NOV/DEC 2015 by Pioneer

PIONEER

VOLUME X | NOV/DEC 2015 | ISSUE 2

THEPIONEER.GATECH.EDU

iGEM Read more about the synethetic biology conference that was

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

From the Editor in Chief PIONEER Dear readers, My name is Catherine Chou, and it is my absolute pleasure to be Editor-in-Chief for this extended issue! As some of you may know, we have had some officer rearrangements within the Pioneer, and I am fortunate to be taking the reins as EIC.

With the end of another semester comes the stress of final exams, and we at the Pioneer would like to remind you of all the resources available to you – biomedical engineering student or otherwise! Beyond your TAs and professors, who are always open to and willing to assist you, there also exist a variety of tutoring options both within the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and otherwise. For example, PLUS, 1-to-1, and helpdesk are always available as well to help you prepare, and the BME department also has a new FOCUS Tutoring program for BME-specific classes that is put on in conjunction with the Center for Academic Success. More importantly, however, is to know that there are many people wanting to assist you in managing your stress this finals season. 2015 has truly been a year where mental health has hit student communities hard all around the United States. In the early months of January, February and March, a string of suicides rocked campuses including our own, building up to a Mental Health Summit hosted with campus leaders and administration at Georgia Tech. In the coming weeks, many organizations will be hosting de-stressing events, and the Georgia Tech Counseling Center further provides mental health counseling services to help you deal with end-of-semester anxiety. If you prefer peer support, also know that your fellow students are here to provide you with the empathy you need. You are not alone this finals season; the GT community is here with you. On a brighter note, one of my favourite ways to relax is by perusing a copy of the Pioneer, so we hope you enjoy this issue and follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/gtpioneer), Twitter (twitter.com/pioneergt) and our soon-to-be-finished new website, thepioneer. gatech.edu. Thank you for your continual support, and hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

INSIDE PIONEER SELECTED PUBLICATIONS…………………….………….…........……….....…...…...….......3 IMPULSES..................................................…….………………….…….…….……….............4 BIOTECH...............................………………..……...…………..….........…...………...............5 BIOTECH................................…………..…………………..…..…..........…...………...............6 That’s So BME......................................................................................................................6 LABS.................................................…….......………..….…...……….….......…………........7 INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT......………….…......…………...……..………........………..…..........8 CAREER..............................................................................................................................10 ABROAD.............................................................…….………………….…….….….………..12 CONFERENCE..........….….…......…………...…………..………..............................….........13 INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT.............………….…......…………...……..……….………..…........14 PRE-HEALTH.....................................................................................................................16

Established 2007

EDITOR IN CHIEF Jonathan Austin

FACULTY SPONSOR Barbara Fasse, Ph.D. SECRETARY Sameer Mishra TREASURER Hee Su Lee PUBLIC RELATIONS Tanvi Rao WEBMASTERS Shehab Attia Kelsey Williams

STAFF WRITERS Anirudh Joshi

Abhinaya Uthayakumar Akanksha Bhatia Shanzeh Farooqui Sarah Gonzales Brandon Holt Ann Johnson Yinglin Li Andrew McNair Alaap Murali Dhara Patel Tanvi Rao Erik Sampayo Linda Tian Nadiya Zafar

Chou EDITORS Catherine Nader Abdullahi

Andrew Akers Sruti Bheri Alexis Blazier Julie Chow Hardika Dhir Elizabeth Johnson Amanda Klinker Meera Nathan Likhit Nayak Melanie Yoshimura

LAYOUT EDITORS Joy Kim

Candice Cheung Diane Nguyen Pearly Pandya Michelle Tourchak

PHOTOGRAPHERS Morgan Hinchey Dustin Blohm Wanda Chen Paige McQuade Anokhi Patel Maya Rajan Connor Sofia Hyunjun (Fred) Woo Jimmy Zhou

COLLABORATORS Karen Adams

Paul Fincannon Courtney Lucas Ferencik Sally Gerrish Zeena Ammar Richard Carano Tim Gassner Gabriel Kwong Heesu Lee Michelle Prine Connor Sofia Colton Thomas

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS By Sarah Gonzales

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

Inhibitory luminopsins: genetically-encoded bioluminescent opsins for versatile, scalable, and hardware-independent optogenetic inhibition Jack K. Tung, Claire-Anne Gutekunst, Robert E. Gross. Nature Eureka! Researchers at Georgia Tech may have solved the conundrum of how best to probe brains. Instead of surgically implanting optical fibers coupled to an external light source, as is the standard, neuroscientists may choose to have the brain glow in the dark. Utilizing bioluminescent proteins derived from sea pansies (a variety of polyp similar to the jellyfish), genetically-encoded opsin-expressing cells may become their own light source! This development is ground-breaking, as the current surgical method of manipulating neural activity via optogenetic techniques is beleaguered with risks and restrictions such as infection, limited range of motion, poor efficiency, and limitation of applicability of animal models. Inhibitory luminopsins have no such restrictions. Figure 1: Glow in the dark cells. Oooo. The colors!

Metal-Enhanced Near-Infrared Fluorescence by Micropatterned Gold Nanocages.

