much easier to give heart patients personalized treatment tailored exactly to their diagnosis and condition.

Long-term, Caballero’s work can help guide big-picture planning for cardiac care. It can even help improve design of biomedical devices for heart health, leading to better outcomes for heart patients everywhere.

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STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

In Pursuit of a Safer Endoscopy A Coulter Department team wins Georgia Tech’s Fall Capstone Design Expo with a device to prevent aspiration during the procedure Georgia Tech’s Fall Capstone Design Expo is the largest student design competition of its kind, sponsored by major institutions ranging from the CDC to General Electric to the United States Air Force.

So it’s no surprise that 2019’s event was highly competitive, with 143 teams from across engineering fields presenting their innovations. In the end, only one team stood alone at the top — Bullseye, comprised of students from the Coulter Department.

Bullseye hit its mark dead center with a device they designed to reduce the risk of aspiration during upper gastrointestinal endoscopy procedures.

During an upper endoscopy, a medical practitioner inserts a long flexible tube down the patient’s throat and into the upper digestive system. On the end of the tube is

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a tiny camera, which allows the doctor to better investigate symptoms like nausea, vomiting or abdominal pain. Occasionally, when sedated endoscopy patients still have food or liquid in their stomach (fasting is recommended before the test), they may choke if the food or liquid ends up in the lungs.

With advice from a practicing gastroenterologist, team Bullseye set out to solve this problem.

“The device we developed reduces the risk of aspiration by reducing the volume of fluid that can travel from the esophagus to the lungs,” said team member Ahmed Alnamos. “Our device also allows more outpatient procedures versus general anesthesia procedures — helping to free up the operating room and saving anesthesia resources.”

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

The Bullseye team members are Oscar Gutierrez, Doraville, GA; Ahmed Alnamos, Watertown, MA; Nishani Kanthasamy, Alpharetta, GA; and Sondos Alnamos, Watertown MA. The project sponsor was gastroenterologist Dr. Anand Sagar Jain at Emory Healthcare.

For their win, Team Bullseye received $1,000, and a year’s worth of bragging rights.

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Astronaut Scholar Aims for the Stars Fourth-year student Keval Bollavaram wins a coveted STEM scholarship Every year, the prestigious Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF) awards more than 50 scholarships to the nation’s most promising young scholars of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

In 2020, one of the rising stars was Keval Bollavaram (’21), a Coulter Department student. Bollavaram joins the 2020 Astronaut Scholar Class as one of 56 students from 41 universities around the country.

In the words of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation: “Astronaut Scholars are among the best and brightest minds in STEM who show initiative, creativity and excellence in their chosen field.”

In the words of Bollavaram: “This is definitely a big award.”

Bollavaram says he is most excited about the opportunities for networking and mentoring, a key benefit of the program, and one which lasts for a lifetime.

“Having the opportunity to do research at Tech and learn so much from that is great,” he says, “but having an opportunity to get mentorship from this astronaut scholarship is something I’m super-excited about.”

In fact, the ASF connects Astronaut Scholars with not just astronauts, but also academics, innovators, executives and industry leaders from across STEM. The program is part of the Foundation’s mission to advance U.S. leadership in technology and innovation, support the nation’s best and brightest STEM students and commemorate the legacy of America’s astronauts.

An App for the Ages Coulter Department student and her sister capture prize in a hackathon aimed at Covid-19 Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, shopping for the basics has become more complicated. But what if an app could make everyday errands a little easier?

That was one of the three winning pitches at a Coulter Department-sponsored hackathon aimed at solving problems related to Covid-19. And the team behind the pitch included the Tuttle sisters, McKenzie and Alexandra.

McKenzie is a Coulter Department student while Alexandra studies public health at Emory University.

They call their proposed app CAPACIT, which would help businesses manage new regulations required to safely open and operate. CAPACIT would also help consumers practice social distancing by alerting them to a store’s customer traffic in real time.

Judges took notice of the idea — and awarded the Tuttle sisters’ team a $10,000 cash prize and the

opportunity to enroll in the summer 2020 CREATE-X Startup Launch, which helps students turn ideas into viable businesses.

The sisters’ team will use the money to craft a formal business plan and launch the app in real life.

They also hope to transform their winning idea into a strategy that can help communities, too.

More than 100 teams participated in the hackathon, totaling 508 students altogether. The teams set out to address a variety of Covid-19-era challenges, addressing issues related to transmission, social distancing, workplace impact, healthcare delivery, coronavirus testing, contact tracing and personal protective equipment.

Joining the Coulter Department in sponsoring the virtual hackathon were the Emory Global Health Institute and Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X program.

