cos-microbial

The Real Mockingbirds

admin — Tue, 20 May 2025 14:43:41 +0000

The Real Mockingbirds admin Tue, 05/20/2025 - 10:43

Half a century ago, Marvel Comics introduced the superpower-wielding scientist Bobbi Morse — aka Mockingbird — one of several famous superheroes imagined to hold a degree from Georgia Tech.

Today, just over seven decades since women first enrolled at the Institute, 56% of students earning degrees in the College of Sciences are female. As we celebrate Women's History Month and look to the future of our field, meet seven real-life superheroines of life science — and science fiction — from across the Institute.

Tap here to read this story in the Georgia Tech newsroom.

Summary sentence

As we celebrate Women's History Month and look to the future of our field, meet seven of Georgia Tech's real-life superheroines of life science — and science fiction.

Summary

Half a century ago, Marvel Comics introduced the superpower-wielding scientist Bobbi Morse — aka Mockingbird — one of several famous superheroes imagined to hold a degree from Georgia Tech. Today, 56% of students earning degrees in the College of Sciences are female. As we celebrate Women's History Month and look to the future of our field, meet seven real-life superheroines of life science — and science fiction — from across the Institute.

Dateline

Wed, 03/29/2023 - 12:00

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Wed, 03/29/2023 - 15:41

How Earth's Early Cycles Shaped the Chemistry of Life

admin — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 19:02:37 +0000

How Earth's Early Cycles Shaped the Chemistry of Life admin Tue, 03/04/2025 - 14:02

A new study explores how complex chemical mixtures change under shifting environmental conditions, shedding light on the prebiotic processes that may have led to life on Earth.

Led by Loren Williams (Georgia Institute of Technology) and Moran Frenkel-Pinter (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and published in Nature Chemistry, the team’s paper investigates how chemical mixtures evolve over time, offering new insights into the origins of biological complexity.

“Our research applies concepts from evolutionary biology to chemistry,” explains Williams, a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “We know that everything in biology can be reduced to chemistry, but the idea of this paper is that in the right conditions, chemistry can evolve, too. We call this chemical evolution.”

While much research has focused on individual chemical reactions that could lead to biological molecules, this study establishes an experimental model to explore how entire chemical systems evolve when exposed to environmental changes.

“Chemical evolution is chemistry that keeps changing and doing new things,” Williams explains. “It’s unending chemical change, but with exploration of new chemical spaces. We wondered if we could set up a system that does that without introducing new molecules ourselves — instead we had the system oscillate between wet and dry conditions.”

In nature, these systems might look like a landscape where water condenses, and then dries out, over and over again — conditions that arise naturally from the day-night cycles of our planet.

From simple molecules to complex systems

The study identified three key findings — chemical systems can continuously evolve without reaching equilibrium, avoid uncontrolled complexity through selective chemical pathways, and exhibit synchronized population dynamics among different molecular species. This suggests that environmental factors played a key role in shaping the molecular complexity needed for life to emerge.

“This research offers a new perspective on how molecular evolution might have unfolded on early Earth,” says Frenkel-Pinter, assistant professor in the Institute of Chemistry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “By demonstrating that chemical systems can self-organize and evolve in structured ways, we provide experimental evidence that may help bridge the gap between prebiotic chemistry and the emergence of biological molecules.”

Beyond its relevance to origins-of-life research, the study’s findings may have broader applications in synthetic biology and nanotechnology. Controlled chemical evolution could be harnessed to design new molecular systems with specific properties, potentially leading to innovations in materials science, drug development, and biotechnology.

This research is shared jointly with The Hebrew University of Jerusalem newsroom.

Summary sentence

A new study explores how complex chemical mixtures change under shifting environmental conditions, shedding light on the prebiotic processes that may have led to life on Earth.

Summary

A new study explores how complex chemical mixtures change under shifting environmental conditions, shedding light on the prebiotic processes that may have led to life on Earth.

Dateline

Tue, 02/25/2025 - 12:00

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Tue, 03/04/2025 - 14:02

The Geometry of Life: Physicists Determine What Controls Biofilm Growth

admin — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 14:25:49 +0000

The Geometry of Life: Physicists Determine What Controls Biofilm Growth admin Fri, 07/12/2024 - 10:25

From plaque sticking to teeth to scum on a pond, biofilms can be found nearly everywhere. These colonies of bacteria grow on implanted medical devices, our skin, contact lenses, and in our guts and lungs. They can be found in sewers and drainage systems, on the surface of plants, and even in the ocean.