Camposeo A, Persano L, Manco R, Wang Y, Del Carro P, Zhang C, Li ZY, Pisignano D, Xia Y. ACS Nano All that glitters IS gold, at least in the case of the Xia and Wang lab in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. In a recent publication, researchers have discovered a novel method of enhancing near-infrared fluorescence at a rate of 2-7 times with respect to the emission from pristine dyes. Increasing fluorescence is of interest, as near-infrared emission bands do not harm biomolecules, living cells, or tissues, making this development an important stepping stone in the field of proteomics and genomics. Figure 1. (a) A schematic showing all major steps involved in the fabrication of MEF substrates based on Au nanocages: (i) microcontact printing of APTES, (ii) immobilization of Au nanocages on the regions covered by APTES, (iii) deposition of a SiO2 layer over the entire surface through e-beam evaporation, and (iv) deposition of an emissive layer to achieve a spatially resolved MEF. (b) Transmission electron micrograph of the Au nanocages. Scale bar: 100 nm. (c) Absorption (blue curve) and emission (red curve) spectra of the LD 700 dye, and extinction spectrum (black curve) of the nanocages. Inset: schematic illustration of the MEF and molecular structure of LD 700. l: the distance between an emitter and the surface of the Au nanocage

RESEARCH.........................................................................................................................17 STARTUP.............................................................................................................................18 RESEARCH.........................................................................................................................19

3 IMPULSES

BIOTECH PAGE TITLE

MAR ISSUE 5

IMPULSES

CRISPR/CAS9 GENOME EDITING

def: a driving force or motivation; an impetus

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

By Andrew McNair

By Akanksha Bhatia and Morgan Hinchey

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

HEESU LEE

4th Year, BME

“I really liked the study abroad trip. I became so mature, as you can tell. It was cool going to different places, and while I am usually not the person to be in charge of things, I looked up where to go and saw interesting things. It was very spontaneous. It was fun to be spontaneous.”

4th Year, BME

TIM GASSNER

“A class that I really enjoy is the Intro to Biomedical Design class. It is an interesting combination of industrial design and biomedical engineering. I am in Startup Lab right now, and after taking these classes. I would like to have my own startup as well in the near future.”

COLTON THOMAS

4th Year, BME

“The reason I choose aerospace engineering was because I love rockets. I can talk to you all day about rockets. Right now in senior design we are working on a CubeSat proposal for NASA. It is a proposal to go to a binary asteroid system, which is a larger asteroid with a smaller asteroid orbiting around it. We are going to join ESA (European Space Agency) and AIM (Asteroid Impact Mission), and they will deploy us from around 100 meters before NASA comes in with its spacecraft and plunges into the asteroid. We are also going to take a spectroscopy of the asteroid. The reason for doing these things is to understand the collision course and how to redirect an asteroid if it’s ever necessary. Outside of being an AE, I have a part time job at Nike and am working on a side project with Mo for the InventurePrize, which is actually why I am here in the BME department. We want to redesign a way for babies to take liquid vitamins, and I am doing the CAD portion of this project. I am always coming up with ideas at work, and so I decided this would be the easier one to work on earlier on in my career.”

RISPR/Cas9 is a relatively new tool in molecular biology with an enormous variety of potential applications in genomic editing. CRISPR stands for “Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats”, and Cas9 is an associated protein that can induce double-stranded breaks (DSBs) in DNA. CRISPR itself is a form of adaptive immunity found in specific archaea and bacteria. In Type II CRISPR, “invading DNA from viruses or plasmids is cut into small fragments and incorporated into a CRISPR locus amidst a series of short repeats (around 20 bps). The loci are transcribed, and transcripts are then processed to generate small RNAs (crRNA – CRISPR RNA), which are used to guide effector endonucleases that target invading DNA based on sequence complementarity”1.

The genomic editing applications of CRISPR/Cas9 utilize the same mechanisms as the CRISPR system in bacteria. A single guide RNA (sgRNA) can be designed to direct Cas9 to a particular sequence of DNA next to a specific 2-5 nucleotide sequence called the Protospacer Associated Motif (PAM). Specifically, this process takes advantage of how Cas9 induce DSBs in DNA [1]. When combined in vitro, a DSB is generated at the specified site, and a DNA repair mechanism called Non-Homologous End Joining (NHEJ) is activated. Since NHEJ is error-prone, the repaired DNA may contain insertions or deletions (commonly referred to as “indels”), which can alter the desired gene1.

up to five base mismatches within the protospacer region”1, there is potential for unwanted mutations to occur. This could be highly dangerous especially if these mutations occur in critical genes. Although off-target effects using CRISPR/Cas9 can be minimized [1], they still present an obstable to using CRISPR/Cas9 genomic editing technology in vivo. Cas9 and generally other programmable endonucleases are very promising for the future of biomedical research, especially since they possess the potential for personalized therapies, as seen in the example of therapy for HIV2. Moving forward, however, minimizing off-target effects is a critical step towards making CRISPR/Cas9 an even more effective tool at treating disease at the genomic level. Works Cited [1] New England Biolabs. “CRISPR/Cas9 and Targeted Genome Editing: A New Era in Molecular Biology.” 2014. Retrieved from https://www.neb.com/tools-and-resources/feature-articles/crispr-cas9-and-targeted-genomeediting-a-new-era-in-molecular-biology [2] Zhu W, Lei R, Duff YL, Li J, Guo F, Wainberg MA and Liang C, (2015) The CRISPR/Cas9 system inactivates latent HIV-1 proviral DNA. Retrovirology 12:22. doi:10.1186/s12977-015-0150-z

