April 2011

April 2011 THE PIONEER NEWSLETTER is brought to you by the students, faculty, and staff of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. The newsletter staff and its collaborators strive to bring you the latest news from all aspects of the BME community. To submit articles, opinions, ideas, or events for publication and for more information about the newsletter, please visit:

www.thepioneer.gatech.edu

inside this

Issue 4 INVENTURE FINALS BME Wins 5 WORK ABROAD Shresth Shrivastav in Singapore

Volume V, Issue 7

Inventure 2011 BMEs Win at InVenture Prize Finals

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he third annual Georgia Tech InVenture Prize Finals that took place on March 9, 2011 in the Ferst Center was a tribute to the most innovative and entrepreneurial ideas from this year. The seven finalist teams were chosen by a rigorous judging process over the last six months.

Though the ideas presented had undergone enough scrutiny in the previous months to make each of them a viable endeavor, only three could be awarded a prize. a patent. First place ($15,000 and a patent) was awarded to the Slide Capo by Daniel Chaney, second place ($10,000 and a patent) to... Team MAID (Magnetic Assisted Intubation Device) pitches their

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innovative intubation method to the judges. (Photo: GTRCI/GIT)

6 GRADUATE SPOTLIGHT Nathan Hotaling

Age of T Cells

7 RESEARCH SERIRES Part III: The Research Option

Researchers Improve Cancer Treatment

By Abby Robinson

M

10 STUDENT SPOTLIGHT Sarah Anderson 11 AMSA PREHEALTH CONFERENCE 11 PREHEALTH COLUMN Extracurriculars 12 AGE OF T CELLS Improving Cancer Treatment 14 FACULTY SPOTLIGHT Dr. Lena Ting 15 DESIGN TOOLBOX Beneficial Tips and Tricks

By Dhruv Vishwakarma

Georgia Tech engineers Catherine Rivet, Abby Hill and Melissa Kemp (left-right) display a diagram of the microfluidic device they used to assess T cells. The drawing illustrates the channels used to measure signaling events.

(Credit: Gary Meek)

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

The therapy, known as adoptive T cell transfer, has shown encouraging results in clinical trials. This treatment involves removing disease-fighting immune cells called T cells from a cancer patient, multiplying them in the laboratory and then infusing them back into the patient's body to attack the cancer. The effectiveness of this therapy, however, is...

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WORDS from the editor in chief

W

elcome to the final issue of The Pioneer for the 2010 to 2011 academic year. Throughout these past few months, the Georgia Tech biotechnology community has produced groundbreaking advances in research, ushered through a new class of engineers, and continued a stellar history of collaboration. The implications of research on lifechanging applications cannot be denied. Recent news has cataloged the rise of Apica Cardiovascular, a medical device startup co-founded by a Coulter Department professor Ajit Yoganathan, and the triumph of Teams MAID and AutoRhexis at InVenture Prize finals, a campus wide entrepreneurial competition.

As an organization, this last year has been focused on internal growth and stabilization. The Pioneer staff members have brought to life seven encapsulations of the biotechnology community. Each issue strives to collect and represent information from breaking research to local events. Ultimately, the motivation is to serve as a communication channel amongst the diverse members of this community. Internally, this is reflected in the conversations amongst a diverse collection of staff members. At this time, The Pioneer would like to forge a conversation between this internal and external community. In these last few weeks of the semester, we will be actively seeking feedback and suggestions. And as usual, our inbox at thepioneer@gatech.edu is always open.

We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to all the support and contributions that The Pioneer has and continues to receive.

The success of this newsletter has been fueled by the energy and enthusiasm of our collaborators, our dedicated staff members, and our audience. For that, we thank you.

Best,

Willa Ni Willa Ni Editor in Chief The Pioneer

Staff Members EDITOR IN CHIEF Willa Ni FACULTY SPONSOR Dr. Wendy Newstetter OFFICERS Karan Patel Debika Mitra STAFF WRITERS Alex Cooper Dhruv Vishwakarma Subhendu De Belane Gizaw Eric Huang Elise Perez Harish Srinimukesh Rachel Stewart Guergana Terzieva Steven A Touchton Jr EDITORS Gopi Patel Nida Dharani Jenna Fair Shalv Madhani Ayesha Patel Elina Sarmah

PHOTOGRAPHERS Saranya Karthikeyan Virginia Lin William Sessions LAYOUT EDITORS Kevin Lam Sona Chandra Victoria Ibarra Kelli Koenig Candace Law Alex Lee Summer Lee Anum Syed WEBMASTERS Elysia Hwang Timothy Lin COLLABORATORS Karen Adams Paul Fincannon Sally Gerrish Martin Jacobson Jennifer Kimble Megan McDevitt Colleen Mitchell Adrianne Proeller Shannon Sullivan John Toon Abby Vogel

*Executive Officers

“Th at’ s So B M E! ” Page 2

Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoputian

Chemical structure of 2(2,5-bis(3,3-dimethylbut-1y n y l ) -4-(2-(3,5-di(pent-1-ynyl) p h en y l ) e th yn y l )p h en y l) -1,3-dioxolane.

Events and Deadlines SUDDATH SYMPOSIUM 2011 The Ribosome: Structure, Function, Evolution Discussions on the latest developments in the fields of bioengineering and bioscience. Registration is $25 for students and postdocs and $50 for faculty. suddath.gatech.edu

BIOENGINEERING SEMINAR SERIES Presentation on the future of Bioengineering given by David Klonoff, MD from the University of California, San Francisco. www.thepioneer.gatech.edu/?p=16041 IBB 1128 April 7, 2011 - 12:00pm

April 1-2, 2011

EWH LINK Our next repair session at Medshare is April 2. Please meet by the Student Center second floor computer cluster by 8:45AM. Drivers are needed as usual. thepioneer.gatech.edu/?p=15891 Student Center Second Floor April 2, 16 - 8:45AM TH

6 ANNUAL UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH SPRING SYMPOSIUM & AWARDS Learn about research conducted by Georgia Tech undergraduates in an informal atmosphere. www.undergradresearch.gatech.edu/SpringSymposium.php Student Center Ballroom and Surrounding Rooms Oral Presentations - 1:00pm Poster Sessions - 2:00pm Reception - 4:30pm Awards Ceremony - 5:15pm April 5, 2011

BIOSYNTHESIS AND BIOSYNTHETIC ENGINEERING OF MOLECULAR SCAFFOLDS Presentation given by Wendy Kelly, PhD on research regarding Molecular Scaffolds and their relationship with bioengineering, Continental breakfast will be served. thepioneer.gatech.edu/?p=16061 IBB 1128 April 12, 2011 – 8:30 - 9:30am

SABUR Hello SABUR members! Our next general meeting is on April 16 at 6pm in the Student Center Crescent Room to discuss plans for the GT spring symposium awards ceremony that SABUR will be hosting on May 5th as well as plans for the rest of the semester . thepioneer.gatech.edu/?p=15871 Student Center Cresent Room April 16, 2011 - 6pm

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Zwitterion Zymo ξ Happy April Fool’s!