“Some research says that 80% of infections in human bodies can be attributed to the bacteria growing in biofilms,” Aawaz Pokhrel says, lead author of a groundbreaking new study that uses physics to investigate how these biofilms grow.

The paper, “The Biophysical Basis of Bacterial Colony Growth,” was published in Nature Physics this week, and it shows that the fitness of a biofilm — its ability to grow, expand, and absorb nutrients from the medium or the substrate — is largely impacted by the contact angle that the biofilm’s edge makes with the substrate. The study also found that this geometry has a bigger influence on fitness than anything else, including the rate at which the cells can reproduce.

“That was the big surprise for us,” says corresponding author Peter Yunker, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics. “We expected that the geometry would play an important role, and we thought that figuring out exactly what the geometry is would be important for understanding why the range expansion rate, for example, [the rate at which the biofilm spreads across the surface over time] is constant. But we didn't start the project thinking that geometry would be the single most important factor.”

Understanding how biofilms grow — and what factors contribute to their growth rate — could lead to critical insights on controlling them, with applications for human health, like slowing the spread of infection or creating cleaner surfaces. “What got me excited was this opportunity to use physics to learn about complex biological systems,” Pokhrel, who is also a Ph.D. student in Yunker’s lab, adds. “Especially on a project that has so many applications. The combination of the importance for human health and exciting research was really intriguing for me.”

A new method

While biofilms are ubiquitous in nature, studying them has proven difficult. Because these “cities of microorganisms” are comprised of tiny individuals, scientists have struggled to image them successfully.

That changed in 2015, when Yunker began wondering if interferometry, a commonly used imaging technique in physics and materials science, could be applied to biofilms. “Given my background in physics, I was familiar with its use in materials applications,” Yunker recalls. “I thought applying this technique more broadly might be interesting, because we know from decades of physics that surface interfaces contain a lot of information about the processes that create them.”

The technique proved to be simple, effective, and time-efficient, providing nanometer-scale resolution of bacterial colonies. “It allows us to essentially get a picture of the topography — the shape of the surface of the bacterial population — with super-resolution,” Yunker adds.

Leveraging interferometry, the team began conducting new biofilm experiments, investigating how colonies’ shapes changed over time. Co-first author Gabi Steinbach, formerly a postdoctoral scholar in Yunker’s lab and now a scientific research coordinator at the University of Maryland, noticed that every colony had a specific shape when it was small: a spherical cap, like a slice from the top of a sphere, or a droplet of water. It’s a shape that shows up often in physics, and that sparked the team’s interest.

“A spherical cap in physics is very interesting, because it is a surface-minimizing shape,” Pokhrel adds. “I was curious why a biological material was growing in this shape, and we started wondering if there was some physics to it – perhaps geometry was involved. And that made us think that maybe we could develop a model. And that got me really excited.”

A mathematical mystery

However, the researchers soon hit a roadblock. “While we could see that the colonies were spherical caps at first, they would deviate from that shape as they grew,” Pokhrel says. “And the shape that they grew into was difficult to describe with existing spherical cap geometry.”

“The middle didn’t grow as quickly as it should to keep the spherical cap shape, and we wanted to connect all of this to the range expansion [the rate at which the colony spread across a surface],” Yunker adds. “But we knew that somehow, geometry was playing a very important role.”

Finally, Thomas Day, a former graduate student in Yunker’s lab, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California, and one of the authors of the paper, suggested a quirky problem of geometry called the napkin ring problem.

“As soon as we started to think about the napkin ring problem, we were able to start developing a mathematical toolkit,” Yunker says, though the solution wasn’t effortless. “We couldn't find anyone who had ever looked at a spherical cap napkin ring before, because the application is very rare.”

Pokhrel, alongside two co-authors, was responsible for working out the geometry. He discovered that the cells grew exponentially at the edge of the shape, expanding further onto the medium, while the cells in the middle grew upward, creating a shape not unlike an egg in a frying pan — if the egg white was expanding outwards, while the yolk was only growing taller.

This was the breakthrough discovery: Because the cells at the middle were only contributing to the biofilm’s height, the team only needed to account for how many cells were at the edge of the biofilm, and the shape they needed to be in to grow and spread.

