CMDI

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

CMDI: Mighty Microbial Dynamics for a Healthier People and Planet

admin — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 20:27:56 +0000

CMDI: Mighty Microbial Dynamics for a Healthier People and Planet admin Thu, 02/15/2024 - 15:27

Shaping the shared future of microbes and human health is the mission for Georgia Tech’s Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection (CMDI).

Yes, there are similar academic-based centers studying infectious diseases and the microbes that cause them, but to understand what makes Georgia Tech’s center different, Sam Brown, CMDI co-director and a professor in the School of Biological Sciences, says to concentrate on that third letter in the Center's name.

“Focus on dynamics,” says Brown. “That’s basically how microbes are changing over time and space as well as how they’re changing systems in time. This notion of dynamics operates on different scales. It operates, as I see it, on a behavioral scale — individual bugs making decisions and changing their behavior in time.”

Ecological dynamics are “how populations are changing with time, and how they’re interacting with other communities — for example in biofilms,” Brown adds, referring to the name for communities of microorganisms that stick to surfaces and create their own “neighborhoods.”

There are also evolutionary dynamics, which are worrying to Brown and other researchers, as they can mean bacteria increase resistance to antibiotics. And then there are epidemiological dynamics.

“We’re all glued to our screens watching the epidemiological dynamics of Covid-19 play out in real time,” he explains.

All of this involves the study of some of the natural world’s tiniest troublemakers — and helpers. Humans are pathetically outnumbered by microbes. They live in, on, and around all of us. They are at both ends of the human food chain, helping farmers grow food, and then assisting us in digesting our meals.

“You have trillions of bacteria in your gut,” points out Marvin Whiteley, CMDI’s founding co-director who serves as a professor in the School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Tech Bennie H. and Nelson D. Abell Chair in Molecular and Cellular Biology, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and co-director for Emory-Children’s CF Center. So, in the spectrum of these tiny communities, there are helpful and harmful microbes alike — and the latter can often make us very sick. That’s where CMDI experts step in.

“CMDI is working to transform how we study microbes in an environmental context, and ultimately find new microbial strategies to improve human and environmental health,” Brown says.

CMDI’s science is conducted in an interdisciplinary manner, like many other research centers at Georgia Tech, with research that reaches into a number of other disciplines — microbial ecology, microbiome dynamics, biogeochemistry, microbial biophysics, socio-microbiology, infection dynamics, host-pathogen interactions, marine and aquatic microbiology, microbial evolution, viral ecology, spatial imaging, and math/computational modeling.

The Center is fairly new, beginning operations in 2018. Yet it’s already closing in on 100 researchers — faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral students — and is aggressively recruiting early career scientists from around the world to research at CMDI.

“We are a unique interdisciplinary research center since our expertise spans such broad subjects from coral reef ecosystems, to antibiotic resistant bacteria, to new infectious diseases therapies,” explains Maria Avdonina, CMDI manager.

Building CMDI’s foundation, and using it to attack P. aeruginosa

“How does a pathogen do what it does at the molecular level?” Marvin Whiteley asks.

It is a question that he began asking at The University of Texas at Austin, where he founded another center to study infectious disease before coming to Georgia Tech in 2017. Back then, Whiteley was looking for the kind of interdisciplinary mix of researchers that can be found widely across the Institute, so he moved to Atlanta and built that into the CMDI’s mission as its founding co-director.

“It’s the idea of not just working with pure microbiologists, but working with those interested in how things change, and their dynamic aspects, even daily changes in the microbiome,” he says, referring to the term used to describe all the microorganisms that live in a particular environment, whether it’s a human body or a body of land or water. “It requires modelers — people used to looking at big data sets — and people who think about evolutionary biology. It’s a unique kind of expertise that I don’t have in my lab, but the folks who work for me in the lab can take advantage of it within CMDI.”

Whiteley’s research interests include the study of cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disease that results in bacteria chronically attacking the lungs of its patients. To combat disease, Whiteley is focusing research on Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa), a particularly dangerous bacteria that’s often found in CF patients’ lungs. He notes that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) lists it as one of the primary pathogens that is cause for clinical concern.

“It lives in nature, but we published a paper showing it’s not everywhere. It’s located near human activity, so wherever we are, it seems to grow and do really well. It’s in a lot of different diseases — and CF is one of them.”

P. aeruginosa is also “a really important cause of wound infections,” Whiteley adds, citing a CDC estimate that by 2050, about 20 percent of the entire U.S. healthcare budget could be spent treating chronic wound infections.