C

onsidering the prestige of Georgia Tech, it is not surprising that several distinguished faculty members have joined our institution over the years. From cancer specialists to stem cell experts, many brilliant researchers have graced the lab benches throughout Georgia Tech's lifetime. Our newest faculty addition is no exception. We are proud to announce the addition of a new professor to the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University: Dr. Zwitterion Zymo ξ M.D./Ph.D./J.D./M.P.H./M.B.A. Recently, ξ has been allotted lab space on basement level two of the U.A. Whitaker. The lab entrance is conveniently located in the senior design lab, where a hidden panel reveals the secret entrance upon passing three perfectly crafted paper cubes through an inlaid go/no go gauge. I went to visit him earlier, crafted cubes in hand, to ask him for an interview and found him setting up a few things. After a bit of coercion on my part, which involved an unfortunately large number of paper cubes, he sat down with me and agreed to tell me about his life. ξ was born in a small town in a straw hut. Though he suffered many hardships, which involved drought, famine and the occasional hangnail, he survived. He first encountered biology with a farm animal wheel toy where the pull of a lever told him the cow said “Moo,” the pig said “Oink,” the sheep said “Baa” and the deadly scorpions that plagued his village didn't say anything because they killed you silently in your sleep.

To help support his family, he had to work from a young age.

The eight year old would sit on the roadside for twelve hours a day offering to teach passersbys astrophysics and cell physiology

By Anon Y. Mous for money. Unfortunately, many of them were not interested, and ξ would trudge home in disappointment every night.

In school, he was misunderstood because of his high scholastic acumen. While his peers were participating in the practice of recess, fifth grade ξ preferred to stay indoors and read papers for his one man journal club. Though his brilliance was praised by his teachers, his penchant for science, while mostly harmless, did get him into trouble sometimes. For example, he once experimented with the genetic code of the class teacher so that her freckles rearranged to spell out the answers to the oral exams.

At Georgia Tech, once ξ convinced his advisor, Paul Cannonfin, to sign off on his B.S./M.S./Ph.D./M.B.A., he was then accepted as a faculty member.

When asked about his research interests, he stated that he was very much into practical applications of research such as, “teleportation, time travel, faster-than-light movement and flux capacitors.” When I tried to ask him if these science-fiction topics were even possible, he just teleported into a side room in his lab and slammed the door, thus ending our brief interview.

Outside of conducting his scientifically questionable research, he will also be the newest instructor for BMED 2210, a favorite class among Coulter Department undergraduate students who laud the class for its easy material and high grades. For anybody wishing to visit meet ξ, aside from taking or re-taking BMED 2210, I recommend taking BMED 2300 in order to perfect your cube crafting.

Anon Y. Mous is an undergraduate student in the Coulter Department

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Inventure Finals

from Page 1

the Magnetic Assisted Intubation Device (MAID) and the People’s Choice Award ($5,000) to the AutoRhexis.

Since anyone is allowed to enter the preliminary rounds, ideas from all majors and backgrounds are considered and the ideas that ended up in the finals were definitely a diverse mix – everything from a guitar accessory to an intubation device.

Biomedical engineering students had a strong participation in this year’s finals with four out of seven teams consisting almost entirely of BME students – Waste to Watts, MAID, AutoRhexis and Proximer.

Waste to Watts caters to the worldwide problem of cheap, effective power storage in case of power outages, which occur frequently in parts of the world such as Asia and Africa. It does so by an inventive design that reuses old, obsolete computer parts that are abundant in third-world countries, which makes it environmentally friendly and financially viable. The MAID replaces and improves upon the classic laryngoscope. The MAID occupies a huge niche in the biomedical world because of the high failure rate and steep learning curve of current laryngoscope. The Proximer is a tool that detects plastics in the body with a high sensitivity and specificity. This proves useful for breast cancer survivors that have breast reconstruction surgery by eliminating a metal implant with a plastic one. The AutoRhexis is a new tool that significantly simplifies and improves the procedure for performing cataract surgery.

Other ideas not in the biomedical field include the Velociryder, an inventive new skateboard-like conveyance on two wheels that uses a self-balancing mechanism and an intuitive control mechanism, the AdsCreated software, a marketing tool that generates ads for products based on effectiveness of the ads, and the Slide Capo, a fusion of a guitar capo and a slide that allows for new, creative approaches to playing guitar with a capo and a slide together.

The ideas are judged on five criteria – innovation, marketability, market size, inventor passion and probability of success.

In the months leading up to the finals, the registered inventor teams had to refine their invention, find the market size, meet with potential clients and find its financial viability. The People’s Choice Award is awarded based on votes collected from the audience members as well as viewers watching the finals online and on TV. The finals were broadcast live on

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Georgia Public Broadcasting TV station as well as streaming online. The live event held in the Ferst Center was open to anyone who wished to reserve a ticket.

The audience was seated either in a general section or in sections according to an affiliated supporting team.

The event started off with an introduction to the format of the competition, a brief history of the competition in the last 6 months leading up to the finals, and an introduction to the judges.

The format of the competition includes an overview video of the teams’ progress covering the generation and refinement of their idea followed by a three minute live presentation of their idea and a three minute panel for questions by the judges.

Looking back at the event, Alex Cooper of the MAID team explains that the group’s presentation was a “very carefully phrased pitch.” The questions then allowed the

teams to defend their ideas against potential pitfalls or to clarify issues raised by the judges. The teams were also allowed to perform a demonstration of their invention if it was viable.

On the final choices, judge Deborah Kilpatrick commented that MAID’s device was “just elegant and brilliance in the design. We were struck by … this is a real clinical need and every resident we have heard talk about how difficult this process is.” As for Slide Capo, judge Sara Blakely said, “it’s so easy to understand and it’s got great marketability. I can see it in the marketplace...tomorrow.”

To watch the 2011 inVenture Prize Finals online, go to www.gpb.org/inventure.

Dhruv Vishwakarmathe is an undergraduate student in the Coulter Department

Above: First place winner, David Chaney and second place winner Team MAID (Magnetic Assisted Intubation Device).

(Photo: GTRCI/GIT) Left: Supporters of the respective teams in the audience seated in sections to cheer on their friends.

(Photo: GTRC/GIT)

Invention

Inventors

ADSCREATED - An automated, cutting edge e-commerce computer program that creates online advertisements

Roger Pincombe

SLIDE CAPO - A new twist on a guitar capo that can create unique sounds

Daniel Chaney

WASTE TO WATTS - Capitalizing on sustainability, this apparatus is created by reusing discarded parts to devise a system that provides much-needed power in third world countries

James Molini and Patrick Caputo

AUTORHEXIS - An innovative instrument designed to improve cataract surgery

Christopher Giardina, Rebeca Bowden, Jorge Baro, Kanitha Kim, Khaled Kashlan, and Shane Saunders

MAGNETIC ASSISTED INTUBATION DEVICE (MAID) - A creative approach to facilitate the procedure of placing a breathing tube into the trachea

Alexander Cooper, Shawna Hagen, Jacob Thompson, and Elizabeth Flanagan

VELOCIRYDER - A motorized, self-balancing skateboard that takes the activity to a new level, featuring two wheels instead of four

Aaron Fan, Xo Wang, and Jamison Go

PROXIMER - A device that cleverly detects hard plastics in the body

Megan Richards, Jenny Taylor, and Michael Zhao Credit: http://inventureprize.gatech.edu/

Work Abroad Shresth Shrivastav in Singapore

B

esides honing his skills through classroom lectures, lengthy whiteboard problems and laborious technical reports, Shresth Shrivastav, a senior undergraduate in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, has enjoyed the unique and exciting experience of working abroad.

Shrivastav first heard of an opportunity to work in Singapore at Welch Allyn, a medical diagnostic equipment manufacturer, through a friend studying in the city.