After incorporating their findings into a mathematical model, the team found that the contact angle was the most important factor: the angle that the very edge of the biofilm made when it touched the surface it was growing on. That single geometric quality is even more important to a biofilm’s growth than the rate at which it can reproduce cells.

The physics-biology connection

Overall, the project took more than three years, from conception to publication. “Aawaz really made an incredible effort seeing this work through,” Yunker says. “It was many years and many, many experiments. But the finished product is 100% worth it.”

The team hopes the research will pave the way for future studies, which could lead to applications like controlling biofilm growth to help prevent infections.

“Going forward, there are still a lot of research avenues,” Pokhrel says. “For example, looking at competition experiments between biofilms — do taller colonies change their contact angle so that they can spread faster? What role does this geometry play in competition?”

“Biology is complex,” Yunker adds. In nature, the surface a biofilm grows on may not be as consistent as a laboratory surface, and colonies may have different mutations or may consist of more than one species. And while the model is based on how biofilms behave in a controlled lab environment, it’s a critical first step in understanding how they may behave in nature.

Citation: Pokhrel, A.R., Steinbach, G., Krueger, A. et al. The biophysical basis of bacterial colony growth. Nat. Phys. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-024-02572-3

Funding information: This research was funded by the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences and NSF Biomaterials

Summary sentence

Up to 80% of infections in human bodies can be attributed to the bacteria growing in biofilms, and understanding how biofilms grow could lead to critical insights on controlling them.

Summary

A groundbreaking new study published in Nature Physics has revealed that geometry influences biofilm growth more than anything else, including the rate at which cells can reproduce. The research shows that the fitness of a biofilm is largely impacted by the contact angle that the biofilm’s edge makes with the substrate.

Dateline

Tue, 07/09/2024 - 12:00

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Fri, 07/12/2024 - 10:24

19 Tech Faculty Receive Regents' Distinctions

admin — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 12:12:41 +0000

19 Tech Faculty Receive Regents' Distinctions admin Thu, 04/25/2024 - 08:12

The University System of Georgia's Board of Regents has honored 19 Georgia Tech faculty members with 2024 Regents' Distinctions. These accolades recognize the recipients’ outstanding contributions and excellence in education, research, and innovation.

“These amazing colleagues exemplify the spirit of excellence and dedication that defines Georgia Tech's faculty,” said Steve McLaughlin, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. “Their contributions not only advance knowledge within their respective fields but also positively impact our community at large. Working alongside these faculty members is an honor and inspires me every day.”

Georgia Tech faculty named as Regents’ Professors include:

Amy Bruckman (renewal), Senior Associate Chair, School of Interactive Computing, College of Computing

John Cressler (renewal), Schlumberger Chair in Electronics, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Greg Gibson (renewal), Tom and Marie Patton Chair in Biological Sciences and Director of the Center for Integrative Genomics, School of Biological Sciences, College of Sciences

Thomas Kurfess, Professor and HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering

Wenke Lee, Professor and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair in Software, School of Computer Science and School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, College of Computing

Brian Magerko, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Digital Media, Head of the Expressive Machinery Lab, School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Patricia Mokhtarian, Clifford and William Greene Jr. Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering

Charles David Sherrill (renewal), Professor, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, College of Sciences and Associate Director for Research and Education, Institute for Data Engineering and Science

Georgia Tech faculty named as Regents’ Researchers include:

David Gottfried (renewal), Senior Assistant Director and Principal Research Scientist, Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology, College of Engineering

Gregory Showman (renewal), Fellow and Principal Research Engineer, Sensors and Electromagnetic Applications Laboratory, GTRI

Jeffrey Sitterle, Principal Research Scientist and Chief Innovation Officer, Information and Cyber Sciences Directorate, GTRI

Leanne West, Chief Engineer of Pediatric Technology and Principal Research Scientist, Georgia Tech Pediatric Innovation Network

Jie Xu, Head of Chemical and Biological Systems Branch and Principal Research Scientist, GTRI

David Zurn, Test Engineering Division Chief and Principal Research Scientist, GTRI

Georgia Tech faculty named as Regents’ Entrepreneurs include:

Mustaque Ahamad, Professor, School of Computer Science and School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, College of Computing