“The biggest problem in environments where it’s problematic is hospitals,” he says. “It’s very tolerant of antimicrobials, and it acquires resistance fairly quickly. That causes it to enrich in its environment.”

Taking on Covid-19

Joshua Weitz, who is a CMDI faculty member, professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair in Biological Sciences, and founding director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences program, is a key scientist behind Georgia Tech’s Covid-19 surveillance testing efforts, along with Covid-19 event risk and population immunity modeling research around nation and beyond.

Weitz has led a series of concurrent efforts to estimate epidemiological characteristics of SARS-CoV-2, develop novel approaches to use large-scale testing as an intervention, and leverage mathematical models and real-time datasets to inform the public of ongoing transmission risk.

Weitz recently received a best paper award from the Georgia Tech Chapter of Sigma Xi for his work on the Covid-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool, which calculates the odds of being exposed to an infected individual in groups of different sizes; it has received more than 8 million unique visitors who have generated more than 40 million risk estimates since the planning tool’s launch in July 2020.

Weitz also joined fellow faculty and staff in sharing an Institute Research Award and Institute Service Award in recognition of collective efforts to design, develop, implement, deploy an asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 saliva-based testing program to address the coronavirus pandemic across campus. “We’re very proud of what Joshua has done,” Sam Brown says, “both in the context of Covid-19 and also in exploring new therapeutic angles for bacterial infections, by harnessing the viral natural enemies of bacteria: phages.”

The search for new antibiotics — and how best to use them

While Covid-19 is a virus that has dominated headlines since early 2020, bacterial resistance to antibiotics has been a problem for decades. Penicillin was first available as an antibiotic in 1941. Staphylococcus aureus was found to be resistant to it as early as 1942.

CMDI faculty member Julia Kubanek, a professor of in the School of Biological Sciences and School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, former associate dean for Research in the College of Sciences and newly appointed vice president for Interdisciplinary Research (VPIR) for all of Georgia Tech, has spent the past 17 years diving into the waters near Fiji and the Solomon Islands, looking for natural marine products that could fill that widening gap in resistance-free drugs.

“It’s been a long time since entirely new classes of antibiotics were brought to market,” Kubanek explains. “Pharmaceutical companies have reduced their investments in antibiotic drug discovery, despite the continuing rise of antimicrobial resistance among existing drugs. More resistant strains of infectious bacteria and fungi are evolving constantly and present severe threats to public health.”

The Covid-19 pandemic is a related example. It has revealed that science’s arsenal of antiviral drugs is inadequate, she notes.

Kubanek and CMDI faculty colleague Mark Hay, Regents Professor and Harry and Linda Teasley Chair in the School of Biological Sciences, are both part of Georgia Tech’s drug discovery program, which looks at small molecule natural products from marine organisms as sources for potential future medicines against infectious diseases.

A partnership with Emory University School of Medicine helps researchers screen Georgia Tech’s natural product library — what Kubanek and her research team found on those South Pacific trips — for potential drug candidates has resulted in encouraging news for viruses like SARS-CoV-2, the specific coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

“We’re currently following three promising classes of natural products from marine algae and sponges that show preliminary activity against this coronavirus,” Kubanek says. Those molecules are distinct from currently marketed antivirals and antibiotics, and that could mean more weapons in science’s arsenal for fighting infectious diseases.

CMDI researchers also approach the antibiotic resistance crisis through an epidemiological and evolutionary lens. For example, recent work from the Brown Lab has identified new strategies to slow or even reverse the increase in drug-resistant strains, by changing how doctors dose their drugs, and how they make use of diagnostic information.

Microbes, climate, and environmental health

Beyond human infections and pathogen control, CMDI also focuses on the significant impacts that microbes have on human and environmental health. CMDI faculty member Joel Kostka, professor and associate chair of Research in the School of Biological Sciences who also serves as a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is a leading researcher in environmental microbiology, bringing the power of “omics” technologies to discover the role of environmental microbes in shaping key aspects of our shared world, from bioremediation to climate change.

Kostka’s work led to the discovery of key marine microbes that played an important role in cleaning up the oil spilled during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Disaster — microbes that turned out to be abundant in oil-contaminated soils around the world.

Kostka’s work in this space “revealed a natural capacity for rare microbes in the Gulf of Mexico to catalyze the bioremediation, or natural cleanup, of petroleum hydrocarbons,” he explains. “These microbes show promise as biological indicators to direct emergency response efforts, as well as to elucidate the impacts of oil exposure on ecosystem health during oil spills and other environmental disasters,” he adds.