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STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Ready, Set, Innovate Three Coulter Department students join a program to strengthen campus innovation and entrepreneurship Higher education works best when students are empowered to take ownership of their own experiences. A Stanford University program is helping three outstanding Coulter Department students do just that.

After six weeks of training in the University Innovation Fellows program, the students were prepared to apply design thinking principles to help transform Georgia Tech’s student innovation and entrepreneurship landscape.

In November 2019, Coulter Department undergraduates Jeremy Levin, Cassandra McIltrot and Sierra Mulrine joined Stanford’s University Innovation Fellows, an initiative to enable students to become agents of change in higher education.

Levin says, “Our research project led us to identify gaps in discovery of innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) and in the connection between learning and experimentation with I&E. We hope to start our work with the [Coulter] Department at Georgia Tech and then later generalize to the wider student population, working across majors.”

According to UIF, the Fellows “become deeply familiar with the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem at their schools, working closely with faculty, administrators and community stakeholders.

Fellows design and implement activities to enhance that landscape.”

The students’ plan includes building awareness of opportunities in innovation and entrepreneurship through courses and clubs and integrating more course topics with I&E.

Sierra Mulrine, Jeremy Levin, and Cassandra McIltrot

Doctoral Candidate is Among First to Receive New Global Scholarship A Ph.D. candidate from the Coulter Department became one of just 30 women from around the world selected to receiving a newly offered Women in Technology Scholarship awarded by a global nonprofit.

Drawn from a pool of 135 applicants, Dakshitha Bashettyhalli Anandakumar received the scholarship from the global service organization Zonta International.

Anandakumar is now pursuing her Ph.D. in neuroscience at the Coulter Department, and her research focuses on auditory perception. The $2,000 she received from Zonta International can be used toward her degree or other continuing advancement in technology.

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More women are entering the technology and innovation space, but they remain significantly outnumbered: Today, women represent about 20 percent of the tech industry workforce.

On the motivation for the new award, Zonta International’s website notes that “women are still largely underrepresented in technology fields. To create a world in which men and women have equal opportunities, women need to have an active role in technology and technological developments.”

Monica J. de la Cerdia, the chair of the Zonta Women in Technology Scholarship Committee, says, “I am so excited Zonta International began a pilot program to promote women in technology. By participating in this endeavor, we can help to further shape the future for women and the impact and access they need to ensure they lead our next 100 years.”

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

MEXT Makes Next Move Possible For BME Grad Just weeks before graduation, Sydney Stock got news that a dream had come true.

The high-performing star student in the Coulter Department had long been passionate about Japanese culture and art. Visiting the “Land of the Rising Sun” was a life goal.

In April, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology notified Stock, who goes by “Sy,” that she’d won a competitive scholarship to pursue her master’s in biomedical engineering at Osaka University. The scholarship covers Stock’s tuition, travel and living expenses.

“It feels really surreal to be a recipient of this scholarship,” says Stock. “I can’t wait to go live in a part of the world that is new and different from anything I’ve ever experienced.”

One of several scholarships awarded through the MEXT program, which helps foreign students study in Japan, Stock’s award focuses on integrating data science and biomechanical engineering to improve society.

Stock’s goal is to find a career that combines her engineering background and her love of language and culture.

She envisions herself working at an international medical device company, “leveraging both my language skills and cultural knowledge while tackling global problems.”

A $10 Way to Warm the Tiniest Newborns In the 10th annual Rice 360º competition, a Coulter Department team takes home the prize Every year, more than 3 million babies are born in Ethiopia, where even some of the largest hospitals lack transport incubators to keep premature babies warm and cozy. At one hospital, eight out of 10 premature babies became hypothermic.

A team of undergraduate students from the Coulter Department traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopa to understand the challenges for themselves. Then they came up with a solution.

Their invention — a portable, reusable, affordable heat pack that can warm a baby for half an hour — was the winning pitch in the 10th annual Rice 360º Undergraduate Global Health Technologies Design competition, hosted by Rice University.

Coulter Department students Ashley Assa, Fatma Rashed, Tristan Wu and Emelia Funnell competed with 17 other teams across the country in the event. Because of the pandemic, this year’s competition was held virtually, but the enthusiasm remained high.

soda and vinegar. A small metal trigger makes the solution crystallize, releasing heat.

Afterward, the pack can be removed and boiled, which turns the solution back into a liquid, ready for reuse.

Wu said, “The experience was incredible … Our team was extremely grateful for the opportunity and was laser-focused on creating a device to help this community abroad.”

“It took many, many iterations in the prototyping stage for us to find the right recipe for our heat pack,” says Assa.