As soon as he heard of the opening, Shrivastav jumped on the opportunity. “I emailed the hiring manager over there,” he explained, “and that’s how I got the ball rolling.” After the first contact, Shrivastav had interviews in the wee hours of the night due to the time difference. “Once, I had an interview at 1 AM,” he recalls, “and then another time I had to suit up for a Skype interview at 12:30 at night. Those were intense.” After a long wait and much anticipation, Shrivastav finally heard back from the firm: he had gotten the internship as project manager.

Before leaving, Shrivastav recalls orientation sessions in which they explained the necessity for formality in Singapore; however, when he arrived the director of the firm himself let Shrivastav into the building. “I didn’t know he was the director,” Shrivatav explained, “I just started having a conversation with him.”

By Steven Touchton, Jr. Later, as he was being taken around for introductions, Shrivastav’s supervisor was surprised to find that the new intern already knew the director on a first name basis. Needless to say, Shrivastav was equally surprised. Already off to a good start, Shrivastav was first put into the hardware-testing department. “It’s indescribable amounts of fun,” he told me with a boyish grin, “you get to drop a [ECG] printer from twelve feet, you get to melt it at high temperatures, you get to freeze it!” But you have to think about these things, he explains. The product “could be placed on the top of a mountain or it could be in a submarine.”

From hardware testing, Shrivastav was able to spend two weeks in each of the company’s various divisions: sales and marketing, sourcing, finance, quality and regulatory affairs and research and development (R&D). Within R&D there are three different teams: hardware testing, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering.

As a project manager, Shrivastav was able to overlook all the departments. He saw how things worked in every department and says that he “got to know almost everybody in the company.” At one point during his time at Welch Allyn, Shrivastav’s supervisor was called away for three weeks for re-service, part of a mandatory draft in Singapore. In a company-wide email, Shrivastav’s boss explained, “All forms of communication

should go through Shresth.” “I felt very honored because he left all the responsibility to me,” Shrivastav explained, “but I freaked out when I saw that email because the very next day I had mail from… everyone, and I was like, what am I supposed to do with all this?” However, despite the challenge and with some help from the director, Shrivastav was able to manage the responsibility.

Reflecting on his courses at Georgia Tech, Shrivastav feels that BMED 2300 is an invaluable course in regards to practical application in the field. “The R&D team – that’s how it works,” Shrivastav explains.

Yet, truthfully, he says, “it was an application of bits and pieces of every different BME class that you’ve taken.

There were times when I had to do SolidWorks, there were times when I had to work with LabView, [and…] there were times when I had to work with signal processing.” To students who are looking to work abroad, Shrivastav recommends visiting the work abroad office, where he currently acts as a work abroad ambassador.

There, students can get assistance to “find the [internship] profile that fits their interest.”

Speaking of Singpore, Shrivastav has nothing but high praise: “you really should go if you ever have the opportunity!”

Steven Touchton, Jr is an undergraduate student in the Coulter Department.

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Graduate Spotlight: Nathan Hotaling Finding the Right Fit

By Harish Srinmukesh

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athan Hotaling chose graduate school over industry after graduating from the University of Central Florida with a mechanical engineering degree because he “felt that graduate school offers freedom that a job wouldn’t.” For him, the most appealing aspect of research is the search to figure out a new way to attack a problem that no one else is working on. Currently in Dr. Julia Babensee’s lab. Hotaling works with dendritic cells, antigen presenting cells which link non-specific inflammatory and antibody mediated responses. While proteins were thought to be primary targets for recognition by cells, Hotaling is investigating these cells’ responses to different carbohydrates. By placing dendritic cells from blood samples onto polymers with carbohydrates functionalized onto them, he can look for a proinflammatory or tolerogenic response to understand if they can be utilized in vaccines, implants or biomedical devices. Hotaling hopes to discover novel qualities of immune system interactions with carbohydrates that could lead to future implementation.

Although Hotaling primarily focuses on his research, he completed an internship this past summer with W. L. Gore & Associates where he worked on an endovascular graft project.

Graft placement usually entails opening the chest and spreading ribs to sew in or install a graft around the damaged part of a major artery for repair. For example, it is possible to make a nick in the femoral artery, to trace up the vasculature through the veins and deploy a wire mesh lining rather than a stent. Hotaling’s project focused on creating a multibranch graft to be placed in multiple major arteries coming out of the heart.

Despite all the research and classes he has been devoted to, Hotaling has found time for extracurricular activities. While at Tech, he has served as the Chair of the Educational Outreach Committee in Bioengineering and Biosciences Unified Graduate Students (BBUGS). Additionally, he was involved in a leadership program where he organized events for intercity kids, who learned about engineering and watched science demos to understand realworld applications of science. Hotaling also played rugby as part of the BBUGS community and intramural soccer for a men’s soccer club team in Atlanta. Over the summer he will be teaching Senior Design, as well as BMED 2300.

According to Hotaling, for those planning on pursuing graduate school, it is important to consider contacting advisors doing research that the student finds interesting. “If you do not like your project or what you are doing, then it is not something worth doing and will just end up as something you hate; look for schools with nice facilities and good funding.” For the undergraduates or the many pre-health students unsure about graduate school, Hotaling shares his input “it is all a matter of deciding on what type of problem solving appeals to you.” Where undergraduates gain the basic tools to figure something out, graduate school is more about learning how to implement those tools toward one goal, one

Nathan Hotaling, a biomedical engineering Masters candidate in Dr. Babensee’s lab. (Photo: Virginia Lin)

problem. Having almost started on an M.D./Ph.D. program, Hotaling noticed how health professionals employ more inductive reasoning to evaluate a patient’s symptoms to devise a solution.

However graduate school focuses on solving a puzzle no one has ever approached. “[Graduate school] can be frustrating sometimes because you are running out of money and there is pressure to publish, but when you setup an experiment and the results are exactly what you want them to be, it is both exciting and really rewarding.” Hotaling shared that having also taken many medical school type classes, he found he favored his engineering classes.

Following graduation, Hotaling is considering academia and industry. Weighing the pros and cons of the two options, he says that “working was awesome. You work a nine-hour or ten-hour day and [you are] done.”

Harish Srinmukesh is an undergraduate in the Coulter Department..

2011 ANNUAL MEETING Abstract Submission NOW OPEN! Submission Deadline - April 5, 2011 Page 6

Research Series Part III: The Research Option

By Subhendu De

T

he Research Series thus far has been a multi-step process towards getting involved in research. Knowing the full picture of what working in a lab entails is crucial to succeeding as a researcher. After getting settled into the role of a researcher, the next logical step would be to actually conduct research. For the most ambitious students, the culmination of several semesters of research presents a unique opportunity: the Research Option.

The Research Option is a long term commitment that involves conducting research, writing a proposal and creating a thesis.

While these three pillars are characteristic of graduate and Ph.D. studies, the Research Option allows undergraduates who are passionate about research to take their work to the next level.

The Research Option requires at least nine credit hours of research over the course of three terms, of which six hours should be devoted to a single topic. This level of commitment ensures that a student can have enough time to plan, execute, and present an experiment in their area of research. Students are also encouraged to develop a one-on-one mentoring relationship with their faculty advisor to further enhance the long term research experience.

Besides a long term commitment to research, two more components are necessary for the Research Option: the proposal and the undergraduate thesis. In conjunction with these two requirements, LCC 4701 and LCC 4702 must be taken. LCC 4701 involves teaching undergraduate researchers about proposal writing, and can only be taken with a permit from the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). The research proposal should reflect the aims of the project, involve a literature review about the area of research, defining the problem and an experimental design describing the schedule and target goals. Additionally, the faculty mentor and undergraduate coordinator must approve the proposal.