The Kostka Lab has also long characterized the role of the environment in shaping microbial communities that limit the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

In a large scale climate change experiment that’s being conducted in northern Minnesota with funding by the U.S. Department of Energy, Kostka’s research recently showed that warming accelerates the production of greenhouse gases from soil microbial respiration — and that microbial activity “was fueled by the release of plant metabolites, suggesting that enhanced greenhouse gas production is likely to persist and result in amplified climate feedbacks.”

“Joel is our key player in this space,” Brown says. “He’s done incredible research on how the environment can dictate microbial species abundance and their behavioral contributions to the functioning of Earth’s ecosystems. He’s shown that different ‘taxa’, or groups of organisms, become metabolically active or ‘switched on’ depending on environmental factors like temperature. His research contributes to building better climate models as well as to develop new geoengineering strategies to adapt to climate change. He’s doing beautiful work.”

CMDI’s global call to early career microbiologists

CMDI’s research is funded by grants from agencies like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health to individual labs run by faculty — and by money distributed directly to the Center from across Georgia Tech, including the College of Sciences and its Office of the Dean and Sutherland Dean's Chair.

These sources “are getting healthier by the minute, and that’s a testament to the scientists at the Center,” Brown points out — so much so that two new positions have recently been created: a senior research scientist who will assist postdoctoral and graduate students with grant and fellowship applications, and a CMDI Early Career Award Fellowship that seeks out “superstars, people who are going to go on to be faculty success stories.”

“We want to get them early,” Brown says. “We’re interviewing some great candidates just out of their Ph.D.s. We’ll give them maximum independence, their own space, their own office, their own pot of money. They’ll be sitting at the intersection of our research interests but can run their own lab and their own research program.”

This allows postdoctoral students to focus on research projects, Julia Kubanek says. “Because postdocs generally don’t enroll in formal courses, nor are they generally expected to teach in the classroom, they get to immerse themselves in research in collaboration with faculty, students, and other postdocs. The CMDI is rapidly growing as a collaborative environment, where postdocs can try out their best ideas and learn from others how to tackle the most pressing scientific questions in microbial dynamics, microbial communication, ecosystem health, and infectious disease.” Kubanek adds that a related fellowship program “will augment postdoctoral salaries to attract the very best candidates, enabling grant dollars to stretch further, leading to new discoveries.”

The Center is also ratcheting up outreach, including what it calls its "Research Envoys Program." The intitiative features graduate students giving seminars at local institutions throughout the Atlanta area, including at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Although it’s mostly on pause right now due to the pandemic, two Ph.D. students and a postdoctoral student working with CMDI faculty member Brian Hammer — a professor in the School of Biological Sciences who is also chair of the Institute Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, and co-director of the Aquatic Chemical Ecology Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program — recently gave remote seminars at Spelman College and Kennesaw State University.

“Our trainees get practice in speaking, and it opens doors to folks seeing Georgia Tech as an option,” Brown explains. The CMDI is also working with Georgia Tech’s Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the Southern Regional Education Board to continue to increase the number of underrepresented minorities at all levels of recruitment.

“We’re really interested in educating the next generation of scientists in biology,” Whiteley adds. “Everybody says that — but we’re actually developing programs to recruit the best talent in the world.”

CMDI research areas and faculty:

Sam Brown

Virulence, microbiomes, biofilms, cystic fibrosis

Steve Diggle

Biofilms, virulence

Neha Garg

Cystic fibrosis, coral reef microbial disease

Brian Hammer

Vibrio cholerae (cholera), microbial interactions

Mark Hay

Marine ecology/coral reefs

Joel Kostka

Environmental microbiology, biogeochemistry, microbiomes, wetlands, bioremediation

Julia Kubanek

Natural product drug discovery, marine chemical ecology

William Ratcliff

Multicellular evolution, biofilm dynamics

Frank Rosenzweig

Cellular genomics and evolution

Peter Yunker

Soft matter physics, biofilms, multicellular evolution

Joshua Weitz

Viruses/viral modeling, bacteriophages, microbial ecology/evolution

Marvin Whiteley

Microbial ecology/virulence, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, cystic fibrosis

Learn more about each faculty member’s area of research on the CMDI website.

Writer: Renay San Miguel

Editors and Contributors: Jess Hunt-Ralston, Joel Kostka, Joshua Weitz, Julia Kubanek, Maria Avdonina, Marvin Whiteley, Sam Brown

Summary sentence

CMDI merges disciplines, aggressively recruiting microbiologist ‘superstars’ to take back the high ground from antibiotic-resistant pathogens and emerging diseases — and to harness microbes for new medicines, cleaner environments, and climate solutions.

