VOLUME VIII | NOV/DEC 2013 | ISSUE 3
PIONEER.GATECH.EDU
PIONEER COULTER COLLEGE
Check out what our Georgia Tech team has to say about this competition
THE COULTER DEPARTMENT STUDENT PUBLICATION OF GEORGIA TECH AND EMORY
2 PAGE TITLE
NOV ISSUE 3
From the Editor in Chief PIONEER
Established 2007
Hello, everyone! November is finally here! With the semester wrapping up, students are busy interviewing for medical school, full-time positions, and co-op/internships. I wish everyone the best of luck with studying for final exams. New recruits of Pioneer have written many of our newer articles included in this issue, and I hope you enjoy all the great content that they have generated. In this issue of Pioneer, we cover involvement of students in the Coulter College competition that took place this past September. Additionally, we take a peek into what the Innovation Factory does as a company through the eyes of their Vice President of Business Development and Chief Executive Officer. Also in this issue is coverage of the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI) that is home to former BMED 2300: Problem Based Learning Instructor Mark McJunkin. Also in this issue is a continuation of our After Hours series. For this November issue, we bring you a feature on Kim Paige, our great freshman advisor who continues to guide our new students toward success in their futures in the department. Also new to this issue is a piece targeted to our Graduate Student audience on how to build strong PI/ Instructor-Graduate Student relationships. For more exciting content, flip through our issue! You’ve probably seen the Pioneer comment box in the U. A. Whitaker lobby near Pioneer’s main newsstand. As you pass by, we ask that you drop us a slip of paper with your thoughts about the department, a funny moment when you’ve been doing something BME-related, or even draw us a BMErelated picture. For more regular updates on the happenings of the biotechnology community, feel free to like our page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/gtpioneer and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/pioneergt. Additionally, take a glance at more online content on our site at thepioneer.gatech.edu. As always, feel free to contact us by e-mail at thepioneer@gatech.edu.
EDITOR IN CHIEF Harish Srinimukesh FACULTY SPONSOR Barbara Fasse, Ph.D. OPERATIONS William Sessions SECRETARY Jaemin Sung TREASURY Hee Su Lee PUBLIC RELATIONS Alexandra Low WEBMASTERS Sara Khalek
Jaheda Khanam Troy Kleber Jimmy Nguyen Nafiz Sheikh Elizabeth Walker
STAFF WRITERS Steven Touchton Jr
Jonathan Austin Catherine Chou Shi (Amy) Hui Anirudh Joshi Nina Mohebbi Nithya Paranthaman Dhara Patel Valeriya Popova Abigail Riddle Hifza Sakhi Linda Tian Prateek (Neil) Viswanathan Wells Yang Iva Zivojinovic Tino Zhang
EDITORS Jackson Hair
Nader Abdullahi Hardika Dhir Amanda Klinker Arun Kumar Meera Nathan Fatiesa Sulejmani Kristen Weirich Melanie Yoshimura
With warm regards, Harish M. Srinimukesh Editor-in-Chief Pioneer
LAYOUT EDITORS Marisa Casola
INSIDE PIONEER RECENT PUBLICATIONS……………………….…………..…………..…………...…...…...... 3 AFTER HOURS................................……..…………………..…….…….……….......….…..... 4 Having a Passion
HAPPY BIRTHDAY................................……..…………………..…….…….……….......….…. 4 Wallace Coulter
COULTER COLLEGE………………………………………..………………………...……........ 5 Take Design from Start to Finish INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT…….…………………..……………...……….…….....………….….. 6 The Business Side of BME BME ANSWERS...............…..………………...………………………..…..…...………............ 7 STUDENT SPOTLIGHT...………….…………………...…………..……….………..…............ 8 Grant Stearns GCMI...........................……………………………………………..……….…………….…....... 9 From Concept to Prototype: a Blink of an Eye GRADUATE STUDENT DEVELOPMENT………………………...…………………………… 10 Relationship BMED 1000 ALUMNI INTERVIEWS.……..……………………………………...……............ 11 What do you want to be when you grow up? BIOTECHNOLOGY REVIEW….……..…………….……………………………..…............. Medical Design Excellence Awards..
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Kevin Bai Samridhi Banskota Sruti Bheri Candice Cheung Joy Kim Candace Law Alexandra Low Mika Munch Nikita Nagpal Yingbo Shi
PHOTOGRAPHERS Jacob Khouri
Tashfia (Tishi) Chowdhury Nate Conn Paige McQuade Henry Mei Rachel Moore Thomas Nguyen Tuan Nguye Jun Ha Park Meghan Styles Alex Shao David Van Hyunjun (Fred) Woo
COLLABORATORS Karen Adams
Courtney Lucas Ferencik Paul Fincannon Sally Gerrish Martin Jacobson Jennifer Kimble Megan McDevitt Colleen Mitchell Adrianne Proeller Raja Schaar Shannon Sullivan
3 NOV ISSUE 3
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Harvesting Wind Energy and as Self-Powered Wind Vector Sensor System.