CRISPR/Cas9 is not simply limited to gene knockdown, however. Through the use of a deactivated form of Cas9 (dCas9), gene silencing and gene activation are also enabled1. Yet dCas9 has no endonuclease activity, meaning it does not generate DSBs at its target site. However, it can still bind to DNA, and depending on the site where dCas9 binds, it can either largely hinder transcription from occurring (gene silencing) or activate and promote transcription. DNA can also be visualized through the use of dCas9 fused to a fluorescent protein1. In 2015, a research team found that CRISPR/Cas9 “efficiently mutate and deactivates HIV-1 proviral DNA in latently infected Jurkat cells” [2]. The researchers also found that “HIV-1 gene expression and virus production were significantly diminished” [2]. These findings mention just one exciting potential role of CRISPR/ Cas9 in retroviral therapies at the genome level. The genomic editing applications of CRISPR/Cas9 seem only restrained by potential off-target effects. Since “Cas9 can tolerate

Image of ERG Test (Photos: Erdene Tumurbataar)

2 BIOTECH PAGE TITLE

MAR ISSUE 5

LABS

CARDIOMEMS INC By Anirudh Joshi

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

any successful startups have passed through the halls of Georgia Tech, and one of the recent breakthrough stories has been from CardioMEMS Inc. Currently a part of St. Jude Medical, CardioMEMS Inc. initially developed its core technology in Georgia Tech’s Microelectromechanical Systems lab. Their flagship product is a paperclip-sized device that helps physicians wirelessly manage heart failure and aneurysms. The device has a sensor which monitors pressure in the pulmonary artery and outputs information that is then sent over to a doctor who can provide medication. Realizing the potential of the product, St. Jude Medical made an initial sixty million dollar investment in CardioMEMS with a view to buy the company later on. In 2014, CardioMEMS received a massive boost by gaining FDA approval for their product and subsequently were acquired by St. Jude Medical in a deal worth close to half a billion dollars. The company now finds itself in a near perfect situation with the resources of a multinational corporation and the energy of a startup. Although their revolutionary technology is already being cited as one of the most stable cardiovascular sensors in the market, there is still a long way to go. Heart failure is an expensive medical problem with repeated hospitalizations, but the technology being developed at this company will reduce the requirement of expensive hospitalizations for the patients. CardioMEMS are expected to be a significant contributor to St. Jude Medical’s profit in the future, as higher revenues are expected to be generated for the reduced profile version of the device. CardioMEMS’ ability to raise capital in Atlanta is a huge boost to the city and shows that moving to the typical hotbeds of venture capital funding like the Bay Area or Boston is not necessary. Apart from funding, CardioMEMS has had access to the some of the best engineering talent and resources in the country thanks to its proximity to Georgia Tech. Here’s to hoping for further success stories from medical startups in the Atlanta area!

THAT’S SO BME...

TALE OF TWO LAB COURSES By Yinglin Li

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

esearch experience is invaluable to many students interested in graduate school, medical school and even industry after Tech. As part of the biomedical engineering curriculum here at Tech are some classes that provide students with an exposure to the research side of the field: BMED 3110 and 3610, the quantitative engineering physiology labs. Taught by Dr. Essy Behravesh and his team of teaching assistants, these lab courses challenge the students by giving them incomplete information at the start of a lab to encourage students to plan and complete the experiment with real world conditions. Students also learn to use LabVIEW in their experiments to help them with everything from data collection to data analysis and can apply the conceptual knowledge gained in other classes. LabVIEW, short for Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench, is an important part of the class and does take some time to get used to. As a type of programming, LABVIEW has many different functions and parameters with which beginners tend to fumble but are eventually able create specific, data-collecting applications. In fact, many students remark that previous programming experience with MatLab helped them get familiar with using LabVIEW, although differences in use between BMED 3110 and 3610 still cause for a learning curve.

By Diane Nguyen

Another important component of BMED 3110 and 3610 is cell culture. Cell culture is a major part of biomedical research, and if anyone has done BME research here at Tech, they most likely started with feeding cells. For students in BMED 3110, cell culture can be difficult, not because of principle or technique but rather due to the need for good time management. Students only occasionally finish their labs within the 3-hour period, with many groups staying late and coming in on extra days to ensure their experiments are performed and completed as planned. Teams quickly learn to plan their experiment in detail before starting the lab to ensure no mess-ups and do-overs, which could mean unnecessary additional hours at work. However, despite careful scheduling and planning, students learn from their time in the engineering physiology labs that the unexpected can, and definitely will, happen. As they progress from 3110 to 3610, students claim to have become more experienced and equipped to handle these unexpected situations, and though these classes come with their challenges, students express that both classes have been incredibly useful for preparing them for future research and lab work.

INDUSTRY

MAR ISSUE 5

INDUSTRY

Stock photos of Whitaker. (Photos: David Van)

T3 LABS

By Brandon Holt Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

ne might have noticed T3 Labs’ slick logo from the back cover of the Pioneer or may already know about the company from its crucial role in the pre-clinical market. A company aficionado may even know that the three T’s stand for Translational Testing and Training Laboratories. However, even he or she is probably unaware that the lab did not always go by this name.

academic labs do not even have, T3 Labs has solidified its position as a bridge between pure research and clinical testing. While this covers the translational testing portion of its company body, T3 Labs also act as a training lab. Within this, it teaches surgeons how to use recently T3-approved medical devices and provide information to clinical sales representatives about T3 products. T3 Labs frequently holds large training sessions and plays a vital role in the market of clinical medicine, and although it may seem hidden, the translational in “Translational Testing and Training Laboratories” reflects T3 Labs’ significant involvement with academic research. In addition to working primarily with Emory’s Cardiothoracic Research Lab (CTRL), T3 Labs also runs academic studies with faculty from several departments at Emory and Georgia Tech as well as other academic institutions.