Omer Inan, Professor and Linda J. and Mark C. Smith Chair, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Rampi Ramprasad, Professor and Michael E. Tennenbaum Family Chair, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Energy Sustainability, School of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering

Georgia Tech faculty named as Regents’ Innovators include:

Alexander Alexeev, Professor and Joseph Anderer Faculty Fellow, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering

Georgia Tech faculty named to the Georgia Mining Association Early Career Professorship:

Sheng Dai, Associate Professor and Group Coordinator in Geosystems Engineering, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering

Writer: Brittany Aiello, Faculty Communications Program Manager, Organizational and Academic Communications, Institute Communications

Summary sentence

Board of Regents' Distinctions honor the recipients for their outstanding contributions and excellence.

Summary

The University System of Georgia's Board of Regents has honored 19 Georgia Tech faculty members with 2024 Regents' Distinctions.

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Thu, 04/25/2024 - 12:00

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Thu, 04/25/2024 - 08:11

Georgia Tech Researchers Identify Novel Gene Networks Associated with Aggressive Type of Breast Cancer

admin — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 19:43:37 +0000

Georgia Tech Researchers Identify Novel Gene Networks Associated with Aggressive Type of Breast Cancer admin Tue, 04/23/2024 - 15:43

Breast cancer is the second-most common cancer diagnosis for U.S. women, and the second-leading cause of female cancer deaths. In recent years, breast cancer treatments have improved significantly, thanks to targeted gene therapy and immunotherapy. However, for the small group of patients diagnosed with the most aggressive basal-like type of breast cancer, such approaches are less successful.

Recently, scientists in the Georgia Tech Integrated Cancer Research Center (ICRC) have found that this particular breast cancer displays a unique interactive gene network structure. Using a type of mathematics called “graph theory,” which models relationships between a pair of objects, the researchers computationally detected changes in gene-gene interactions as this breast cancer occurs and develops.

“The discovery of novel gene networks associated with basal-like breast cancers has helped us identify potential new gene targets to treat this very aggressive type of breast cancer,” said John McDonald, ICRC founding director, professor emeritus in the School of Biological Sciences, and the study’s corresponding author. “We would not have discovered these possible treatments through analyses of gene expression alone.”

While causing just 10-20% of breast cancer diagnoses, basal-like breast cancer is much more aggressive than other subtypes — and if not identified early, when it can be treated by surgery and/or radiation therapy, effective anti-cancer drug treatment can be challenging. The basal-like subtype does not respond to traditional hormonal therapies.

One theory as to why, advocated by many cancer researchers, is that individual genes do not function autonomously; as such, changes in how genes interact with one another in cancer may be as important as the cancer-driving genes themselves.

“The components of any complex system, like the human genome, are certainly important,” said McDonald. “The way in which these independent components interact with one another is also critical.”

For this study, the researchers analyzed three major subtypes of breast cancer, with particular emphasis on the most aggressive basal-like subtype. The researchers found that gene-gene interactive networks are quite different in the aggressive basal-like subtype, compared to the more prevalent luminal A and luminal B subtypes.

Many of the genes comprising these unique networks were found to be involved in functions not previously associated with breast cancer. Stephen Housley, a neurobiology researcher in the School of Biological Sciences and a co-author on the paper, noted that “an unexpected and intriguing result from our study is that neural processes appear to play a prominent role in distinguishing the highly aggressive basal-like tumors from the less aggressive luminal A and luminal B subtypes.”

In total, the researchers examined more than 300 million pairs of genes, comparing healthy women to those with breast cancer. Study co-author Zainab Ashard, a computational biologist who recently worked in McDonald’s lab, explained, “Differences in the gene network structure between healthy individuals and breast cancer patients allowed us to identify changes in patterns of gene-gene interactions within breast cancer development.”[s1]

The team’s results are detailed in a new paper, “Changes in Gene Network Interactions in Breast Cancer Onset and Development,” which appeared in the April 2024 issue of GEN Biotechnology. Based on the results of this study and their previously published analyses of eight other types of cancer, the researchers believe they have established the usefulness of network analysis in identifying potential new candidates for the diagnosis of and targeted gene therapy treatment for breast and other types of cancers.

In addition to McDonald, Housley, and Ashard, Kara Keun Lee, a former bioinformatics Ph.D. student who worked in McDonald’s lab, is also a co-author on the paper.