Yang Y, Zhu G, Zhang H, Chen J, Zhong X, Lin ZH, Su Y, Bai P, Wen X, Wang ZL.
Fibrin-based biomaterials: Modulation of macroscopic properties through rational design at the molecular level.
Conditioned Media Downregulates Nuclear Expression of Nrf2. Sarkar S, Payne CK, Kemp ML.
Computer Methods in Biomechanics & Biomedical Engineering
Isolated effect of geometry on mitral valve function for in silico model development.
Siefert AW, Rabbah JP, Saikrishnan N, Kunzelman KS, Yoganathan AP.
Miller T, Goude MC, McDevitt TC, Temenoff JS.
Contribution of vision to postural behaviors during continuous support-surface translations. Joseph Jilk D, Safavynia SA, Ting LH.
Non-Invasive and In Situ Characterization of the Degradation of Biomaterial Scaffolds by Volumetric Photoacoustic Microscopy.
Kothari S, Phan JH, Wang MD.
Microfluidic-based patterning of embryonic stem cells for in vitro development studies.
Suri S, Singh A, Nguyen AH, Bratt-Leal AM, McDevitt TC, Lu H.
Brown AC, Barker TH.
Molecular engineering of glycosaminoglycan chemistry for biomolecule delivery.
Eliminating tissue-fold artifacts in histopathological whole-slide images for improved image-based prediction of cancer grade.
Humans robustly adhere to dynamic walking principles by harnessing motor abundance to control forces. Toney ME, Chang YH.
Temperature Dependence of the Piezotronic Effect in ZnO Nanowires. Hu Y, Klein BD, Su Y, Niu S, Liu Y, Wang ZL.
Coupled Dirac Fermions and Neutrino-like Oscillations in Twisted Bilayer Graphene. Xian L, Wang ZF, Chou MY.
Zhang YS, Cai X, Yao J, Xing W, Wang LV, Xia Y.
Water-Solid Surface Contact Electrification and its Use for Harvesting Liquid Wave Energy. Lin ZH, Cheng G, Lin L, Lee S, Wang ZL.
Facile Synthesis of Palladium Right Bipyramids and Their Use as Seeds for Overgrowth and as Catalysts for Formic Acid Oxidation.
Xia X, Choi SI, Herron JA, Lu N, Scaranto J, Peng HC, Wang J, Mavrikakis M, Kim MJ, Xia Y.
Semiconductor hierarchically structured flower-like clusters for dye-sensitized solar cells with nearly 100% charge collection efficiency. Xin X, Liu HY, Ye M, Lin Z.
Micro Particle Image Velocimetry Measurements of Steady Diastolic Leakage Flow in the Hinge of a St. Jude Medical® Regent™ Mechanical Heart Valve. Jun BH, Saikrishnan N, Yoganathan AP.
The N-terminal flanking region of the A1 domain regulates the force-dependent binding of von Willebrand factor to platelet glycoprotein Ibα
Well-organized raspberry-like Ag@Cu bimetal nanoparticles for highly reliable and reproducible surface-enhanced Raman scattering. Lee JP, Chen D, Li X, Yoo S, Bottomley LA, El-Sayed MA, Park S, Liu M.
Ju L, Dong JF, Cruz MA, Zhu C.J, Mavrikakis M, Kim MJ, Xia Y.
Compound cis-regulatory elements with both boundary and enhancer sequences in the human genome. Jjingo D, Wang J, Conley AB, Lunyak VV, Jordan IK.
Osteoblast Response to Nanocrystalline Calcium Hydroxyapatite Depends on Carbonate Content. Adams B, Mostafa A, Schwartz Z, Boyan B.
Quasi-periodic patterns (QPP): Large-scale dynamics in resting state fMRI that correlate with local infraslow electrical activity. Thompson GJ, Pan WJ, Magnuson ME, Jaeger D, Keilholz SD.
Biomedical Microdevices Single-cell analysis of embryoid body heterogeneity using microfluidic trapping array.
Wilson JL, Suri S, Singh A, Rivet CA, Lu H, McDevitt TC.
Method to create regional mechanical dyssynchrony maps from short-axis cine steadystate free-precession images.
Suever JD, Fornwalt BK, Neuman LR, Delfino JG, Lloyd MS, Oshinski JN.
Integral Role of Platelet Derived Growth Factor in Mediating Transforming Growth Factor-β1 Dependent Mesenchymal Stem Cell Stiffening. Ghosh D, Lilli L, McGrail DJ, Matyunina LV, McDonald JF, Dawson MR.