The organization began in 1999 as a subset of St. Joseph’s (formerly known as the American Cardiovascular Research Institute) and was later purchased by the Emory/St. Joseph’s Joint Operating Company as an individual entity. They rebranded it to T3 Labs after deciding to focus on the preclinical testing and training of medical products, which is now T3 Labs’ core purpose. T3 Labs fulfills a unique and crucial niche in that it takes newly minted products from the nation’s largest academic and industrial innovators and runs in vivo models and tests to ensure their readiness for clinical trials or even immediate use. In fact, as a licensed third party, T3 Labs conducts procedures that are GLP (Good Laboratory Practice) compliant, which essentially means the quality of its work can be submitted for FDA approval, and the accuracy and reproducibility of their data is verified. T3 Labs also plays a significant role in screening for the safety of these devices, and the majority of the products it tests are medical devices from large companies and startups, which may include prototypes designed and built at the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI) affiliated with and located at Georgia Tech. With its GLP certification, which requires a certain level of quality many

T3 Labs are located at Tech Enterprises Park (TEP), where it has a world-class facility that has seven procedure rooms, including three full hospital-grade operating rooms and a fixed cath lab. Here, the majority of testing is conducted on cardiovascular and orthopedic products. Examples of cardiovascular testing include heart stents and pacemaker research, while orthopedic testing largely deals with spinal surgery and bone graft testing. T3 Labs has a tight functioning team of 40 full time members, which include program management (eg. members qualified to serve as primary investigators and study directors in order to lead the testing of different devices, and a dedicated training team

that works with physicians, residents and engineers from all therapeutic areas from across the globe), a quality assurance unit, technical staff (eg. the surgeons and technicians who perform tests and collect data), consultants and vendors, and their academic partners (eg. members of the Georgia Institute of Technology). The mission statement of T3 labs is “to provide high value, compliant, preclinical testing and training services to medical and drug developers.” This certainly holds, as its multi-functional and dynamic role in the clinical research and medical device industry is unparalleled by most other labs. With its pivotal place in the scientific world, T3 Labs certainly stands as a fantastic job option for Georgia Tech Biomedical engineering graduates. In fact, the T3 program manager who was interviewed for this article graduated with a biomedical engineering degree from Georgia Tech in 2008! If interested in reading more about this forward-thinking company, one can do so on at T3labs.org or can contact a representative by phone (404-251-0600) or by email (T3labs@emory.edu).

CAREER

BEHIND THE BIOTECH CAREER FAIR By Yinglin Li

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

or students interested in securing an internship or co-op in the science and engineering fields, the Biotech Career Fair is a wonderful opportunity to meet company representatives face-to-face. This year marks the 11th year the Biotech Career Fair has been in place: since its start, hundreds of students have attended and interacted with representatives from over 25 companies. Organizing such a large event takes months of planning and preparation, and for this issue, the Pioneer had the opportunity to talk with the fair’s co-chair, Liane Tellier, about the logistics behind the fair. A committee of about ten people is formed in June or July each year to provide ample time to plan for the fair, which takes place in September. During these months, Tellier said the members “reach out to any and all companies we feel may want to attend our Biotech career fair, and a lot of times that includes companies that have previously attended.” In addition to staple companies like St. Jude Medical, Boston Scientific, and Johnson & Johnson, the committee also looks for new companies to provide alternate opportunities for the students, such as in health IT or marketing. A section of the career fair’s website allows students to submit their resumes ahead of time so that these companies can preview them. Before the fair, the Biotech Career Fair committee also dedicates at least two members to pre-fair events that help students increase their chances of securing their dream internship and co-op. Each year, Sally Gerrish, the Georgia Tech biomedical engineering counselor for everything related to industry, sends out an announcement detailing the events. This year, these events included alumni panels, interview and resume prep sessions, and a luncheon with Boston Scientific. Each is a great, personal and free chance to get critical information about how to prepare for both the career fair and career endeavors in the future. Meanwhile, the Day-Of committee member, Muaz Rushidi, handles the organization of the booths and floors. While planning, Rushidi looks at which companies will go on which floor, the number of people per booth, where the line will form, and how many booths each floor can fit. If a company had an extremely long line in previous years, the committee will ask them to bring additional representatives to shorten the line, or give them extra space. The layout of the career fair, from signing in to leaving, is designed so that students can get a smooth and efficient experience. The day of the career fair is a busy day, and there is a lot to be done by opening time. To make it less stressful for everyone involved, the committee sets up company booths ahead of time and checks companies in as soon as possible; in fact, food is provided to incentivize company representatives to arrive by 9am! With all of this preparation, it is no wonder that the Biotechnology Career Fair was yet again a success, with many students happy about the event’s outcomes. Ending career fair week better than when they started, those who attended the fair are very grateful for all the work put in by the committee into making opportunities happen!

MAR ISSUE 5

ABROAD

CONFERENCE

ENGINEERING ABROAD: CHILE

iGEM

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

By Dhara Patel

de Concepción is the amount of group work in the curriculum, which ultimately provided a welcome sense of continuity in an environment where a lot of other factors varied.

ne of the coolest ways to experience engineering is by studying abroad, as it provides the ability to learn new skills from around the world as well to experience different cultures. In fact, Georgia Tech offers many programs to study abroad in every major, and for Jacqueline Larouche, a search on the Office of International Education website turned up an exchange program at a school with a biomedical engineering program, the Universidad de Concepción.