Upon completion of the proposal and LCC 4701, students will be able to take the next step in the Research Option: writing a thesis. This task is completed in conjunction with LCC 4702, which guides students through the process of writing a thesis. Ideally, this class should be taken after data collection from the proposed experiment. The thesis would include the proposal, the results of the experiment, an analysis of the results, and suggestions for further research. The faculty member working with the student would need to review the thesis, along with a second faculty reader in the department the research was conducted in. After completion of the thesis, students in the Biomedical Engineering Department should submit a Research Option Approval Form to Dr. Paul Benkeser to obtain the distinction of Research Option.

Students who participate in research should think about the Research Option as a way to obtain recognition for their work, which helps towards graduate school admissions or getting a job.

Argo Dalapati, a 2nd Year BME Student in the Coulter Department, explains, “Research only becomes applicable after long-term commitment. The Research Option allows me to gain a substantial, in-depth research experience that will help to shape my thoughts and ideas all the way to graduate school. It also allows me to receive distinction for my research, increases my chances of funding and helps towards getting published.” Dalapati cites his research experience in Dr. David Gutman’s lab at Emory University as one of the distinctions of his college career, and that the Research Option is proof of his dedication. For ambitious students who are passionate, Dalapati highly recommends participating in research, not only for the learning experience, but for the benefits of the distinction the Research Option gives in the next step after Georgia Tech.

Subhendu De is an undergraduate in the Coulter Department..

Recent Coulter Department Publications ACTA BIOMATERIALIA Role of non-canonical Wnt signaling in osteoblast maturation on microstructured titanium surfaces.

Olivares-Navarrete R, Hyzy SL, Hutton DL, Dunn GR, Appert C, Boyan BD, Schwartz Z. BIOMATERIALS Role of fibronectin in topographical guidance of neurite extension on electrospun fibers.

Mukhatyar VJ, Salmerón-Sánchez M, Rudra S, Mukhopadaya S, Barker TH, García AJ, Bellamkonda RV. BIOMECHICS AND MODELING IN MECHANOBIOLOGY Experimental measurement of dynamic fluid shear stress on the aortic surface of the aortic valve leaflet.

Yap CH, Saikrishnan N, Tamilselvan G, Yoganathan AP. CELLS, TISSUES, ORGANS Evidence that Popliteal Fat Provides Damping during Locomotion in the Cat. Falcon I, Stahl VA, Nichols TR.

DEVELOPMENTAL DYNAMICS Evidence for partial epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (pEMT) and recruitment of motile blastoderm edge cells during avian epiboly.

Futterman MA, García AJ, Zamir EA. LANGMUIR Control of Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Microgel Network Structure by Precipitation Polymerization near the Lower Critical Solution Temperature.

Hu X, Tong Z, Lyon LA. PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Forced Unbending of Integrin α (V)β(3).

Chen W, Lou J, Hsin J, Schulten K, Harvey SC, Zhu C. SMALL Dissolving microneedle patch for transdermal delivery of human growth hormone.

Lee JW, Choi SO, Felner EI, Prausnitz MR.

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Graduates of 2010 and 2011 UNDERGRADUATES

Congratulations to the following graduates of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University! We wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors.