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AFTER HOURS
NOV/DEC ISSUE 3
HAVING A PASSION By Kim Paige Undergraduate Academic Advisor in the Coulter Department
“ Living life without something you are truly passionate about is not really living, but merely existing. ” Kim Paige, an Academic Advisor for the BMED department (Photo: Tuan Nguye)
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or anyone who has been in my company “after hours”, they will tell you I am deep and passionate thinker and writer. I am always thinking about something whether it is of a serious or fun nature, or just something to make you go “Hmmm”. I love talking with people, helping people form written works, and creating art with words. Everyone has a ‘story’, but writing is how I continuously develop my own story. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”. As a writer, I complete a daily examination through journaling, assessing whether I was purposeful, impactful, and effective in practice and interactions with others. As I often
advise my students, living life without something you are truly passionate about is not really living, but merely existing. I believe it is critically important to have some aspect of personal interest – an outlet – that takes you away from the day-to-day mundaneness of life. Within us all there is a personality that affords us to let our hair down and just do and just be. For me, that consists of creative, beautiful works of reflection that allow my mind and heart to see the world differently every day. Writing is my true passion and what takes up most of my time after hours. I began writing poetry at the very young age of seven, but it was not until my mother enrolled me in a summer writing program hosted at Georgia State University when I was thirteen that my ideas and thoughts began to take shape as creative works and memoirs. Through my writing, I am able to reflect, create, and share the most inner workings of my mind and heart. English was my best subject in middle and high school and I wrote for the newspaper staff in high school as a feature column writer. When I graduated high school, I attended Clark Atlanta University for two years studying in the Mass Communication and Journalism department. In my second year at Clark Atlanta, I realized journalism was not the type of writing I wanted to do; it was too impersonal. So I took a year off from college, began thinking about my future, researched other programs of study that could integrate my passion for creative writing and a profession. I found a program of study at Georgia State University and earned my Bachelor of Arts in English – Creative Writing and have been writing every since. When I was 22 years old, I was offered an opportunity to compete in a poetry contest with Hallmark. I did not win first prize in the competition, but my second prize winning was just as significant because I was offered to be a contracted greeting card writer for Hallmark. I wrote greeting cards for Hallmark for two years, and decided from that opportunity to pursue entrepreneurship. I developed my own business designing wedding invitations, writing wedding vows for couples, speeches for religious leaders and business professional and designing small start-up company logos. I still focus on writing, but in a different arena these days. As I pursue my doctoral degree, I mostly practice research writing, which I also thoroughly enjoy. At best, I am a thinker and have been told by some I should work on a Think Tank in Washington, but for now I will stick to writing for academic purposes and escaping in few moments of “Me Time” - free from titles, criticism, reviews, and/or judgments about anything. Self-expression becomes my canvas, shaping my purpose and dreams as a writer.
Happy Birthday, Wallace W
allace Henry Coulter was an engineer, inventor, entrepreneur and visionary. He was co-founder and Chairman of Coulter® Corporation, a worldwide medical diagnostics company headquartered in Miami, Florida. The two great passions of his life were applying engineering principles to scientific research, and embracing the diversity of world cultures. The first passion led him to invent the Coulter Principle™, the reference method for counting and sizing microscopic particles suspended in a fluid. Please visit http://www.whcf.org/about/wallace-h-coulter for more information.
Celebrating 100 years and counting
5 COULTER COLLEGE
NOV/DEC ISSUE 3
TAKE DESIGN FROM START TO FINISH I
By Anirudh Joshi Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department
magine a design competition where the goal is to develop an idea for a product to the extent of forming a company. That is what Coulter College is about. Biomedical departments from universities all over the U.S. compete to conceive innovations that will change the shape of medicine. They find an unmet clinical need and devise a solution that accounts for everything from FDA regulations to patent filing. Finally, just when teams feel they have come through the worst, they are heavily questioned by patent lawyers, venture capitalists and senior design professors. Teams initially approach the endeavor having found three unmet needs in the healthcare industry and then narrow their focus to the one they want to pursue during the competition. Our very own Georgia Institute of Technology team (Shawna Hagen, Harrison Bartlett, Arun Kumar, Sara Khalek, Christina Walinski, and Jorge Mena) decided to pursue sepsis monitoring as it had the potential to make a significant impact. To select this focus topic, the team shadowed clinicians at Grady Hospital. They especially appreciate Dr. Jeremy Ackerman, Assistant Professor of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Emergency Medical Physician at Emory University School of Medicine, for helping them throughout the project and during the competition. As intense as Coulter College is, the experience gained makes it well worth the effort. Harrison Bartlett, a member of the team, quite aptly stated, “Rather than a large [takeaway], there were many small [takeaways].” One of the main takeaways, however, was to imagine the product from a venture capitalist’s point of view. As engineers, the team loved to conceptualize the nuts and bolts of the device, but the venture capitalists consulted were more concerned about the big picture. The team also had to really understand their market; their initial market preconceptions had been too broad. The competition is also a great exercise in team-building. One team
member, Jorge Mena, indicated an abundance of opinions and ideas running throughout the team, which required careful group decisionmaking for the team to prosper. Another important aspect of the competition is the exposure to other projects at various universities. The presentations at Coulter College ranged from microelectromechanical systems for cancer treatment to walkers next to beds. The broad range of topics gave participants a good overview of the phenomenal progress currently taking place in the field of BME. While our team did learn from other schools, they also realized how effectively Georgia Tech’s curriculum prepared them for the competition. The project-based learning that is the cornerstone of the Coulter Department gave them a real head start. The students also remarked that the support and enthusiasm provided by the faculty at Georgia Tech helped them move forward in their project. In this regard, they give special thanks to Professor James Rains, Design Instructor and Director of BME Capstone, who worked tirelessly into the night to ensure the team’s success. If it isn’t apparent already, Coulter College is an amazing contest that truly enriches one’s education. The entire team strongly recommends that future students participate if given the chance. The new perspective and exposure to the real world are invaluable assets to any student. It is adventurous, innovative competitions like these that will help generate interest in the evolving field of BME.