Outside the classroom, while in Chile, Jacqueline lived in a “pensión” – the Hispanic version of a hostel – with two professors and two exchange students from Germany. While a little awkward, this arrangement was a unique way to really get to know the faculty and branch out in making global friendships. With her new friends, Jacqueline traveled all over Chile on the weekends, hiking the Parque Tricahue and walking through the Aracama desert, the driest in the world. On these travels, she was able to try some Chilean food but was unfortunately limited due to her vegetarian diet, as many main dishes would highlight the “slabs of meat in the center of the plate.” To prove her point, Jacqueline detailed a common and famous dish named bistec a la probre, which includes french fries, steak, and a fried egg. Jacqueline did, however, enjoy the avocados and fruits there, and mostly cooked for herself.

Jacqueline attended the Universidad de Concepción last spring, where she took biomechanics, systems physiology, physics 2, and statics - all of which transferred over, credit-wise. For Jacqueline, the biggest differences to doing an exchange program rather than a faculty-led one, such as Galway, are the language barriers and class structures. Imagine, for example, studying an already-difficult subject such as systems physiology, but in a different language! Thankfully, all the professors and Jacqueline’s fellow students were more than willing to help her when she did not understand something.

Another one of the interesting cultural idiosyncrasies that Jacqueline encountered on this exchange was the school’s “hazing” policy. At the Universidad de Concepción, all freshmen are welcomed by being assigned in pairs, and then having to cut each other’s clothes with scissors and fling mud at the other. After all the students finish, the muddy freshmen, complete with tattered clothes, have to run around town and beg for money!

The other primary difference, class structure, arose as a result of variations in curriculums. Even within the United States, the same course can be taught differently depending on the college yet include the same general concepts, and for Jacqueline, systems physiology was taught by six or seven teachers at the Universidad de Concepción, each covering a different body system. The statics course she took was also more comparable to BMED 3400 (Introduction to Biomechanics) at Georgia Tech except with the addition of some applied physiology, while her biomechanics course was based more on anatomy and investigated material properties of muscles, tendons, and ligaments. In addition to curriculum differences, Jacqueline found that the grading scale was quite distinctive from Georgia Tech’s in that the concept of A’s does not really exist there. Even if a student has the highest grade in the class, as Jacqueline did for one of hers, chances are that said student will end up with a B, and that a large majority of the class will fail. However, funnily enough, something that does seem to be common between both Georgia Tech and the Universidad

Also, because Chile and especially the Universidad are so liberal and politically active, Jacqueline’s town was often involved in marches, causing classes to suddenly become cancelled due to blocked streets. In fact, during final exam seasons, all the students went on strike and collectively agreed not to take the tests, which ended up delaying finals from the first week in July to the second week of August. Jacqueline, though, had to take hers early so she that would not miss her flight back home. The biggest thing Jacqueline says she has learned is to be more open to cultural change. In her own words, “as an American, you have all these cultural ideas that you don’t realize you have…until you go into another culture and judge them because you’re not used to their cultural ideas.” Culture shock was definitely something that she struggled with, but thanks to the help of the amazing people she met there, Jacqueline was able to develop not only her BME but also life skills through an unforgettable adventure.

MAR ISSUE 5

By Brandon Holt

very fall, a synthetic biology conference, International Genetic Engineered Machines (iGEM), is held in Boston, Massachusetts in the Hynes Convention Center. The iGEM conference initially started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003 and is centered on team-based competition using “bio-bricks,” or standard parts. Each year, nearly 300 teams from top universities around the globe bring their latest synthetic biology research to the conference to compete. This past year, I was fortunate enough to take part in Georgia Tech’s iGEM team and thus be able to share some of my experiences that I had learning about other university’s research. At the heart of iGem is the “bio-brick”, a genetic sequence that conforms to a restriction-enzyme assembly standard. When a university engineers a useful genetic sequence that has a new function, they put it in a standard form and submit it to the iGEM registry of standard parts. Over the years, the iGEM registry has accumulated over 20,000 bio-bricks. Now, iGEM teams pull parts from the registry to advance and improve on their research, creating a highly interlocked community of synthetic biology research that spans the globe. At the competition itself, each team presents their structures to a panel of judges and an auditorium full of other iGEM participants and professors. The panel judges teams on the quality of their research, the professionalism in their presentation, and even the level of community outreach they did to incorporate their project to the real world and to raise awareness about the benefits of synthetic biology. This year’s Georgia Tech iGEM Team worked on using a novel phage display system to select for and evolve a “clickase” protein with an innovative function: the ability to act as an enzyme in vivo for copper-catalyzed alkyne-azide cycloaddition (CuAAC). More specifically, for the CuAAC reaction to act as quickly as it does, a copper catalyst is required at concentrations toxic to cells, making it undesirable in vivo. As such, our team’s protein is intended to substitute for this catalyst and make the CuAAC reaction viable again, because it has a long list of potential benefits in drugdiscovery and delivery, as well as in advanced molecular tagging.