AUGUST 2010 GRADUATES

MAY 2011 GRADUATES

Antiskay, Brian

Houck, Jacob

Aboujamous, Nader

Holcomb, Jessica

Pankhania, Rakesh

Aurora , Tarun

Mattix, Brandon

Ashley, Sunny

Holmes, Scott

Patel, Janki

Chen, Justin

O'Brien, Erin

Baker, Katherine

Huber, Richard

Patel, Nick

Eckman, Michelle

Shah, Rhythm

Banton, Shereka

Hwang , Elysia

Patel, Rishi

Falcon, Maria

Springman, Jennifer

Bloodworth, Nathaniel

Im, Sonia

Pearce, Seth

Falkenstrom, Kristina

Vashi, Bijal

Bourgeois, Neil

Jackman, Christopher

Peterson, Anna

Flowers, Jonquil

Wang, Daniel

Britt, Chelsea

Jorgensen, Christopher

Rajaram, Krishna

Gupta, Aakanksha

Wang, James

Brown, Wendy

Katdare, Varun

Rakes, Jordan

Higgins, Andrew

Young, Brian

Cave, Juan

Keitt, Morgan

Rakkar , Jaskaran

DECEMBER 2010 GRADUATES

Ceciliani, Ryan

Kersten, Veronica

Rath, Rutwik

Aaron, Christa

Klingbeil, Matthew

Chavis, Tiffany

Kieffer, Matthew

Ries, Jared

Allen, Kavonna

Koh, Won-Joon

Chen, Ziyan

Klimov, Sergey

Rudra, Soumon

Anderson, Kasiem

Levine, Kaija

Chiang, Kai Chieh

Kloefkorn, Heidi

Sanogo , Poinon

Atangcho, Perry

Li, Wenchao

Chung, Jason

Knabe, Steven

Scott, Larry

Bailey, Asia

Liyanagamage, Shanie

Clark, Brenton

Ko, Ikhyun

Shaffer, Kathryn

Baro, Jorge

Mazul, Sergio

DeHitta, Eleanor

Koenig, Seth

Shih, Karen

Bartelmay, Jessica

Merchant, Sadiq

Desai, Kalpi

Kuzy, Jesse

Shrivastav, Shresth

Bhandari, Sarita

Meyer, Gregory

Devaux, Lindsey

Le, Ngoc Nhi

Skourtis, Triantafillia

Bowden, Rebeca

Nguyen, Khang

Dwan, Christina

Lee , Anna

Tamburino, Krishna

Boyer, Brittanny

Pappu, Gopal

Erwood, Andrew

Lee , Christine

Tan, Christopher

Buice, Dana

Parthasarathy, Ramya

Ganju, Rohit

Lee , Eon Jong

Tong, Nhien

Cerone, Joseph

Poukalova, Mariya

Garofalo, Jason

Lesniewski, Victor

Tsikerdanos, William

Cha, Susie

Rajan, Nithish

George, Jacob

Luce, Lindsay

Tzen, Henry

Cuadrado, Carlos

Richards, Megan

Giardina, Christopher

Lye , Yan Hui

Van Haute, Desiree

Duraiswamy, Arun

Shrum, Nikolaus

Gil, Jhordan

Magrath, Richard

Wan, Beatrice

Fu, Theresa

Skelton, Sarah Jean

Greer, Matthew

Mahmoudabadi, Gita

Williams, James

Grier, Robert

Taylor, Lee

Gustafson, Erik

Manalo , Iviensan

Yao, Phil

Hankins, Lindsey

Thames, Bethany

Hall, Christopher

Middleton, Choyce

Yoo, Keunhwa

Heiskell, Jeff

Tian, Harvey

Harris, Kandace

Monroe, Alexandra

Zeller, Mark

Ivie, Nolan

Tsay, Justin

Hawes, James

Norred, Sarah

Zhao, Michael

James, Jamie

Wallon, Katherine

Hill, Abby

Padilla, Maria-Rosa

Wang, Xiao

Hirota, Shun

Pandya, Shivam

GRADUATES

Kashlan, Khaled MAY 2010 GRADUATES

AUGUST 2010 GRADUATES

Lee, Cho-Yin

Sargent, Carolyn Yeago

Andrews, Samantha

Maladen, Ryan Dominic

Rogers, Todd Harmon

Ph.D in BMED

Ph.D. in BMED

Ph.D. in BMED

Ph.D. in BIOE

Ph.D. in BIOE

Metwalli, Nader Sayed

Stahl, Victoria Ann

Gozal, Elizabeth Ann

Muir, Eric Raymond

Sieling, Fred Henry

Ph.D in BIOE

Ph.D. in BMED

Ph.D. in BMED

Ph.D. in BIOE

Ph.D. in BMED

Ni, Chih-Wen

Weaver, Jason David

Hayes, Heather Brant

Ravi, Swathi

Tsao, Tzu-Hsin Betty

Ph.D in BIOE

Ph.D. in BMED

Ph.D. in BIOE

Ph.D. in BMED

Ph.D. in BIOE

Perez, Daniel Antonio

Joseph, Laveeta

Robinson, Scott Thomas Wong, Kevin L

MS in BMED

Ph.D. in BIOE

Ph.D. in BMED

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MS in BIOE

Senior Voices Memories 2007-2011

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By Willa Ni

elow is a collection of a few memories of graduating undergraduate students. They reflect on a snapshot in their respective careers these past few years that have stood out.

On iGEM Jamboree (The iGEM culminating event held at MIT) Gita Mahmoudabadi (Spring ‘11) & Debika Mitra (iGem Member) Mahmoudabadi and Mitra presented in front of judges at the iGEM Jamboree. “During the Q&A session, one of the judges asked “I’m very impressed, but I’m a little concerned, why did you ask for a bronze medal?” Rob looked at Margo, Margo looked at me and I stepped up and said, thinking the judge was questioning the validity of our project, “We… we… we sequenced our AOX construct and it worked. Our ligation worked and I thought the criteria for a bronze medal was to have the ligation work.” Then the judge questioned, “Why not silver?” Then everyone started laughing.

Then Margo stated, “Low hanging fruit baby!” We were definitely the loudest team at iGem. You could tell us apart from other teams because everybody else is so disciplined and organized looking. One team had even made a presentation about how to present themselves. It was also an amazing cultural exchange experience too because you get to see how far other countries have advanced in genetic engineering.”

On iGem Research (Annual Synthetic Biology competition) Scott Holmes (Spring ’11) The team had created heat generating bacteria and needed to verify their work. “There were eight of us and with the weeks coming up to the competition, we stayed in lab… [until] 2AM, 3AM for a couple of days… quantifying the heat generation. I had previous experience with molecular biology type [experiments] and I taught those and similar techniques to group members. There are these giant incubators [with bacteria] and for our heat characterization we had to measure things in there every 15 minutes for five hours.

We had to start the experiments in the morning and they would end at 2AM. That was fun. Yea, so in the lab at 2AM measuring heat and glass beakers with bacteria, which didn’t smell too good, Rob – a founder of the iGEM team - and I were in lab. We usually had the laptop on and we were blasting Lady GaGa, Ke$ha, and Usher and all these other pop songs to motivate us.”

On Georgia Tech Lorraine (GTL) (GT International Campus in Metz, France) Sarah Anderson (Summer ’11) “I studied abroad at GTL the summer of 2009. We literally went to a different country every weekend. Towards the end of the summer [we were] completely running out of money, but we still

really wanted to go to Amsterdam in the Netherlands and we hadn’t gone to Paris yet.”

Anderson and her friends decide to take a night train to Amsterdam on Friday, another night train to Paris Saturday evening, and then arrive back at GTL Monday morning via another night train.

“So we thought, ‘This is a foolproof plan, right? Nothing could possibly go wrong.’” After a rainy and cold day in Amsterdam, “we get to Paris [Sunday] morning and it’s great - Eiffel Tower done, all the tourist attractions are awesome, and we got tickets for the train that leaves at 8:30. It starts to get dark at 7:30 so we had time to see the Eiffel Tower at night time. We get there and of course it’s gorgeous. We take pictures, just milling about and we look at our watches and it’s 8 o’clock. We have half an hour to get on the train and French trains leave on time. With 15 minutes to go, the subway [en route to the train] just stops in the middle. And someone comes on and says in French that there are technically difficulties. We have class in the morning, we have homework, we have no money and Paris is expensive. It starts up again and we literally have five minutes. The subway pulls into the bottom of the station and we have to go up two escalators and there’s the train platform. We’re checking our watch and we’re all hooked and clasped and tied and runner’s stances ready to go. [The doors open and the] group of five of us just full out sprint with huge backpacks. One of the funniest images of us was running up the escalator and Casey, one of the guys with us, trips on the escalator and some other women just falls down with him. He says,”Pardonpardonpardon!” and people are looking at us, these obviously not French kids. People are moving their dogs and picking up their kids as we full out sprint to the train platform. And the door is locked. We’re shaking the doors and knocking and we sprint up to the conductor’s booth and we are literally on the platform watching the train pull out.”

Stuck in Paris for the night, Anderson and her friends find themselves spending half the night in the train station and the other half in a small restaurant.

“So it’s finally five o’clock AM now and the train station opens back up. We get the first train back to Metz in the morning. We walked 15 minutes late into our class. We clearly hadn’t showered [for the past three days]. We were disheveled and a complete mess. The professor just looked at us and sent us home. Looking back, that was one of the funniest and most ridiculous weekends there.”

Willa Ni is an undergraduate student in the Coulter Department.

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Student Spotlight: Sarah Anderson All Day I Dream About Sports (Engineering!)

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arah Anderson is a senior Biomedical Engineer in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. She is also a distance runner for Georgia Tech's Track and Field squad.

During the summer of 2010, Anderson interned at the Loughborough University Sports Technology Institute (STI) and a spinout company Progressive Sports Technologies Ltd. Anderson is especially captivated by the combination of sports and engineering. Via networking through a previous intern of the STI, Anderson became the first Georgia Tech intern to work there.

Surprisingly, Sports Science and Engineering degrees are virtually nonexistent in the United States.

Internationally, however, the field is immensely popular in England, Australia and Germany. Loughborough STI is a world renowned sports research group and the largest such center in the United Kingdom. Major sports companies, such as Nike and Adidas, often outsource design projects and research to Loughborough.

Sarah describes the Loughborough Sports Engineering Group as a warehouse filled with desks, sports equipment and "nerdy engineers who love athletics and sports." In true sports culture, most group members keep track of athletes alongside their work and halted normal functions for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. On a side note, the "Jabulani" soccer balls that were used for the competition underwent mechanical

tests at Loughborough.

Anderson's first project was to develop a sports enhancement mouth guard for rugby and American football players. This two week project culminated in a chance for Sarah to help pitch the biology behind the device to Opro, the largest mouth guard company in the UK. Smaller projects included analyzing the bending moments of snowboard boots for Burton, designing an experiment to map the strain profile of a swimmers thigh, and designing a Frisbee and a children's cricket bat.

Shoe prototype testing for a graduate student sponsored by Adidas allowed Anderson to familiarize herself with the tools and software involved with footwear design. Using this experience, Anderson and another intern developed an independent project analyzing the loading profiles of the bottom of the foot. This groundbreaking experiment measured for the first time the dynamic strain profile of human feet. Previous techniques had only measured the applied tension and compression of cadaver feet.