Top Row: Shawna Hagen, Harrison Bartlett, Arun Kumar. Bottom Row: Sara Khalek, Christina Walinski, and Jorge Mena participated in Coulter College at 2013 BMES. (Photo: Jacob Khouri)
6 INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
NOV/DEC ISSUE 3
THE BUSINESS SIDE OF BME By Tino Zhang Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department There is a saying, “build your own dream, or other people will hire you to build theirs,” and The Innovation Factory (TIF) upholds this statement well. TIF is a company that acquires novel medical technology ideas, develops them comprehensively from proof of concept to FDA approval into marketable products, and then launches businesses around those products. It is the expert in managing the complex path to market for early-stage medical device companies. Its success not only stems from its established business relationship with Accuitive Medical Ventures, a medical device venture capital firm with a committed capital of $230 million, but also from the talents in its team. Anthony V. Lando and Cory Anderson are two such talents who propel the company. An interview with the two shed light on being well-rounded in the BME industry, TIF’s involvement with Georgia Tech students, the opportunities it has to offer, and challenges engineering students face. Not only are Lando and Anderson engineers – they are also businessmen. Anderson holds his undergraduate and master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Tulane University, and later earned his MBA from Emory University. For him, demonstrating technological competence gives him credibility when it comes to making informed and reasoned business decisions because the technological background greatly benefits his understanding of a product’s mechanism of action. Understanding different points of view is especially important when it comes to addressing an unmet medical need, and addressing the various facets of the need is one of the challenges engineers face. Factors that need to be taken into consideration include, but are not limited to, the market needs, patient dynamics, intellectual products already existed, the regulatory process, and clinical adoption. Simply put, it is not about what one is working on specifically, but more about how big is the space around which one works and the areas where he/she can exemplify new ideas. And for a firm like TIF, whose goal is
to provide maximum profit for its investors, having a sharp eye for ideas and a broad perspective for development is key. If a conceptual idea is still in an academic environment and the exact mechanism of action is not well understood, it is probably not a good one to start a business with. It is crucial that TIF can accelerate an early-stage idea into a prototype to be tested on humans, and that it understands the degrees of freedom around the product’s mechanism of action in terms of safety profile and ethical expectation. Moreover, any successful business in the United States must demonstrate the value it can add to the healthcare system. In short, it is not just the scientific problem-solving scenario like one encounters in an academic setting. In regards to other challenges engineering students face, the two agreed that the transition from school to a work place was especially noteworthy. When one is freshly graduated from university, there is a huge amount of information stored in his/her head, and in the first few years of his/her career, he/she should constantly stimulate and push boundaries, and really try to exercise the knowledge. Therefore, it is important that a student gain relevant experience when still in school, which is why TIF has been working with universities such as Georgia Tech through mentorship programs. TIF came into contact with Georgia Tech when the university’s staff in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and Georgia Tech approached and informed the company about the Capstone Course which allows external companies to come and work with students. There are currently three projects TIF is working on, and it believes that Georgia Tech can provide a spark to them. The first one is Sebacia, whichis a fully funded company in the incubator of TIF. Sebacia focuses on a device solution for the treatment of acne, and it is developing a technology that delivers gold nanoparticles in the form of nanoshells selectively into the sebaceous glands – glands in the skin that secrete an oil/waxy matter called sebum, which is
Anthony V. Lando (Photo:http://aquesys.com/)
Cory Anderson (Photo:http://aquesys.com/)
The AqueSys procedure is straightforward, and can be done as a primary procedure or in conjunction with cataract surgery. It is minimally invasive and highly effective in all stages of glaucoma.(Photo: http://aquesys.com/)