The results shown here are in whole or in part based on data generated by the TCGA Research Network. The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Project was supported by the Common Fund of the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health, and by NCI, NHGRI, NHLBI, NIDA, NIMH, and NINDS.

This research was supported by the Mark Light Integrated Cancer Research Center Student Fellowship, the Deborah Nash Endowment Fund, Northside Hospital (Atlanta), and the Ovarian Cancer Institute (Atlanta).

Citation: “Changes in Gene Network Interactions in Breast Cancer Onset and Development,” Zainab Arshad, Stephen N. Housley, Kara Keun Lee, and John F. McDonald, GEN Biotechnology, April 2024,
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/genbio.2024.0002

Summary sentence

The team used a computational math theory to identify gene-gene interactions that may be good targets for treating basal-like cancers that are resistant to traditional hormone therapies.

Summary

The team used a computational math theory to identify gene-gene interactions that may be good targets for treating basal-like cancers that are resistant to traditional hormone therapies.

Dateline

Tue, 04/23/2024 - 12:00

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Tue, 04/23/2024 - 15:42

Andrew McShan Awarded Curci Grant for Cutting-Edge Cancer Research

admin — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 00:33:41 +0000

Andrew McShan Awarded Curci Grant for Cutting-Edge Cancer Research admin Mon, 03/25/2024 - 20:33

Andrew McShan, assistant professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech, has been awarded a prestigious Curci grant for research in cutting-edge cancer treatments.

The award, provided by the Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation, supports innovative research at the forefront of its field. The new funding will provide two years of support for McShan's investigation into developing the next generation of universal immunotherapies.

“We aim to understand how the immune system works and learn how it plays roles in disease,” McShan says. “We're using biochemistry and structural biology to characterize biomolecules at the atomic level, and harness their intrinsic features for new therapeutic avenues.”

McShan’s research will center on lipids — a previously understudied avenue in cancer treatment — and it has two major components: identifying new cancer lipid signatures in tumor cells, and characterizing known cancer lipid antigens to develop a “molecular blueprint” for immunotherapy. Since lipid antigens provide broad, more universal signatures than current techniques, the applications of the research span a wide range of cancers and immune disorders.

“It's a really interesting new way of thinking about this problem,” McShan says. “We hope that it's a paradigm shift in the way that we think about not only general immune system functions, but also the way that you can target cancer. This same protein system also works with pathogens and autoimmune disease — it’s an incredibly important system.”

A new paradigm

Previously, immunotherapy research has largely centered on developing treatments around targeting mutated peptides, because cancer often causes these mutated proteins.

While peptide-based treatments have proven to be highly effective, the strategy isn’t universal — different people present different peptide mutations to the immune system. “You would have to spend years developing an immunotherapy for just one person who has one type of cancer,” McShan explains, “and that therapy might not work for the next person.”

However, recent research indicates that lipids — fatty and waxy substances in the body that don't dissolve in water, like cholesterol — might provide a more effective avenue. “Lipid signals present more universal signatures to the immune system than peptides, and immune system responses to lipids are less dependent on the person,” McShan says.

Research into lipid-based immunotherapies has historically been limited because lipids are notoriously difficult to study in the lab. However, new tools needed to study lipids have recently become available, opening the door to this groundbreaking research.

Because these tools are so new, though, “a lot of the foundational basic research hasn’t been completed yet,” McShan says. “This grant is a two year grant, and we plan to do this foundational research. This research will provide what the scientific community needs to start thinking about how to move lipid antigens into a clinical area.”

Universal treatments and the next generation of scientists

While McShan’s research team will focus on cancer for the Curci grant, lipid-based treatments could open the door for additional cost-effective, timely treatments — treatments that could also apply to multiple types of cancers, and to other diseases. “If we can understand these cancer lipid antigens — how they're functioning and what they’re doing — there is a translation to the other applications in immunotherapy,” McShan says.

“The protein that we're studying, called CD1, plays roles in nearly every immunological response or disease,” McShan adds. “This type of research could be important for responses to viral infection, bacteria and parasite pathogens, and autoimmune disease.”

Lipids can aid in the development of new and improved vaccines. For example, a lipid-based tuberculosis vaccine has been shown to have the same efficacy as a tuberculosis vaccine made from a live attenuated bacterium. “If we were to discover new cancer lipids — these could potentially be used as prophylactic cancer vaccines,” McShan says.