The Coulter Department team’s clever heating device includes two reusable components: a wrap to enclose the infant and a heat pack containing a sealed bag that holds a supersaturated solution of baking

The winning version is effective for a number of reasons. Not only is it made out of locally available resources, it costs just $10 to make, and weighs only 1.4 pounds.

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STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

This Could Be Your Future Coulter Department students look back at their high school introduction to biomedical engineering The path to diversity in biomedical engineering begins with an opportunity. That simple truth is the guiding rationale behind a partnership between Georgia Tech and seven minorityserving high schools in Atlanta. Called Project ENGAGES, the program gives students the opportunity to experience academic research firsthand, working alongside top scientists and engineers.

While at Benjamin E. Mays High School, I had a friend who had done Project ENGAGES, so she got me involved. After I was accepted to the program, I had the best mentor. I learned how to synthesize nanoparticles so they could be used as biomarkers to detect cancer cells. This led to developing a device to detect cancer in the earliest stages. We cultured breast cancer cells and used lithography to fabricate devices.

Something clicked for dozens of Project ENGAGES students who chose biomedical engineering for their research opportunity: They ended up enrolling in the Coulter Department to pursue a degree and building on that early research experience.

The program helped me interact with people before starting college. It also exposed me to what research has to offer and where research could take me. To be able to present research at a conference — that had a profound effect on me. Beyond the lab, the program provided professional development, like workshops on time management and how to work with people.

That helped me a lot.

We spoke to three of those students, now well into their studies at Georgia Tech, and asked them to reflect on their days in ENGAGES. Here’s what they told us.

CLINTON SMITH // Third-year student I was never intent on pursuing a career in STEM. I wanted to be a lawyer. My dean at the B.E.S.T. Academy said, “you can just apply [to ENGAGES], and if anything happens, decide then.” I ended up getting an interview, and I figured it was a sign that I should take this opportunity more seriously.

Mitchell

KAIYA MITCHELL // Fourth-year student Growing up, I was really interested in technology.

I remember going to the dentist when I was about 7 years old — I wanted to know how X-rays worked. Later on, I knew I wanted to work in human health in some way.

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My research project in ENGAGES was to develop devices that can characterize the way musculoskeletal tissue heals. My mentor and I focused on the femur. We wanted to develop devices to measure the strain of tissue healing after large, traumatic femur injuries.

I spearheaded every aspect. I designed the experiment, I assembled implantable medical devices, did the testing and presented findings at a research conference. Everything I learned was from my mentor, Dr. Brett Klosterhoff, then a graduate student. He was instrumental in helping me gain confidence.

Because of ENGAGES, I learned how academic research has to be collaborative, and I became

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Smith

more confident in public speaking. I was on the debate team for four years before Project ENGAGES. But public speaking for debate is much different than public speaking for research.

For research, it’s a lot more intimidating — you’re talking to a group of people with varying disciplines and expertise, and you have to be able to reach everyone.

ISHATOU DIAMBOU // Fourth-year student When I started in Project ENGAGES the summer before my senior year in high school, I was making nanoparticles. At first, I didn’t even know what they were, but by the end of the summer, I could explain how to make them and quantify them. I learned the basics and guidelines of the labs, like how to make solutions, how to use machinery. When school started, I began to develop my own project.

My goal was to develop a more effective and targeted breast cancer therapeutic to reduce the need for chemotherapy. I wanted to use nanoparticles to activate the complement system, that part of the immune system that fights antigens. I remember working in the lab until 6 p.m., when my parents would come pick me up.

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

I’m now on the BME pathway in the Coulter Department because I like to think outside of the box. How can I do something different or make something nobody else has done before? Having an entrepreneur mindset — it’s gotten me into how to do something different. Last summer, a friend and I decided to do a startup. We came up with Cool My Baby — a low-cost, cooling pad for infants.

We did a prototype and presented it. But Covid has since put our plans on hold.

As a student, having the support system of ENGAGES has made all the difference for me.

I am always talking to our PI, my mentor and other students in ENGAGES.

A Smarter Way to Tap the Spine NSF grants $225,000 to company founded by recent graduates of the Coulter Department To diagnose diseases like meningitis or multiple sclerosis, medical professionals must perform a lumbar puncture, commonly referred to as a spinal tap, in which they collect cerebrospinal fluid with a large needle.

Unfortunately, the procedure is tricky, and often fails on the first try — up to 40 percent of the time.

Diambou

Under 25” list of rising-star entrepreneurs and innovators.