Strain mapping, i.e. mapping the deformation of a body, can be done using high speed cameras to track a set of points as they move within a neighborhood. For her experiment, the camera first captures an extensively dotted sole of a subject’s foot as a reference image. Then the subject stands or walks the foot over a pane of glass housing high speed cameras underneath. The computer software

By Eric Huang

Anderson at Loughborough.(Photo: Sarah Anderson)

calculates the strain profile of the bottom of the foot by measuring the displacement of each dot. The data can then be fit to a 3D foot for computer testing of different shoe designs and materials.

After graduation, Anderson will be going to California on an internship with John Brenkus on ESPN's TV show, Sports Science. She credits her experience at Loughborough for solidifying her desire to pursue sports engineering as a career.

Eric Huang is an undergraduate student in the Coulter Department.

From left to right: a) A dotted foot, ready for strain mapping. b) Above, the foot contacts the glass. Below, the mirror reflects the image to the high speed cameras. c) The deformation profile calculated by the ARAMIS software. (Photo: Sarah Anderson)

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AMSA Pre-Health Conference Congressman Phil Gingrey and Students Attend

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n February 26, 2011, the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) board hosted representatives from a diverse array of healthcare schools and programs at Georgia Tech’s Fifth Annual Pre-Health Conference under the slogan, “Students Today, Healthcare Leaders Tomorrow.” The day-long conference, held in the Management Building at Technology Square, was initiated with a message from the presidents of AMSA, Karan Patel and Robin Jacob, who welcomed all the participants of the event, acknowledged AMSA’s growth over the years and discussed its primary purpose of introducing different healthcare-related programs to pre-health students at Georgia Tech. The presidents took the opportunity to recognize that Georgia Tech’s AMSA chapter will receive the prestigious Paul R. Wright Award for Excellence in Medical Education.

The keynote speaker for the event was Congressman Phil Gingrey. Gingrey is a Georgia Tech alumnus, and he earned his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia. Currently, he is working on improving health care. At the conference, he not only spoke of his years at Tech, but he also stressed the multiple resources that the current pre-med student can use to make his or her application process into medical school easier. He also noted that

the Healthcare Reform Bill is now too involved with politics instead of patient needs.

The conference was filled with different workshops meant to inform students on a variety of topics such as healthcare professions, life in medical school, taking a transition year and the application process.

The speakers at the workshops were representatives or students of the schools present. These workshops gave inside tips to the students on applying to the healthcare fields as well as school-specific tips related to the types of candidates that their respective institutions are looking for.

Gopi Patel, a third year BME student, attended the taking a transition year, an Osteopathic and a MD/Phd workshop.

“These workshops showcased the different options I have on the path to medical school and the various routes I can take during my medical career.” The Osteopathic workshop had several students from the Georgia Campus Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, demonstrate various high velocity low amplitude (HVLA) techniques that D.O. students learn in addition to classical medical training.

Along with the workshops, mock interview sessions were conducted for seniors and juniors to provide some valuable feedback on how to conduct

By Guergana Terzieva themselves while interviewing and how to clearly communicate their goals and accomplishments.

There were over 200 students registered for the conference and over 50 healthcare programs for the students to explore. Currently at Georgia Tech there are 1400 pre-health students from various majors with the top three present majors: biology, biomedical engineering and biochemistry. Some of the programs present were allopathic and osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, dental schools, as well as physical therapy, public health, and nutrition programs. Many medical schools from Georgia were present: Medical College of Georgia, Emory School of Medicine, and Mercer University School of Medicine. Other medical schools present also consisted of Vanderbilt, Washington University in St. Louis, and the American University of Antigua. Among the dental and the pharmacy schools were the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Auburn University. The variety of schools was welcomed by the diverse group of students who came from Emory University, Georgia State University, Auburn University, the University of Georgia, Spellman College and Georgia Tech.

Guergana Terzieva is an undergraduate student in the Coulter Department.

Prehealth Column Extracurriculars: Healthcare is a Service Industry

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f you have attended a Mandatory PreHealth Advising workshop in the past, you heard me talk about the need for long term community involvement or a volunteer commitment. As one Tech professor asked me recently, “If you require students to do volunteer work, then it’s not really voluteering, is it?” Well, that’s a good point! That’s why I’ve been working to change the term “volunteer” to “community involvement.”

Have you ever gone to the doctor and had him/her avoid eye contact with you?

She looks at your history, vitals, treats you like a bundle of symptoms, prescribes medication to you, and then leaves without making you feel valued? Medical schools used to only wanted the “smartest applicants in the stack.” As a result, a crop of doctors entered the profession who

were book smart, but not people smart.

When medical schools realized what was occurring, they started utilizing a more holistic approach to admissions decisions.

The “smartest applicants in the stack” were bypassed in admissions decisions in favor of smart applicants who demonstrated “people skills” on their application. Every application cycle, I have applicants who should be accepted to medical school based on an incredibly strong academic performance. But, they are declined for another applicant who has good academics and demonstrates service to others. After all, healthcare is a service industry.

So, why is community involvement so important? First of all, it shows schools that you can commit to something without expecting immediate feedback (i.e. a

By Jennifer Kimble paycheck) from that arrangement.

Nowadays, we have an epidemic sweeping college campuses, I call it “commitmentitis.” Students will raise their hand and say they are going to do something, but when the time comes along, they are no-shows.

Not only do I see this with appointments my students make with my office, but also with other events on campus. We had about 20 pre-health students commit to doing CERT Training (Community Emergency Response Team) last month who never bothered to show up for the training or let us know why they could not honor their commitment. For our 5th Annual Pre-Health Conference held February 26th, we had 50 students who registered and paid their registration fee, but never showed. So, when you commit your name to volunteering at VistaCare

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Hospice, those people depend on you to actually show up when you say you will.

This is the ultimate in time management; you need to balance your schedule appropriately so that when you register as a volunteer at a place, you will give the people there the attention they deserve.

Schools value you building relationships in one or two volunteer groups much more than having a dozen one-day volunteer experiences.

Another reason that community engagement is so important is that as a practioner, you will be working with people from diverse backgrounds. You will have patients from different age brackets, various religious beliefs and socioeconomic statuses. You need to know how to be respectful of all of them. For example, you might have patients who dropped out of high school or who are illiterate. How do you explain complex medical procedures

to them?

You won’t have time in professional school to learn these skills; admissions committees expect you to have a cultural competency for working with diverse groups of people.

So where do you gain community involvement experience? Anywhere you wish! Former students have taught chair aerobics at nursing homes and loved it.

Quite a few Tech students volunteer at VistaCare Hospice over at Emory Midtown hospital, with homeless populations, at missions or tutor at low income schools.

Many BME students volunteer with MedShare and Engineering World Health (EWH), which provide summer opportunities to go abroad to volunteer.

Some other students have volunteered at the Ben Massell Dental Clinic or Good Samaritan Health Clinic. Many students do volunteer work through organizations.

The MOVE, Mobilizing Opportunities

for Volunteer Experience, Office (www.move.gatech.edu) and the United Way (liveunited.org) have opportunities to do medically related volunteer work. One cautionary note, schools want to see that you sought out an opportunity. They do not want to get the vibe that you volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House because your sorority made you.

But, if you continued volunteering without your sorority, that is fantastic!

I’ve spent a great amount of time talking about how you will be affected by service, but have failed to mention what others will gain. Their self-esteem will increase knowing that a volunteer from Georgia Tech is taking time from his/her study schedule to spend time with them.

You have so many gifts to offer others.