As a newer member of the Georgia Tech community, McShan is also already making an impact across the campus community. “We care a lot about making science accessible, and being equitable and inclusive,” McShan, who joined the College of Sciences faculty in summer 2022, says. “Our lab is almost entirely women, and so the research that this grant is going to support is also going to support the next generation of women doing science amazing science — and that’s something that gets me really excited.”

Summary sentence

The grant will support innovative research on lipid-based immunotherapies, which could help develop the next generation of universal immunotherapies.

Summary

The two-year grant will support McShan’s innovative research on lipid-based immunotherapies, which could help develop the next generation of universal immunotherapies.

Dateline

Mon, 03/25/2024 - 12:00

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Mon, 03/25/2024 - 20:32

Growing Bacteria in Space with Astronauts

admin — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 20:33:41 +0000

Growing Bacteria in Space with Astronauts admin Mon, 03/25/2024 - 16:33

This story by Kelsey Gulledge first appeared in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering newsroom. See the full feature here.

Georgia Tech researchers are teaming up with NASA to study bacteria on the International Space Station to help define how scientists and healthcare professionals combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria for long-duration space missions.

In the Planetary eXploration Lab (PXL), researchers will work with astronauts living on the International Space Station as they collect air, water, and surface samples. Using testing methods created on campus, the astronauts and scientists will watch microbes grow to learn which bacteria are resistant to specific antibiotics.

The work is part of NASA’s Genomic Enumeration of Antibiotic Resistance in Space (GEARS) study, led by Aaron Burton and Sarah Wallace from NASA Johnson Space Center. Marking SpaceX’s 30th Commercial Resupply Services mission for NASA, the GEARS research is on board a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft, scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on March 21. If all goes according to plan, the Dragon capsule will reach the International Space Station on the morning of March 23.

“Our lab has previously studied bacteria colonies from the International Space Station and found Enterococcus faecalis (EF) was resistant to many antibiotics,” said Christopher E. Carr, director of the PXL and assistant professor in the School of Aerospace Engineering (AE) and the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS). “This particular bacteria species is a core member of the human gut and has evolved over the past 400 million years, making it a difficult pathogen to treat in humans and on surfaces.”

EF is the second leading cause of hospital-acquired infections after Staphylococci. Much like hospital environments, on the International Space Station is built in such a way that studying antibiotic-resistant microbes there could provide insight into how these organisms survive, adapt, and evolve in space and on Earth.

The 30-day GEARS mission will supplement the routine microbial surveillance testing conducted on the International Space Station with an antibiotic-resistant screening step. Astronauts onboard will collect samples and observe what microbes grow on their pre-treated contact slides, a rectangular-shaped petri dish.

The contact slides contain antibiotic-infused agar, a gel-like fuel source for bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms. Therefore, anything that grows on the slides will be identified as antibiotic-resistant to that particular antibiotic. Astronauts will then use a pipet to carefully extract DNA from a bacterial colony and sequence it using the Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION, nanopore sequencing device, which will identify the microbe that is present, as well as sequence its entire genome in real-time. “If we found a new organism that we’ve never seen before, we’d be able to detect it, sequence its entire genome, and determine how it might be resistant to different types of antibiotics,” said Carr.

This new technology will allow humans to travel further - and longer - into space without having to send data back to Earth for processing. “For the purposes of this study and to maximize the science yield, these bacteria will travel back to Earth,” said Jordan McKaig, PXL researcher and Ph.D. candidate in the EAS. “Then we can study them more extensively to better reveal their genomic features, how they are adapting to the built environment, and understand the risks – if any -- they may pose to astronauts.”

Scientists and researchers at NASA Johnson will use this information to figure out what may make astronauts sick in space, how to optimize their health, and make plans for potential counter measures and treatments. This data is critical because astronauts’ immune systems often become compromised due to space flight conditions. The GEARS mission will launch a total of four times over the next year to study the bacteria and data thoroughly. The second mission is expected to launch later this summer.

“I’m really looking forward to hopefully traveling to the launch and getting to see the science that we’ve been working on for a couple of years go to space. It’s really a dream come true,” said McKaig.

While GEARS is in orbit, Carr and the PXL team will prepare for their next study, EnteroGAIT, which will investigate thousands of mutants simultaneously to see what genes are involved in adapting to the space environment. It is currently in the science verification testing phase.