With the NSF grant, Ethos Medical will be able to demonstrate the viability of its needle guidance system, which pairs ultrasound imaging with a software overlay. To evaluate the system’s accuracy, the company will have physicians and anesthesiologists practice the procedure on cadavers, using a fully functional prototype.

Ethos Medical, a startup founded by Coulter Department students in 2018, created a solution. Their low-cost “We are honored and excited to have been needle guidance system helps medical awarded this grant,” says Mandavia. “This practitioners administer a lumbar puncture is a huge accomplishment for Ethos accurately and without complications. that will propel us through preclinical testing and toward commercialization.

In February 2020, the promising young Receiving this grant from the National company received a $225,000 grant from Science Foundation also underscores the National Science Foundation’s Small the significance of the problem we are Business Innovation Research Program. addressing and the solution we have envisioned.”

The award joins an impressive list of accolades for a startup founded by Ethos’ co-founders are also two-time undergrads. The company also won the alumni of Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X 2019 Georgia Tech InVenture Prize. Later Initiative, which helps students develop that year, its three co-founders — Dev Mandavia, Lucas Muller and Cassidy Wang entrepreneurial confidence and empowers — were included in Atlanta Inno’s “25 them to launch successful startups.

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Research Focus Areas and Facilities Outstanding Medical Facilities and Resources

Biomaterials & Regenerative Technologies

Biomedical Imaging & Instrumentation

Emory Vaccine Center Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Grady Memorial Hospital Winship Cancer Institute

National Institutions Located Nearby Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (HQ) The American Cancer Society (HQ)

Research Facilities Biomedical Informatics and Systems Modeling

Biomedical Robotics

Cancer Technologies

Cardiovascular Engineering

Atlanta Clinical Research Network Sites Center for Advanced Brain Imaging Emory Pediatrics Building Emory School of Medicine and Research Centers Health Sciences Research Building Marcus Autism Center Marcus Nanotechnology Building Molecular Science & Engineering Building Parker Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience Roger A. and Helen B. Krone Engineered Biosystems Building Technology Enterprise Park U.A. Whitaker Building Wayne Rollins Research Center Whitehead Biomedical Memorial Building Winship Cancer Institute Woodruff Memorial Research Building Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center

Teaching Facilities Engineering Education

Immunoengineering

Neuroengineering

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Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center Egleston Children’s Hospital at Emory University Emory University Hospital Emory University Hospital Midtown Grady Memorial Hospital Wesley Woods Geriatric Hospital

External Advisory Board External advisory board members provide an important outside perspective that is essential to maintaining the impactful relevance of our programs to industry. They play a significant role in vetting programs designed for students, alumni and corporate constituencies to ensure we maintain the highest quality standards in our curriculum, practice and outreach.

Rafael V. Andino Vice President, Engineering & Manufacturing Clearside Biomedical, Inc. Caleb Appleton Venture Capitalist Innovation Endeavors Vivek Bhatt, Ph.D. Chief Technology Officer GE Healthcare Kelly Bolden, M.D., FACS Medical Director Cultura Plastic Surgery Ryan Davis Senior Strategic Account Manager Neocis, Inc. Virginia L. Giddings, Ph.D. Advanced Technology Exploration Edwards Lifesciences

Heather Hayes, Ph.D. Senior Applications Scientist Axion BioSystems Elizabeth Harrison Chief Executive Officer MetaSystems Group, Inc.

Xavier Lefebvre, Ph.D. Global Vice President Medtronic Core Clinical Solutions Medtronic Technical Fellow Brad Miller Chief Medical Officer and SVP Ciperhealth

Christopher Hermann, MD, Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer Angela Gill Nelms and Founder Board Chair Clean Hands – Safe Hands Chief Operating Officer Florence Healthcare Michelle Jarrard Chief Executive Officer Kate Taylor, Ph.D. BioCircuit Technologies Global Innovation Program Manager Shawna Khouri Global Technology Manager, Virtual Health Boston Scientific Tulsa Innovation Labs Sue Van, Emeritus Chris Lee, Ph.D. President & CEO Chairman & CEO Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Huxley Medical

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GEORGIA TECH

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Creating the Next

®

Georgia Institute of Technology U.A. Whitaker Building 313 Ferst Drive Atlanta, Georgia 30332 bme.gatech.edu

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Emory University Health Sciences Research Building 1760 Haygood Drive Atlanta, Georgia 30322 bme.emory.edu

The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University affirms our institutions’ efforts to increase equity, diversity and inclusion on our campuses. We strive to create a welcoming, diverse and inclusive environment that values, celebrates and respects the individual and communal differences that make us human, and we aspire to cultivate global leaders in engineering and medicine who are champions of inclusive excellence.

Copyright 2020 • Georgia Institute of Technology