7 INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT the main cause of acne – and uses a low-power laser to heat up the particles, thus stabilizing the glands and eliminating acne. Despite having positive feedback from physicians, one problem being tackled is whether changing the parameters of the treatment makes a difference in the way the treatment is absorbed by the skin. Therefore, TIF asks one of the teams in Georgia Tech’s capstone course to develop some sort of high level tissue equivalent phantom as a substitute for animal model and which can help Sebacia innovate more rapidly around the various treatment parameters. The second project is developing a minimally invasive treatment for mitral regurgitation, an important clinical need that has gone unmet for some time. The new treatment is highly sought after because the only treatment currently available involves a full open-chest surgical procedure, and patients who are too sick are often unable to undergo this procedure. The third project is a design of a metereddose beverage dispenser for patients, which is a pharmaceutical delivery system that can control the volume of the beverage dispensed to patients. Since this is very much a consumer product, it has to be convenient, low-cost, and functionally competent with an appealing design. Another area of interest of TIF is the development of a thesis around high-definition vision and optics through contact lenses. The
XEN Injector, showing implant, needle and sleeve (Photo:http://aquesys.com/)
XEN Injector (Photo:http://aquesys.com/)
NOV/DEC ISSUE 3
main idea comes from the refractive surgery (LASIK) space where customized vision is available, and TIF is looking into translating those technologies into contact lenses, thereby giving patients the benefit of high-definition optics without the reversibility and risk of the surgery. When asked about what they like about working with university students, the two emphasized on the tremendous amount of energy university students have and that they have great fundamentals and are eager to apply them to real world problem. Moreover, they have more creativity than some in the industry who may have been biased by previous experience. And that energy is also what TIF looks for when recruiting an intern; more precisely, an intern should not strictly focus on the technical aspect – he/she should also have a broad world view and business perspective. TIF wants its intern to be able to write and present effectively, think clearly, and be presentable to individuals they come in contact with. These qualities are the reasons why TIF gives intern access to everything it does. According to Lando, “instead of putting them in a cubicle and feeding them once a week, we put them in all the meetings, and let them absorb the rounded experience that is necessary to show them what a business life in a biomedical engineering environment is like.”
BME ANSWERS
By ALPHA ETA MU BETA – The BME Secret Society
What are some good methods of transportation for getting to places off campus? If you do not have a car, it is a little difficult getting to places more than a couple miles away from campus. If it is not too far away, do not forget to use the Green Route and the Tech Trolley as they make some stops off campus. If the trip is an occasional thing and you have a driver’s license, Zipcars are also a great way to get somewhere quickly and easily. For somewhere much farther away, Marta is useful to an extent. The Midtown and North Avenue stations are close to campus and can take you into the city to major destinations like the Georgia Dome, the Aquarium, and the airport. It is not the best city public transportation out there, but you can normally get close to a big destination so that walking is manageable. As always though, travel in groups, and be aware of your surroundings.
I am thinking about doing a gap year after I graduate. What are some popular programs that students participate in? There are multiple options for gap years that will really strengthen your personal development and your resume at the same time. It is up to each individual person to decide what is right for them, but I would recommend that you do something productive that involves community service, research, or graduate level academics. For community service, Teach for America and AmeriCorps are two popular programs. AmeriCorps lasts for about a year, while Teach for America is two years long. If you are also willing to spend some money, there are multiple service opportunities abroad through Global Gap Year programs. For research, some institutions offer short-term post-undergraduate research opportunities which normally last about a year. Finally, going to graduate school for a master’s degree for a couple of years to specialize in something you are interested in like public health or biomedical innovation and development will help further boost your own credentials. If you are seriously considering a gap year, make it worthwhile and try to keep it productive. However, first and foremost, try to choose something that helps you learn more about yourself so that you can make a better decision when you commit yourself to something after the gap year is over.
What are some good study spots on campus? Everybody knows about the Clough Undergraduate Learning Center and the library on campus, but sometimes it does get frustrating spending a few minutes searching for a study spot, especially during midterms or finals week. If you live on campus and your apartment is unsuitable for studying, you can try some of the study lounges around your dormitory. Also, the student center often has several empty tables and chairs that can be used especially after the food court closes. Then, of course, there is the BME Whitaker building. Through this, you should be able to access a couple of classrooms and some PBL rooms on the first floor and in the basement. Failing that, you can also cross the secret tunnel to some more rooms and tables in the Ford building. Besides Whitaker, students can normally access the Instructional Center and the Klaus Computing building which each often have many quiet areas that are great for studying.