Don’t be selfish and keep them to yourself!

Jennifer Kimble is the Georgia Tech Pre-Health Advisor.

Images of the microfluidic device developed at Georgia Tech to help researchers predict T cell age and quality in order to improve a type of cancer therapy called adoptive T cell transfer. (Photo: Gary Meek)

T Cell

from Page 1

limited by the finite lifespan of T cells -after many divisions, these cells become unresponsive and inactive.

Researchers at Georgia Tech and Emory University have addressed this limitation by developing a microfluidic device for sample handling that allows a statistical model to be generated to evaluate cell responsiveness and accurately predict cell "age" and quality. Being able to assess the age and responsiveness of T cells -- and therefore transfer only young functional cells back into a cancer patient's body -- offers the potential to improve the therapeutic outcome of several cancers.

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"The statistical model, enabled by the data generated with the microfluidic device, revealed an optimal combination of extracellular and intracellular proteins that accurately predict T cell age," said Melissa Kemp, an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "Knowing this information will help facilitate the clinical development of appropriate T cell expansion and selection protocols."

Details on the microfluidic device and statistical model were published in the March issue of the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics. This work was supported by the National Institutes of

Health, Georgia Cancer Coalition, and Georgia Tech Integrative Biosystems Institute.

Currently, clinicians measure T cell age by using multiple assays that rely on measurements from large cell populations.

The measurements determine if cells are exhibiting functions known to appear at different stages in the life cycle of a T cell.

"Since no one measurement is a perfect predictor, it is advantageous to concurrently sample multiple proteins at different time points, which we can do with our microfluidic device," explained Kemp, who is also a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Professor. "The wealth of information we get from our

Biomedical engineering professor Melissa Kemp shows the microfluidic device for sample handling that allowed a statistical model to be generated to evaluate T cell responsiveness and accurately predict cell age and quality. (Photo: Gary Meek)

device for a small number of cells far exceeds a single measurement from a population the same size by another assay type."

For their study, Kemp, electrical engineering graduate student Catherine

Rivet and biomedical engineering undergraduate student Abby Hill analyzed CD8+ T cells from healthy blood donors.

They acquired information from 25 static biomarkers and 48 dynamic signaling measurements and found a combination of phenotypic markers and protein signaling dynamics -- including Lck, ERK, CD28 and CD27 -- to be the most useful in predicting cellular age.

To obtain biomarker and dynamic signaling event measurements, the researchers ran the donor T cells through a microfluidic device designed in collaboration with Hang Lu, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering.

After stimulating the cells, the device divided them into different channels corresponding to eight different time points, ranging from 30 seconds to seven minutes. Then they were divided again into populations that were chemically treated to halt the biochemical reactions at snapshots in time to build up a picture of the signaling events that occurred as the T cells responded to antigen.

"While donor-to-donor variability is a confounding factor in these types of experiments, the technological platform minimized the experimental data variance and allowed stimulation time to be

precisely controlled," said Lu. With the donor T cell data, the researchers developed a model to assess which biomarkers or dynamical signaling events best predicted the quality of T cell function. The model found the most informative data in predicting cellular age to be the initial changes in signaling dynamics.

"Although a combination of biomarker and dynamic signaling data provided the optimal model, our results suggest that signaling information alone can predict cellular age almost as well as the entire dataset," noted Kemp.

In the future, Kemp plans to use this approach of combining multiple cell-based experiments on a microfluidic chip to integrate single-cell information with population-averaged techniques, such as multiplexed immunoassays or mass spectrometry.

This project is supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)(Grant No. R21CA134299). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. Abby Robinson is a communications officer in the GT Research News & Publications Office.

BME Senior Excellence Awards Congratulations to the following 2010-2011 Academic year seniors who have gone above and beyond!

OUTSTANDING SENIOR AWARD — Christopher Jackman For exemplifying the epitome of excellence: excelling in academics, leadership, and research as well as showing a genuine interest in the BME community.

OUTSTANDING LEADERSHIP AWARD — Nader Aboujamous This award goes to the student who not only contributes and leads within class projects, but shows genuine efforts in leadership through community service and campus involvement.

OUTSTANDING RESEARCH AWARD — Abby Hill This award recognizes a graduating senior who has shown outstanding research skills.

OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC AWARD — Erik Gustafson This award recognizes the student who, in course work, displays an eagerness to pursue knowledge an understanding while holding high academic standards.

Bioengineering and Biosciences Graduate Students Presents Research Seminar—Dr. Arshed Quyyumi April 25, 2011 - 11:00am www.bbugs.gatech.edu

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Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Lena Ting Biomechanics Researcher and Teacher of Tibetan Monks

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r. Lena Ting, 2007 Above and Beyond Awardee, Georiga Tech Biomedical Engineering Society Chapter and 2004 Teaching Excellence Awardee, the Wallace and Coulter Biomedical Engineering Department at Georgia Tech and Emory, is obviously no ordinary, cut-and-dry professor. Ting received her undergraduate degree at the University of California-Berkeley and then completed her graduate studies at Stanford University. She became a mechanical engineer out of her interest in the mechanics of movement in the field of rehabilitation. Before coming to Tech, she took a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Paris and then spent three years at the Oregon Health-Science University as a researcher. Joining the Biomedical Engineering Department in 2002, her lab, which is located on the third floor of the Whitaker building, is a part of the larger Laboratory for Neuroengineering.

Ting's areas of research include biomechanics, neuromuscular control of posture and locomotion, and dynamic simulation of movement. She studies standing and walking hoping to answer a seemingly simple problem, “how we move around." She goes on to explain the complexity that arises from the involvement of the nervous system, "[It] is responsible for coordinating the muscles and so a lot of different diseases [of] the nervous system can cause movement disabilities.” She also does work on robotics and animal movement. Her research findings are applied toward understanding and explaining human movement.

Ting believes in the strength of a diverse group of students who can offer unique perspectives to a problem. Her research group includes an M.D./Ph.D. student from Emory University, biomedical engineering Ph.D. students and graduate students from both a mechanical engineering and an electrical engineering background. She believes that their different backgrounds and

By Belane Grizaw

knowledge allow them to analyze a problem from different angles and reach a significant solution faster.

Believing that everyone has their place in her lab to teach and to learn, Ting explains that no one is going to know everything; Ting also says that she manages her lab in a unique way, “I’ve been in many different labs and research places so I have a lot of experience… and if I’m not having fun then I don’t want to be there so I try to make it fun and challenging for everyone.” Her favorite part about doing research is being able to work on different, fun projects that allow her to travel. Just last week, she was working with people in a rehabilitation treatment center for spinal cord injuries. This summer, she plans on going to Paris to collect data for an experiment and then visiting India to teach neuroscience to Tibetan monks.

On asking her about how to get involved with her lab, she states that her lab website has a list of expectations that one should read before applying. Ting advises interested students to be prepared to answer questions including what you think would be a really cool project during the interview! Ting emphasizes that personal motivation is key, “if the student says they want to make someone walk again or cure cancer, it tells me something about their motivation and their technical interests." Further, she looks for project ideas that "relates to what [they] do.

Ultimately, in a combined effort, she hopes to find novel analysis techniques to apply to rehabilitation and to improve upon existing methods to measure progress in relearning movement.

She aspires to enable people who go through rehabilitation to reach their full movement.

Belane Grizaw is an undergraduate student in the Coulter Department.