Summary

Georgia Tech’s Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection (CMDI) merges disciplines, aggressively recruiting microbiologist ‘superstars’ to take back the high ground from antibiotic-resistant pathogens and emerging diseases — and to harness microbes to provide new medicines, cleaner environments, and solutions to the challenges of climate change.

Dateline

Thu, 08/05/2021 - 12:00

renay.san@cos.gatech.edu

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Renay San Miguel
Communications Officer II/Science Writer
College of Sciences
404-894-5209

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Thu, 02/15/2024 - 15:27

Researchers Create Light-Powered Yeast, Providing Insights Into Evolution, Biofuels, Cellular Aging

admin — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 21:32:41 +0000

Researchers Create Light-Powered Yeast, Providing Insights Into Evolution, Biofuels, Cellular Aging admin Fri, 01/12/2024 - 16:32

You may be familiar with yeast as the organism content to turn carbs into products like bread and beer when left to ferment in the dark. In these cases, exposure to light can hinder or even spoil the process.

In a new study published in Current Biology, researchers in Georgia Tech’s School of Biological Sciences have engineered one of the world’s first strains of yeast that may be happier with the lights on.

“We were frankly shocked by how simple it was to turn the yeast into phototrophs (organisms that can harness and use energy from light),” says Anthony Burnetti, a research scientist working in Associate Professor William Ratcliff’s laboratory and corresponding author of the study. “All we needed to do was move a single gene, and they grew 2% faster in the light than in the dark. Without any fine-tuning or careful coaxing, it just worked.”

Easily equipping the yeast with such an evolutionarily important trait could mean big things for our understanding of how this trait originated — and how it can be used to study things like biofuel production, evolution, and cellular aging.

Looking for an energy boost

The research was inspired by the group’s past work investigating the evolution of multicellular life. The group published their first report on their Multicellularity Long-Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE) in Nature last year, uncovering how their single-celled model organism, “snowflake yeast,” was able to evolve multicellularity over 3,000 generations.

Throughout these evolution experiments, one major limitation for multicellular evolution appeared: energy.

“Oxygen has a hard time diffusing deep into tissues, and you get tissues without the ability to get energy as a result,” says Burnetti. “I was looking for ways to get around this oxygen-based energy limitation.”

One way to give organisms an energy boost without using oxygen is through light. But the ability to turn light into usable energy can be complicated from an evolutionary standpoint. For example, the molecular machinery that allows plants to use light for energy involves a host of genes and proteins that are hard to synthesize and transfer to other organisms — both in the lab and naturally through evolution.

Luckily, plants are not the only organisms that can convert light to energy.

Keeping it simple

A simpler way for organisms to use light is with rhodopsins: proteins that can convert light into energy without additional cellular machinery.

“Rhodopsins are found all over the tree of life and apparently are acquired by organisms obtaining genes from each other over evolutionary time,” says Autumn Peterson, a biology Ph.D. student working with Ratcliff and lead author of the study.

This type of genetic exchange is called horizontal gene transfer and involves sharing genetic information between organisms that aren’t closely related. Horizontal gene transfer can cause seemingly big evolutionary jumps in a short time, like how bacteria are quickly able to develop resistance to certain antibiotics. This can happen with all kinds of genetic information and is particularly common with rhodopsin proteins.

“In the process of figuring out a way to get rhodopsins into multi-celled yeast,” explains Burnetti, “we found we could learn about horizontal transfer of rhodopsins that has occurred across evolution in the past by transferring it into regular, single-celled yeast where it has never been before.”

To see if they could outfit a single-celled organism with solar-powered rhodopsin, researchers added a rhodopsin gene synthesized from a parasitic fungus to common baker’s yeast. This specific gene is coded for a form of rhodopsin that would be inserted into the cell’s vacuole, a part of the cell that, like mitochondria, can turn chemical gradients made by proteins like rhodopsin into energy.

Equipped with vacuolar rhodopsin, the yeast grew roughly 2% faster when lit — a huge benefit in terms of evolution.

“Here we have a single gene, and we're just yanking it across contexts into a lineage that's never been a phototroph before, and it just works,” says Burnetti. “This says that it really is that easy for this kind of a system, at least sometimes, to do its job in a new organism.”

This simplicity provides key evolutionary insights and says a lot about “the ease with which rhodopsins have been able to spread across so many lineages and why that may be so,” explains Peterson, who Peterson recently received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Gilliam Fellowship for her work. Carina Baskett, grant writer for Georgia Tech’s Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection, also worked on the study.