8 NOV/DEC ISSUE 3
STEARNS STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
By Catherine Chou Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department
Grant Stearns is a 4th year BME undergrad working in Dr. Yoganathan’s Cardiovascular laboratory. (Photo: Meghan Styles)
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rant Stearns, a fourth year undergraduate student in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, comes off immediately as the ideal Georgia Tech student: quiet, knowledgeable and, most importantly, confident. “Being confident,” Grant says, “is the most important skill a student can have.” This advice is valuable, as Grant certainly knows what it takes to be successful. He began working in Dr. Yoganathan’s Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics (CFM) lab as a sophomore, conducted additional research both overseas as part of the China Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) program, landed an internship at Edwards Lifesciences, and is now preparing to publish his first manuscript. These experiences have brought him closer to his future goal to work in research and development, specifically on transcatheter heart valves. Hailing from Athens, Georgia, Grant came to Georgia Tech – his firstchoice school – undeclared. He later decided on biomedical engineering (BME) because he wanted to “see the direct impact of and have a purpose with whatever I was doing [...] and of the engineering options available, BME has the biggest reward”. However, this was not Grant’s primary reason for pursuing research. He was accepted into CURE which had the requirements of a spring semester of research at Georgia Tech followed by three months at Peking University and a final semester of research back on campus. Grant was then put through the process of ranking his top lab choices, interviewing for labs and picking the one that stood out the most: Dr. Yoganathan’s. “It is a really big lab; they have lots of projects going on and lots of supportive post-docs to work under, and I liked cardiovascular-related issues, so it was kind of a no-brainer for me.” Grant then delves into details about his work with aortic valve stents in Dr. Yoganathan’s CFM lab. Aortic stenosis, a state in which the aorta narrows and thus impedes blood flow, is most often corrected by openheart surgery. However, this surgical treatment is not an option for many elderly that are deemed inoperable. Instead, these patients can now opt for an alternative: transcatheter aortic valve implantations, or TAVI. A process that is just ten years old, TAVI involves inserting a catheter subcutaneously from the leg and up to the heart, before removing a sheath and deploying a new valve for the heart. “Now that [clinicians] can place the valve accurately, the new question is: where do they want to place it? What’s best for the short term or long term functionality of the valve?” muses Grant. This is where his work in the lab comes in. Grant has spent time testing various positions of the valve in a pulsatile flow-loop simulation of blood flow and taking images of leaflets and investigating the optimal
confidence
“being confident is the most important skill a student can have”
use of the stents through set parameters. His investigations and research into this has paid off, as Grant has recently completed a manuscript titled The Effects of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Placement and Sizing on Orifice Area and Leaflet Curvature that is currently seeking publication. Grant’s reaction to this? “It’s a weird feeling, being an author on a paper. I feel like I’ve been able to see the whole research experience, from the design of the study throughout all the experimentation, and then the testing, refining and analyzing of the data, as well as the drawing of results.” Grant plans to move forward in life with research on the transcatheter heart valve, specifically because “It’s at that exciting stage where it’s still in [the clinical trial stage], real-design changes are happening and it’s not all about manufacturing – it’s very much in the R&D phase, which is what I want to do.” However, he did open his mind to a different type of research experience. As a part of CURE, Grant conducted research in Dr. Tianyu Xie’s lab in China, where the lab was small, very personal, and everyone “had direct access to everybody else – it had a communal feeling”. People in the lab spoke English, so the language barrier was more prevalent outside the workplace. Although Grant “basically jumped into a new culture, a new project, [and] a different language”, he was there with eight other Americans who supported one another and developed a sense of patriotism outside the lab. Most importantly, while working under graduate student Zhimin Han, Grant developed a mechanical design of an abdomen wrap used to assist during colonoscopy procedures. Although the endoscopy focus of Dr. Xie’s lab did not appeal as much to Grant as his work in Dr. Yoganathan’s lab, he still sees CURE as an enlightening experience. He had enjoyed CFM research more simply because the Chinese lab had been developing alternative methods for a problem already solved, whereas Grant is more interested in early stage research. By following Grant’s story it is goes to show this is achievable for BME majors who hope to end up in a similar spot of success. For any student, the greatest power is the mind. “Be open to opportunities. Don’t shut the door on things because you think you’re overwhelmed with work already,” says Grant, citing his own experiences at the Edwards Lifesciences internship, where he developed a greater grasp on interdepartmental communication and “working based on other people’s schedules and not only your own”. Grant himself had entered the CURE program and Dr. Yoganathan’s CFM lab with no real research experience but has discovered within these years of experiences the greatest secret to success: “If you want people to hear what you have say, be confident in yourself and your ideas.” As for how to balance life at Georgia Tech? “I don’t plan too much, usually a month in advance. It’s not too overwhelming and it’s not too short, but the day before is still called procrastination!” ploying a new stent for the heart. “Now that [clinicians] can place the valve accurately, the new question is: where do they want to place it? What’s best for the short term or long term functionality of the valve?” muses Grant. This is where his work in the lab comes in. Grant has spent time testing various positions of the catheter in a pulsatile flow-loop simulation of blood flow and taking images of leaflets and investigating the optimal use of the stents through set parameters. His investigations and research into this has paid off, as Grant has recently completed a manuscript titled The Effects of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Placement and Sizing on Orifice Area and Leaflet Curvature that is currently seeking publication. Grant’s reaction to this? “It’s a weird feeling, being an author on a paper. I feel like I’ve been able to see the whole research experience, from the design of the study throughout all the experimentation, and then the testing, refining and analyzing