potential results that extend beyond producing better enzyme replacements. One team’s presentation initially caught my eye: “The Pattern Formation Game” by UT-Tokyo. Their research involved biological patterns for which the concept of “Turing patterns” are largely responsible; a Turing pattern is a proposed mechanism for the process by which non-uniformity may arise naturally out of a uniform state. In particular, the state that the UTTokyo iGem team explored involved that of an activator and an inhibitor, each affecting the other in a manner that gives rise to an overall pattern. However, because living organisms’ development can be very complex, it is difficult to investigate Turing patterns in vivo. To address this, the team created synthetic systems involving E. coli cells, which represented the intercellular interactions between activator and inhibitor, to study the Turing Pattern and came up with very cool visualizations! I find the quantification of patterns in living systems very intriguing, so I was pleased to see a project with such originality in combining biology and computer science. And, of course, I had to watch the presentation of the university who won the competition in 2014: UC Heidelberg. UC Heidelberg’s project focused on functional nucleic acids and their ability to act as biocatalysts for many reactions and bind specifically to any target. The team developed a program to redesign the Western blot and design any aptamer in under two hours on a typical laptop, which would in theory be 100 times cheaper than current costs. Another team, TU Darmstadt, presented on “Building with Light”, a project centered on improving the biocompatibility and effectiveness of 3D SLA printing – which involves a sheet of polymer that solidifies upon interaction with a light source – with a monomer toolbox. As a whole, the iGEM competition does good for the realm of synthetic biology and for the advancement of undergraduate research. It provides a way for undergrads to control their own scientific questions and to learn to direct research in a professional and intelligent way. Recruitment will soon be underway for the 2016 Georgia Tech iGEM team, so keep an eye out for information on how to apply!

Synethetic biology, however, has a range of purposes and

3 INDUSTRY

MAR ISSUE 5

INDUSTRY PAGE TITLE

I AM A SENIOR SCIENTIST AT GENENTECH M

Stock photos of Whitaker. (Photos: David Van)

By Richard Carano Senior Scientist at Genentech

y name is Dr. Richard Carano and I am a senior scientist at Genentech. I use models of diseases to evaluate drugs and do research in biomedical imaging to understand how drugs work in the body.

image analysis of photomicrographs of the cornea. After receiving my PhD, I became the senior scientist at Genentech. I often do technical work, which usually tends to be related to software or data analysis, but I also have more managerial duties now than I did before. I am part of multi-disciplinary project teams that work together to address specific questions related to biology and drug development and have multiple ongoing projects. For example, one of my teams is trying to identify which imaging techniques would be best for different situations. On a typical day, I meet with numerous people to discuss how best to approach a problem, deal with logistical issues, and try to figure out how best to get something implemented and tested.

I have always enjoyed math and biology, so I knew that I wanted to do something that tied the two together when I started college. I looked for any applications (especially those focusing in engineering) that were related to medicine and biology and ended up received my master’s degree in electrical engineering (EE) with a focus in biomedical engineering (BME). After that, I worked for several companies in software engineering, mostly doing work that involved image and signal processing. I started work in an entry-level engineering position and was given a small number of projects that I was actually able to contribute to thanks to my education.

One of my other main duties as a manager is to hire people. As hiring manager, I filter resumes to find the people that my company may be interested in hiring, after which I make a recommendation to my boss, who makes the final decisions. During interviews, I look for characteristics like knowledge, experience, and collaboration skills. Being able to work in a team is vital to the success of a BME. In an interview, I like to see that people understand what is listed on their resumes, and that they can further explain or answer questions about each part of their resume. I also look for people who are competent in the areas they have worked in.

My expectations of working in industry were pretty accurate – I first worked for a large company where the assignments were very focused – but I soon realized that I wanted a research position. I thought I needed to get a PhD to get that kind of job, so I went back to school. At that time, my goal was to focus on medical imaging and MRI technology. I was not sure if I should pursue a PhD in BME or EE, but in the end it didn’t really matter because the type of research I was doing at the PhD level was much more important than choosing a degree field. I ended up receiving my PhD in BME with a focus on MRI technology, and I did research on

If you want to advance in industry, you have to have great interview

skills. You also need to demonstrate that you, as an individual, will contribute to a team and are needed for the projects you will be working on. You need to perform well, know your field well, and work hard so that you will be able to excel at your position. Then, when it comes time to take on greater responsibilities, you will be more than ready, will do well, and will be the person picked for the job. Biomedical engineering is a broad field and can be approached from many different disciplines, whether it is chemical, electrical, or mechanical engineering. As an undergrad, the most important thing you can do is work hard, even as a freshman. Try to find areas within your field that you find interesting. This will make the “working hard” part of school a lot easier! Sometimes the toughest thing is to find the area that you find the most rewarding. Then you need to keep up that drive and keep working hard and setting goals and achieving those goals.

graduate. The last major piece of advice that I can give you is to specialize in something that you truly care about. BME is usually a very broad program that may be preparing students for graduate education. At some point, you need to develop a good skill set if you want to enter industry. You need to become an expert in some aspect of your field if you want to get a good job. The undergraduate program at my school, for example, was designed to prepare students for graduate school. I got great advice from one of my professors at the time. He told me that it was important to develop good skills that you need when you work, and I’m telling you the same thing he told me because I completely agree with what he said. Foster an analytical mind, be ready for memorization, and stimulate your interests. The rest will follow.

The key to success is working hard and enjoying what you do. Along the way, you need to make sure that you get a general understanding of the field and specialize in something that truly interests you. Don’t expect anything more than to understand the field. Pay attention in your introductory classes, because they provide an understanding for what kinds of projects you may work on as a biomedical engineer. Make sure you develop a set of basic and marketable skills from engineering courses, because they are extremely useful after you

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STUDENT HOSPITAL CONNECTIONS By Sahil Pujara

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

back and show that they can represent Georgia Tech in a good light at these hospitals.”

omething all pre-health students know is that it is important to build a well-balanced resume during your undergraduate years. While academic success is crucial, it is important to illustrate to medical schools that there is more to you than your grades, and that you’re truly passionate about going into the field of medicine and helping those around you.