Subtitle

Georgia Tech researchers are collaborating with NASA to study antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the International Space Station.

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Summary

Dateline

Tue, 03/19/2024 - 12:00

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Kelsey Gulledge
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Mon, 03/25/2024 - 16:33

Simpler Approach to Prevent Cervical Cancer Makes Collegiate Inventors Competition Finals

dgivens8 — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 15:31:39 +0000

Simpler Approach to Prevent Cervical Cancer Makes Collegiate Inventors Competition Finals dgivens8 Fri, 03/22/2024 - 11:31

A group of Georgia Tech students is looking to prevent cervical cancer and other gynecological diseases with a new approach to testing that could increase access to healthcare and turn a wasted resource into a valuable tool.

Their idea, a simple menstrual pad add-on to collect blood for lab screening, has earned them one of five finalist spots in the national Collegiate Inventors Competition Oct. 24-25. They’ll compete against other undergraduate teams for $10,000, mentoring from experienced inventors, and a patent acceleration certificate from the U.S. Patent and Trade Office.

The team also is competing for a People’s Choice Award that’s based on online voting.

“We are trying to end the stigma against periods — that's one of our biggest missions behind the product — and we want to increase access to healthcare. Nearly all cervical cancers are preventable with earlier screening and testing for HPV,” said team member Rhea Prem, referring to the human papilloma virus that causes cervical cancer. “We want healthcare to be on your own terms so that you feel in control of your health, and you feel control over what you're doing with your body.”

Read about the team's FADpad kit on the College of Engineering website.

Summary sentence

Students create a multilayered menstrual pad add-on that collects blood samples for gynecological disease screening.

Summary

Students create a multilayered menstrual pad add-on that collects blood samples for gynecological disease screening.

Dateline

Mon, 10/23/2023 - 12:00

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New Study Discovers How Altered Protein Folding Drives Multicellular Evolution

admin — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 16:40:41 +0000

New Study Discovers How Altered Protein Folding Drives Multicellular Evolution admin Mon, 03/11/2024 - 12:40

This news was originally released in the University of Helsinki newsroom. Read the full story here.

In a new study led by Georgia Tech and University of Helsinki, researchers have discovered a mechanism steering the evolution of multicellular life.

Co-authored by the School of Biological Sciences’ Dung Lac, Anthony Burnetti, Ozan Bozdag, and Will Ratcliff, the study, “Proteostatic tuning underpins the evolution of novel multicellular traits”, was published in Science Advances this month, and uncovers how altered protein folding drives multicellular evolution.

The team’s research centers on the ongoing Multicellularity Long Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE) experiment, in which laboratory yeast are evolving novel multicellular functions, enabling researchers to investigate how these functions arise.

Among the most important multicellular innovations is the origin of robust bodies: over 3,000 generations, these ‘snowflake yeast’ started out weaker than gelatin but evolved to be as strong and tough as wood.

From an evolutionary perspective, this work highlights the power of non-genetic mechanisms in rapid evolutionary change.

“We tend to focus on genetic change and were quite surprised to find such large changes in the behavior of chaperone proteins,” says Ratcliff. “This underscores how creative and unpredictable evolution can be when finding solutions to new problems, like building a tough body."

Summary sentence

Researchers at Georgia Tech and University of Helsinki have discovered a mechanism steering the evolution of multicellular life. They identified how altered protein folding drives multicellular evolution.

Summary

In a new study led by Georgia Tech and University of Helsinki, researchers have discovered a mechanism steering the evolution of multicellular life. Co-authored by the School of Biological Sciences’ Dung Lac, Anthony Burnetti, Ozan Bozdag, and Will Ratcliff, the study, “Proteostatic tuning underpins the evolution of novel multicellular traits”, was published in Science Advances this month, and uncovers how altered protein folding drives multicellular evolution.

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Mon, 03/11/2024 - 12:00

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Mon, 03/11/2024 - 12:39

The Who's Who of Bacteria: A Reliable Way to Define Species and Strains

admin — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 15:09:41 +0000

The Who's Who of Bacteria: A Reliable Way to Define Species and Strains admin Mon, 03/04/2024 - 10:09

What’s in a name? A lot, actually.