9 GCMI
NOV/DEC ISSUE 3
FROM CONCEPT TO PROTOTYPE A BLINK OF AN EYE By Sara Khalek Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department
(Photo: GCMI)
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ithin the past few years, Atlanta has been successfully emerging as a medical device hub. In the past, opportunities and capabilities to manufacture medical devices within the Georgia Institute of Technology community and within the Southeast region of the United States have been lost to Boston, Minneapolis, and the Bay Area. Why should devices developed here at Georgia Tech and in the South not go towards enhancing the economic situation of Atlanta? With that question in mind, Wayne Hodges, the Vice Provost Emeritus of the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute, brought together multiple organizations including Georgia Tech and Saint Joseph’s Translational Research Institute to develop and invest in a Southbased, non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the commercialization of medical devices. This year, Hodges’s vision was realized through the development of an independent, non-profit organization called Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI). GCMI is the only one of its kind within the southeast and works directly with physician entrepreneurs, academic researchers, and start-ups to rapidly bring their medical devices to industry. Often, when developing a device, the design and engineering of a device are completed by separate groups; this slows down the process of device development due to the lack of collaboration between the separate entities. However, GCMI has the ability to go from concept development to prototyping in a short time period, because their expertise and equipment are all in-house. Although prototyping is the organization’s core capability, GCMI also has a platform to assist with market analysis, FDA regulatory work, and the application of quality management systems. Therefore, not only is the design of the device completed in-house, but also the process of patenting and small-scale manufacturing. The rapid success of GCMI is due to the work of Tiffany Wilson Karp, the General Manager and COO of GCMI, Mark McJunkin, the Director of Operations, and Patrick Strane, the Project Engineer. Their combined efforts work towards helping clients innovate and accelerating new medical devices that improve overall health outcomes. In order for the GCMI team to get involved, prospective clients should have funding as well as an understanding of the market opportunity and the regulatory pathway of their potential devices. Once GCMI is working with a client, collaboration is necessary for a quick turn-around time. GCMI’s efforts in medical device development have already benefitted the Georgia Tech community through their work with Georgia Tech researchers and students as well as helping the Southeast Region through the incubation of startup companies. GCMI drives to rapidly commercialize innovative medical devices, thereby creating economic growth here in the South. For more information on GCMI, please visit the company website at www.devices.net.
10 GRADUATE DEVELOPMENT
NOV/DEC ISSUE 3
RELATIONSHIP By Fatiesa Sulejmani Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department
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esearch is an integral part of graduate education, and a key person during that period of higher education is the Principal Investigator (PI). A PI acts as mentor in many ways as a graduate student explores research. A close relationship with one’s PI is crucial, but how can it be obtained? Below are a couple of tips from Ellenor Brown, M.S., a current graduate student at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at GeorgiaTech and Emory University, on how to best create and maintain that sought-after close relationship with one’s PI. 1. Establish Good Communication. Try to adjust your methods of communication so as to most efficiently communicate with your PI. This will ensure harmony in the lab setting, as well as allow the PI to see your true potential. Communication is key! 2. Clarify Research Goals and Expectations. It saves time (and lots of hair-pulling) to know the smaller details, such as when to be in lab and what exactly you’re expected to do. Knowing what you’re expected to do not only allows you to do a good job and meet expectations, but, on occasion, even exceed them! 3. Criticism is Not Personal. If your PI says that he doesn’t like something, it does not mean that he thinks you’re a terrible researcher. Every detail needs to be perfect in order to allow for smooth sailing in the lab setting. Don’t take criticism personally—criticism, as well as praise, is necessary to grow and become a better researcher. 4. Become a Colleague, not a Student. Formulate an idea of the direction in which you see your project and your role in the lab heading. Make sure that you sit down with your PI and have this talk. You know all of the gritty details of the study, and there will come a point (which might take years to achieve) at which you know as much about your project as your PI—you will be able to have actual discussions with him or her, allowing the PI to see you as much more than an “indentured servant”, the true point of glory.
EVENTS AND DEADLINES 7 Bioengineering Seminar Series
“Non-catalytic Tyrosine-phosphorylated Receptors (NTRs) on leucocytes play a crucial role in immune recognition”
11 am — Suddath Seminar Room 1128
10 TERMIS America Conference & Exposition 8 am-Hyatt Regency, Atlanta, GA 12 Breakfast Club Seminar Series
“Characterizing the Mechanical and Biomechanical Effort of Manual Wheelchair Propulsion”
8:30 am — Suddath Seminar Room 1128
26 Young Innovators Seminar
NOVEMBER
Tony Jun Huang, Pennsylvania State University
11 am — Whitaker 1103
26 Integrated Cancer Research Seminar Series
“Mechanics and Malignancy: Biophysical Approaches for Investigating the Tumor Microenvironment”
4 pm- Suddath Seminar Room 1128
11 BMED 1000
NOV/DEC ISSUE 3
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? By Fatiesa Sulejmani Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department