Lena Ting, an associate professor, conducts research in biomechanics and neuromuscular control of posture and locomotion. (Photo: Virginia Lin)

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Ask an Alum!

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n your current line of employment or during your time as a BME student, is or was there one organizational habit or trick that has proven invaluable to you? Identify and explain how you would implement this practice.

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I

he practice of keeping my email inbox at a manageable level. I try to follow the Inbox Zero methods (http:// inboxzero.com/), where each incoming email is either read and removed from my inbox, becomes a to do list item, an event on my calendar or has a reply written if it will take less than five minutes to compose. Implementing these ideas can take a while when starting, but slowly become ingrained and makes it possible to deal more productively with email.

Matthew Berginski Class of 2006 Graduate Student University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

’ve always been horrible at keeping track of physical documents and work that I’ve done. Since entering the workforce, I’ve made it a habit of keep all of my work in primarily electronic format, even if that means scanning a handwritten note or sketch. I keep everything meticulously organized in a file folder system that makes sense to me. This way I spend less time organizing and more time solving problems.

I

T

use my Google calendar to organize my life. I don't have the best memory, so I put all my to-dos in my calendar - everything from going to the grocery store to calling someone to tasks for work. I find it reminds me of what I need to do and also helps ensure that I have scheduled enough time for each of the tasks I need to complete in a given day. This was helpful both as a student and at work.

Zach O'Ferrell Class of 2009 Manufacturing Engineer Edwards Lifesciences his may sound old school, but keeping a real, non-electronic planner with me at all times helped me to keep everything sorted out. I constantly reviewed it, including when I was bored during classes! Additional tricks include adding post-it notes, rubber bands, etc. for more organizational tools.

Ted Chen Class of 2009 Graduate Student University of Washington

Gayathri Balasubramanian Class of 2007 ZS Associates

N

on-procrastination! The sooner I begin an assignment after I receive it, the more likely I will complete it in a timely fashion. Generally, your mind is more engaged towards an assignment at the time you receive it than even compare to a day afterwards. So if you buckle down and just get it done (or at least started) right off the bat, not only will it be easier because your brain is already focused on the task, but it’s also one more thing that you can cross off your list of to-dos.

Kiersten Petersen Class of 2010 Electrophysiology Technical Support Specialist St. Jude Medical

T

he UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment of Punishments highlights sleep deprivation as a particularly insidious form of torture which both leaves little trace and can completely undermine the intellectual capacity of its victim in a remarkably short amount of time. You can survive for days with minor side effects if you go without food, but major psychoses result from similar lengths of sleep deprivation. So, opt for 5 or 6 hours of real, healthy studying instead of 8, 9, or 30 hours of studying with a complete learning disability. (And yeah, I'm happy to disclaim that I'm quite a hypocrite here.)

Joseph Abrahamson PhD Candidate, John's Hopkins University

Design Toolbox Beneficial Tips and Ideas

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he BME Design Guild Shop brings together all kinds of people, with a great variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise.

We learn something new with every part we make, and then we get to share that with the next curious person who comes in the door. In this spirit, this Design Toolbox series will feature some tips and information on topics from which everyone can benefit.

These articles will include ideas to help you design your parts for manufacturing, which is equally important whether you will be using one of the 3D printers in the basement or enlisting the help of an injection-molding specialist.

Design presentations are always more credible when manufacturing details have been considered early on in the design.

And when it comes to crunch time, it is essential for you to know

By Marty Jacobson the capabilities and limitations of the intended process if you are going to hit your prototype deadlines successfully.

But more importantly, you would be missing an opportunity for innovation. Constraints, such as those associated with any manufacturing process, are the fuel of innovation. Another often overlooked constraint is time. This may include your own time, your teammates’ time, and even the time someone else profits off of your innovation while you weren’t protecting your idea.

Our first set of tips revolves around saving you time when working in SolidWorks, a popular 3D CAD system.

Customizing Your Interface For SolidWorks users of all levels, many commands are

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frequently used. These include showing/hiding planes, exiting a sketch, and the Normal To… command, to name a few.

Besides booking unnecessary mouse mileage, these commands slow you down and distract you from the ultimate goal – your design. Follow these steps to reduce the time these basic commands require, and free up some brain cycles to focus on your ideas.

Knock Out The Feature Creep SolidWorks presents a busy interface at first launch. Like a Swiss-Army knife, it’s nice that it’s all there, but most of the clutter is not useful on a daily basis.

Do some housecleaning by right-clicking on the menu bar and deselecting any of the tool sets you don’t immediately recognize or use, such as the Task Pane. Also, the CommandManager may be nice if you aren’t familiar with the icons, but once you know the difference between an Extrude Boss and Extrude Cut, you can work faster without it. If you like the CommandManager, you can streamline it down to icons by turning off Large Buttons and Text.

Here are some other ideas: • Assign C to Centerline. The Line tool is already L. • Assign N to Normal To. This way you can always be sure you’re looking at your sketch correctly. Get in the habit of hitting this often, since working on a skewed view of a sketch is deceptive, and later results in trouble with features.

• Watch yourself as you work – if there’s anything you use more than a few times a session, give it a keystroke.

Be Aware of Default Commands Click on Show Only Commands with Shortcuts Assigned to see other default shortcuts, or remind yourself which keys you have assigned as shortcuts

Make It Yours With the extra junk removed, it’s time to give yourself easy access to your favorite tools.

Palette Customization Click on the arrow beside the rightmost button in the menu bar, then on the Customize item as shown in the figure.

From here, you can choose the Commands tab. Now you can drag any tool from the “toolbox” to any of the tool palettes. For example, a CNC mill uses a cylindrical cutter to remove material. In this instance, the 3-Point Arc Slot tool saves nearly a dozen clicks when compared to using circles and arcs to draw the same shape.

So if you’re frequently designing for CNC parts, you can put it right up with the Rectangle tool (see figure below), and save yourself some snapping and trimming.

The Power of Single-Key Shortcuts An under-utilized SolidWorks feature is the ability to assign nearly any command a single key shortcut. Since I usually end up with hundreds of reference planes in a full product assembly, I assigned the P key to Show/Hide Planes. Just hit P, and they toggle on or off, automatically. This alone has saved me hours and results in better work habits since planes no longer obscure the view of your work.

Here are some good defaults which you should know: CTRL-B to Exit and Save Sketches My favorite default command is CTRL-B, which is Rebuild. This command is usually used to regenerate recent features. A helpful plus is that it also exits and saves the sketch you’re working on and cancels any active commands. This gets you back to a clean “starting point” when some pesky commands stick around after you’re done with them.

ESC key to cancel any current command Keep your finger on the escape key! Useful when you have clicked the wrong tool in the palette, or decided to use another tool for the operation at hand.

CTRL-1, CTRL-2, CTRL-3, etc. to Change View CTRL- plus a number gives you an easy way to switch views, including switching between planar and 3-d views. Once you get used to it, this will speed you up dramatically.

Marty Jacobson is a BME Design Instructor at Georgia Tech.

Toolbox Glossary in order of appearance Normal To… orients the view normal to the selection CommandManager is the contextual interface ribbon at the top of the default SolidWorks interface Task Pane is the collection of tabs on the right side of the screen in the default SolidWorks interface Extrude Boss extrudes a closed-loop sketch into a 3D solid body.

Extrude Cut functions similarly, but removes material from any existing 3D solid body with which it intersects.

3-Point Arc Slot draws a slot of a defined radius offset from a standard 3-point arc.

Centerline draws a straight construction line

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