For the scientific community, names and labels help organize the world’s organisms so they can be identified, studied, and regulated. But for bacteria, there has never been a reliable method to cohesively organize them into species and strains. It’s a problem, because bacteria are one of the most prevalent life forms, making up roughly 75% of all living species on Earth.

An international research team sought to overcome this challenge, which has long plagued scientists who study bacteria. Kostas Konstantinidis, Richard C. Tucker Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, co-led a study to investigate natural divisions in bacteria with a goal of determining a scientifically viable method for organizing them into species and strains. To do this, the researchers let the data show them the way.

Their research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

“While there is a working definition for species and strains, this is far from widely accepted in the scientific community,” Konstantinidis said. “This is because those classifications are based on humans’ standards that do not necessarily translate well to the patterns we see in the natural environment.”

For instance, he said, “If we were to classify primates using the same standards that are used to classify E. coli, then all primates — from lemurs to humans to chimpanzees — would belong to a single species.”

There are many reasons why a comprehensive organizing system has been hard to devise, but it often comes down to who gets the most attention and why. More scientific attention generally leads to those bacteria becoming more narrowly defined. For example, bacteria species that contain toxic strains have been extensively studied because of their associations with disease and health. This has been out of the necessity to differentiate harmful strains from harmless ones. Recent discoveries have shown, however, that even defining types of bacteria by their toxicity is unreliable.

“Despite the obvious, cornerstone importance of the concepts of species and strains for microbiology, these remain, nonetheless, ill-defined and confusing,” Konstantinidis said.

The research team collected bacteria from two salterns in Spain. Salterns are built structures in which seawater evaporates to form salt for consumption. They harbor diverse communities of microorganisms and are ideal locations to study bacteria in their natural environment. This is important for understanding diversity in populations because bacteria often undergo genetic changes when exposed in lab environments.

The team recovered and sequenced 138 random isolates of Salinibacter ruber bacteria from these salterns. To identify natural gaps in genetic diversity, the researchers then compared the isolates against themselves using a measurement known as average nucleotide identity (ANI) — a concept Konstantinidis developed early in his career. ANI is a robust measure of relatedness between any two genomes and is used to study relatedness among microorganisms and viruses, as well as animals. For instance, the ANI between humans and chimpanzees is about 98.7%.

The analysis confirmed the team’s previous observations that microbial species do exist and could be reliably described using ANI. They found that members of the same species of bacteria showed genetic relatedness typically ranging from 96 to 100% on the ANI scale, and generally less than 85% relatedness with members of other species.

The data revealed a natural gap in ANI values around 99.5% ANI within the Salinibacter ruber species that could be used to differentiate the species into its various strains. In a companion paper published in mBio, the flagship journal of the American Society for Microbiology, the team examined about 300 additional bacterial species based on 18,000 genomes that had been recently sequenced and become available in public databases. They observed similar diversity patterns in more than 95% of the species.

“We think this work expands the molecular toolbox for accurately describing important units of diversity at the species level and within species, and we believe it will benefit future microdiversity studies across clinical and environmental settings,” Konstantinidis said.

The team expects their research will be of interest to any professional working with bacteria, including evolutionary biologists, taxonomists, ecologists, environmental engineers, clinicians, bioinformaticians, regulatory agencies, and others. It is available online through Konstantinidis’ website and GitHub to facilitate access and use by scientific and regulatory communities.

“We hope that these communities will embrace the new results and methodologies for the more robust and reliable identification of species and strains they offer, compared to the current practice,” Konstantinidis said.

Note: Tomeu Viver and Ramon Rossello-Mora from the Mediterranean Institutes for Advanced Studies also led the research. Additional researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Innsbruck, University of Pretoria, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, University of the Balearic Islands, and the Max Planck Institute also contributed.

Citation: Viver, T., Conrad, R.E., Rodriguez-R, L.M. et al. Towards estimating the number of strains that make up a natural bacterial population. Nat Commun 15, 544 (2024).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44622-z

Funding: Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, European Regional Development Fund, U.S. National Science Foundation.

Summary sentence

The researchers used data to investigate natural divisions in bacteria with a goal of determining a viable method for organizing them into species and strains.

Summary

The researchers used data to investigate natural divisions in bacteria with a goal of determining a viable method for organizing them into species and strains.

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Mon, 03/04/2024 - 12:00

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Mon, 03/04/2024 - 10:08

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