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veryone is asked this question multiple times throughout their lives. When they’re younger, the answers can range from a Broadway actress to a firefighter to the president of the United States. However, as people enter college, these answers are often replaced with specific majors – but what types of jobs do specific majors correspond to? Students in BMED 1000 at Georgia Institute of Technology have begun interviewing alumni in order to understand the jobs that come along with a biomedical engineering degree. One group decided to interview Krishna Tamburino, an alumnus who works for a biomedical company specializing in healthcare information technology. Krishna shared his advice about the type of opportunities students should take advantage of at Georgia Tech in order to mold themselves into a worthy biomedical engineer candidate. When Krishna first applied to college, he was unsure about what he wanted to major in. However, after he visited Georgia Tech and participated in the Connect with Tech program and saw the research that the students in graduate labs conducted, he decided that he wanted to be a biomedical engineer. However, in his sophomore year of college, he realized that Biomedical Engineering involves a large amount of chemistry courses and it was not a very biologically-focused major. Instead of continuing his education with a master’s degree program, Krishna decided to pursue a minor in Engineering Management through
the Technology and Management Program in the Ernst Scheller Jr. College of Business at Georgia Tech, which allowed him to blend his engineering background with his ability to talk to business people. Krishna says that “spending time in the area that you want to work in as early as possible” is the best way for college students to get the job they want. In his fourth year of college, Krishna interned at a medical clinic because he originally wanted to be a doctor and his experiences in the ER were different from what he had originally expected. Krishna says that “you’ve got to ask yourself why you want to do biomedical engineering” because “if you don’t keep asking yourself questions, you might just settle […] and you might not end up going where you wanted to go.” He believes that it is important to try different things because even if you like how a certain job sounds on paper, working the job may be a different experience entirely. During his time as a student at Georgia Tech, Krishna was often given assignments to complete with little to no advice or guidelines on how they should be done. Although this lack of direction was very frustrating for him, it cultivated the valuable skills of problem-based learning that are highly useful in the workplace. Now, because of his training at Georgia Tech, when Krishna is given a major assignment, he does his best to “try to figure it out and […] ask some questions.” Additionally, learning how to deal with pressure in college helped Krishna in the workplace. He says that stress-management is “the biggest thing that Tech teaches you.” In the business field, Krishna has had to apply his way of thinking to the assignments he receives. His ability to remain unflustered when hit with a major assignment has helped him succeed in the workforce. Despite his struggles in deciding what he wanted to do with his BME degree, Krishna took advantage of the opportunities at Georgia Tech and showed the value of a minor in IT in his job search, allowing him to bridge IT with BME.
The Medical Design Excellence Awards this past June showed the attendees, as well as the rest of the biomedical community, a glimpse of the best and brightest recent inventions. The top new products are notable for their simple, yet ingenious design and, of course, their usefulness. The judges in every category looked at a few simple, yet critical, factors to determine the winners: if the device focused on patient care, if it enhanced the efficiency of the process, if it refined previous technology, and if it put the patients’ needs first. The products listed below went above and beyond in each of these aspects; here the gold medal winners of each category: By Dhara Parel Undergraduate Student in the Coulter Department
Critical-Care and Emergency Medicine Products – AccuVein AV400 vein illumination system This system is a small, handheld device that digitally shows a small map of the vasculature of the portion of skin it is held over. It is important because physicians can use it to check for vein patency and avoid bifurcations (where the veins split into two).
General Hospital Devices and Therapeutic Products –Dansac NovaLife 1 & 2 Ostomy Pouches The Dansac pouches are a set of nested pouches that can be either opened or closed. These pouches collect feces through an ostomy opening that is located in the abdomen.
Dental Instruments, Equipment, and Supplies This EPIC Dental Diode Laser System performs three major types of treatment: soft tissue procedures, teeth whitening, and oral pain relief.
Over-the-counter and Self-care Finished Packaging – Lantus & You products – New Glucose Sensor Serter Journal for Lantus SoloSTAR (insulin glargine [rDNA origin] injection pen) Interestingly enough, this sensor is not yet approved in the USA; however, it serves as a continuous monitor The Lantus & You Journal is especially helpful for and is used to insert a glucose sensor intradermally. newer type 2 diabetes patients who have never With an elegant design by Medtronic, the Enlite Sensor used an insulin injection pen because it has an makes continuous monitoring for diabetes patients easy-to-use guide, as well as a calming experience nearly painless. during the first 7 days of their treatment.
Implant and Tissue-Replacement Products – GORE Septal Occluder This Occluder is permanently implanted, thanks to a transcatheter procedure, and treats defects of the atrial septum. As a transcatheter product, it avoids opening the patient open and risking large complications. It not only won the gold in its category, but also an overall best in show Award.
Radiological and Electromechanical Devices – Acessa System The Acessa System by Halt Medical is an al most-noninvasive system that serves as a type of outpatient therapy for treating fibroids in the uterus while maintaining normal uterus function. It uses radiofrequency volumetric thermal ablation, which means that a small needle array applies energy to the fibroids, over-stimulating them and thus destroying them.
Surgical Equipment, Instruments, and Supplies – Sonicision Cordless Rehabilitation and AssistiveUltrasonic Dissection System Technology Products – Rifton TRAM transfer and mobility device Sonicision by Covidien is a small, cordless device that does soft-tissue incision and hemostasis The Rifton TRAM is a mobility device that does three in different surgical procedures. This ultrasonic main things: seated transfers, sit-to-stand lifts, and dissection tool is sure to change the game with its gait training. cordless freedom.