Mehra, who is entering his second year as the president of SHC, started as a volunteer his freshman year. He learned a lot from being in the hospital, and got to interact with doctors as well as patients.

One of the best ways to show this is through hospital volunteering. Not only is it a fantastic opportunity to gain experience in the field of medicine, it is a great way to give back to your local community with your time and service. Several hospitals in Atlanta offer the opportunity to volunteer; however, the application process, which includes paperwork, background checks, and vaccinations, can take up to three months to complete before a student can even set foot into a hospital, which can often discourage peoples from applying.

“I really learned from those doctors. A lot of those doctors are genuinely nice people. They’ll pull you aside and they’ll show you things about what’s going on, and they’re willing to teach you.” Establishing these types of professional relationships is essential for pre-health students looking to get a leg-up in an increasingly competitive pool of medical school applicants. However, the application process shows that SHC is more than a resume boost. “What we really want to see from students is that they want to give back to the community, and that it’s not necessarily for personal gains. We know you want to go into medicine but…you’re doing this job because you want to give back to the community.”

Student Health Connections at Georgia Tech is changing that. Not only does the student organization cut the application process down to two weeks, but it also provides shuttling to and from the hospitals for those students lacking their own means. Established in 2007, the organization is closely involved with Grady Memorial Hospital and Atlanta Medical Center, two of the biggest hospitals in the downtown area. The officers running the program are constantly working to help Georgia Tech pre-health students get a foothold into the field of medicine.

Once students are accepted into the program, they have the opportunity to volunteer in several different departments across their hospital of choice, including the emergency room, operating room, trauma center, and over fifty others. Each department gives students a window to explore a different side of the field of medicine.

This program has been growing since its inception and has established an esteemed reputation not only as a service organization at Georgia Tech, but also with health professionals all over Atlanta, which is what allows it to streamline the application process. In 2012, the program won an award as the best ongoing service project on campus, and it chooses its members carefully. Less than half of this year’s 140 applicants have ended up with a volunteering position.

Despite all of these benefits – the hours, the resume boost, and the hands-on experience – students can hope to gain much more from this program. “You get to meet these doctors and reach out to people within the hospital setting…and almost all of them are really cool people that want to help you out. They understand that you’re taking time out of your day to help them…you learn to think on your feet, and you learn how to see what’s going on around you and adjust to it.”

“We want students who are dedicated to volunteering,” says SHC president Abhi Mehra. “We want students who will come

The program hopes to expand not only in the size of its applicant pool but also its network of hospital involvement in the downtown Atlanta area. For Georgia Tech students, Student Hospital Connections is one of the best ways to get involved with the prehealth community on campus, and it will continue to do so for years to come.

DR. GABRIEL KWONG By Andrew Pan

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

s an undergraduate at the University of California Berkeley, Dr. Gabriel Kwong – now Associate Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory – knew that he wanted to study biology but had always enjoyed math and physics. Thus, majoring in bioengineering felt only natural to him, and after his undergraduate years (which he felt went by too quickly), Kwong decided to pursue a graduate degree at the California Institute of Technology. While there, he worked in the lab of Dr. James Heath, a renowned chemist who aided in the synthesis of the C60 compound that won Richard Smalley, Robert Curl, and Harold Kroto the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Afterwards, Kwong went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Sangeeta N. Bhatia to develop innovative nanotechnologies for cancer research and global health. Kwong now runs the laboratory for Synthetic Immunity on the third floor of the Marcus Nanotechnology building at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He came to Georgia Tech after several professors reached out to him, and, more importantly, for the academic atmosphere, one that creates the perfect opportunity to run an immunoengineering lab and can be attributed to the proximities of and relationship between Georgia Tech and Emory University. A recent arrival to the Coulter Department, Kwong teaches BMED 2210 in a unique “Socratic” style. In other words, he engages his students by getting them to think about how equations are structured, and he likes his students to approach exams and homework as learning opportunities rather than frustrating obstacles.

Outside the classroom, Dr. Kwong’s research focuses on immunoengineering, and more specifically, on cancer immunotherapy. His research differs from biologists who work to discover the fundamental mechanisms by which immune cells target cancerous cells. Rather, Kwong focuses on designing new methods and technologies to exploit these fundamental discoveries. His future research areas include discovering new cancer antigens, as well as enhancing current immunotherapies. What Kwong enjoys the most about his work is the academic freedom: the ability to tackle problems that he personally finds interesting, and the thrill from solving these problems over a long period of time. Aside from work, Dr. Kwong enjoys watching American Ninja Warrior and is learning the acoustic guitar. He also enjoys frequenting the gym and, if he had the time, would like to hike the whole Appalachian trail. Valuable lessons that he has learned include the importance of collaboration and learning from others and that no single person is smarter than a collective group, concepts that could very well apply to studying at Georgia Tech!

Dr. Kwong does research on synthetic immunity. (Photo: Submitted)

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INNOVATE FOR IMPACT By Vidisha Holsambre

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

At the same time, physicians would need a Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled device specifically dedicated to accessing and tracking the medical records stored on the chip. While personal smartphones are a convenient possibility, the risk factors associated with losing the smartphone – such as a loss of confidentiality – suggest the need for a device specifically dedicated for record-keeping purposes, which the Communic-Aid team is currently looking into.

NICEF and ARM, in collaboration with global product strategy and design firm ‘frog’, have introduced the “Wearables for Good” design challenge. The focus of this initiative is the creation of innovative medical devices targeted towards maternal and child health in emerging economies. Out of a pool of 2000 applicants, or 250 teams, the top ten finalists include a group of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory’s very own students: William Higgins, Katie Fiedler, Heather Issen, Madison Lewis, and Isabelle Vernon, presenting the world with Communic-AID.

In designing the device, thorough research was conducted by the team to determine if its product was addressing an actual pain point in patient care. Team members observed the aid work conditions in Haiti and Nepal as well as the management of victim care, in addition to interviewing interviewed an aid worker in South Sudan and a Georgia Tech BME Alum in Nigeria, Anu Parvatiyar, on the current healthcare infrastructure in impoverished areas in these nations.

Communic-AID is a system used to keep track of medical records in a post-disaster context. Through the use of near field communication technology, medical data is stored in a simple bracelet that will be distributed to each patient that visits a hospital for any form of treatment. This device targets regions affected by natural disasters, where the lack of necessities is acutely felt in hospitals and clinics. With a flood of patients, hospitals have to be more efficient than ever; physicians have resorted to archaic methods of organization by marking a patient’s chest in permanent marker with the treatment he or she will be receiving, for example. As shown, in many post-disaster communities, highly organized and efficient medical record keeping is virtually non-existent, which is where Communic-AID steps in.

The Communic-Aid team is set to find out in November whether it will be one of the two winning teams to be awarded $15,000 and a startup package with frog. At the moment, Communic-AID is a minimally viable product, and the team plans to use $8000 of potential funding to develop a functioning prototype. The manufacturing cost of the actual bracelet is around $2, with the 2 KB NFC chip costing 75 cents, so the majority of the allocated prototyping funds is for the development of an app to be used by the medical professionals. This system would initially be tested in IDP camps, as the low infrastructure environment resembles post disaster recovering communities, and highlight the major areas of improvement Communic-AID will require. Ideally, in two to three years, the team sees Communic-AID in the first responders kit for areas affected by natural disasters.

This system takes the need for that large, organized infrastructure and consolidates it within a simple band around the wrist. Now, when patients enter a healthcare facility and are initially diagnosed, they are given an empty bracelet. With every visit, the medicines administered, important medical history, effects of the current treatment plan, and any other essential information are all stored on the wristband. On a subsequent visit, the doctor can then easily access this pertinent medical information and determine the most effective treatment plan from there. The information on the band is edited with each visit, drastically reducing any confusion about a patient’s health and ensuring that the patient receives the most effective care.

Even if they do not receive this funding, according to Higgins, the team plans to reach out to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to pair with the foundation’s global health project subsection as well as other organizations with similar goals. Higgins hopes to incorporate Communic-AID by the end of this year. While the team still has a quite a journey ahead of them, they are very excited about the potential implications Communic-AID could have in the increased efficiency and accuracy of patient treatment around the world, and we look forward to hearing more about their endeavours in the future!

MENTORSHIP PROGRAM By Linda Tian

Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department

s one of the largest majors at Georgia Tech, it can be difficult for biomedical engineering (BME) students to find a niche within the program. Since the creation of the BME Learning Commons last fall, the Learning Commons team has been working on addressing this issue. With the introduction of the BME mentorship program last year, a two-tiered program was born, where freshmen and transfer BME students were paired with older biomedical engineering students who acted as student mentors, and each student mentor was paired with a BME alumni. From the alumni, older students received important career advice and job opportunities; from the older students, the new BME students learned how to navigate classes and coursework, and were able to create close relationships within the biomedical engineering department.

to do that.”

Initially, Athena, a freshman BME student, joined the mentorship program because she simply “wanted to learn more about being a BME.” Athena hopes that her involvement with the mentorship program will be able to give her a more personal look at what it takes to become a biomedical engineer. Connor agrees, saying that “a large part of the relationship mentors-mentees need to have goes beyond the academic and having the details and personal connections really helps with that.” Many of Athena’s initial concerns about classes, the pre-health option, and BMEspecific extracurricular activities, were addressed through talking to Connor, her student mentor, or to other mentors within her house. Within a few months of joining the mentorship program and talking to various student mentors, In an effort to expose new freshmen and transfer Athena feels that “this is where I want to be” and is excited to students to the diverse career options within the biomedical start her first BME course next semester. engineering program and to foster the student mentor-mentee With the addition of the new houses concept to the BME relationship, a new ‘houses’ concept was introduced to the program this fall. There are currently four houses, and each mentorship program, the Learning Commons team house contains several student mentors and mentees. Each hopes to help new BME students see the wide range student mentor within a given house has a different area of of opportunities that can be done with a biomedical interest within the biomedical engineering field: some will be engineering degree. Apart from diversifying the pursuing medical school or graduate degrees, while others exposure freshman and transfer students will be starting industry jobs, military service, or working in receive, the houses concept is designed research labs. Connor Sofia, a BME student mentor, thinks to help strengthen the mentor-mentee the new houses are a “fantastic idea” because they help relationship, ultimately making engineering expose new BME students to the major’s diversity. Connor biomedical believes that the new houses are “very valuable” because students feel more at home “if my mentee decides to change her mind [about what she within their department. First year Michelle Prine is an active participant in the wants to do with her degree], it gives her a great opportunity BME mentoring program. (Photo: Morgan Hinchey)

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