Because vacuolar function may contribute to cellular aging, the group has also initiated collaborations to study how rhodopsins may be able to reduce aging effects in the yeast. Other researchers are already starting to use similar new, solar-powered yeast to study advancing bioproduction, which could mark big improvements for things like synthesizing biofuels.

Ratcliff and his group, however, are mostly keen to explore how this added benefit could impact the single-celled yeast’s journey to a multicellular organism.

“We have this beautiful model system of simple multicellularity,” says Burnetti, referring to the long-running Multicellularity Long-Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE). “We want to give it phototrophy and see how it changes its evolution.”

Citation: Peterson et al., 2024, Current Biology 34, 1–7.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.044

Summary sentence

Georgia Tech researchers have engineered one of the world’s first yeast cells able to harness energy from light, expanding our understanding of the evolution of this trait — and paving the way for advancements in biofuel production and cellular aging.

Summary

Researchers in Georgia Tech’s School of Biological Sciences have engineered one of the world's first yeast cells able to turn light into usable metabolic energy, giving a glimpse into how this trait may have been passed between organisms across evolution — and how it could be synthesized to advance our understanding of biofuel production and cellular aging.

Dateline

Fri, 01/12/2024 - 12:00

davidson.audra@gatech.edu

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Fri, 01/12/2024 - 16:31

Graduate Student and Advisor Pair Awarded HHMI Gilliam Fellowship

dgivens8 — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 15:40:12 +0000

Graduate Student and Advisor Pair Awarded HHMI Gilliam Fellowship dgivens8 Mon, 10/23/2023 - 11:40

For the second consecutive year, a Georgia Tech student and their advisor have been awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study. Autumn Peterson, a Ph.D. student in biology, will receive $53,000 per year for up to three years for dissertation research. Peterson’s advisor, William Ratcliff, will participate in activities that address challenges to diversity and inclusion at the graduate level.

“Receiving the HHMI Gilliam award will allow me to conduct innovative research while building leadership and mentorship skills–all attributes that are necessary to become a better scientist,” said Peterson. “Ultimately, this will help me prepare for a career in academia as a professor.”

HHMI awards student-advisor pairs based on the student’s potential for scientific leadership and the advisor’s commitment to a culture of inclusion in academia.

“Through my academic journey at Virginia Tech, University of Kansas, and Georgia Tech, I have had wonderful mentors and colleagues, but I have had few Black faculty role models,” said Peterson. “It wasn’t until I worked with Brian Atkinson, an African American professor at the University of Kansas, that I even considered becoming a professor. That research experience put me on a path that led directly to Tech and underscored my commitment to outreach broadening participation in science. I am looking forward to being a part of the HHMI community and fostering leadership and mentorship skills that will help me succeed in my career in academia so I can be a role model for future generations of students.”

The program awards grants to dissertation advisors and encourages the grantee institution and the advisor to facilitate institutional changes to create environments that advance diversity and inclusion.

“As an advisor, I’m delighted to see Autumn’s work and leadership recognized this way,” said Ratcliff, an associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences at Georgia Tech. “This fellowship is also a huge opportunity for us to do cool science, become better scientists and mentors, and work to improve diversity and inclusion at Georgia Tech. I cannot wait to get to know the broader community of Gilliam Fellows and mentors.”

As part of the Gilliam Award, the advisor will also complete a year-long culturally responsive mentorship skills development course.

“This fellowship provides key resources and professional opportunities that I think can make me a better advisor and can support our work on behalf of trainees from underrepresented groups at Georgia Tech more broadly,” said Ratcliff.

Fellows are required to participate in the Gilliam Annual Meeting, Gilliam Leadership Training course, and one HHMI Science Meeting per year in the second and third years of the fellowship award where there will be Gilliam-specific discussion sessions.

Learn more about the HHMI Gilliam Fellows program here.

Summary sentence

For the second consecutive year, a Georgia Tech student and their advisor have been awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study.

Summary

For the second consecutive year, a Georgia Tech student and their advisor have been awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study.

Dateline

Thu, 07/27/2023 - 12:00

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Tue, 10/17/2023 - 17:50

What's on the Horizon for 2023?

admin — Fri, 13 Jan 2023 16:43:05 +0000

What's on the Horizon for 2023? admin Fri, 01/13/2023 - 11:43

The new year is often a time of reflection and planning. With this in mind, we asked several members of the Georgia Tech community to share what they are looking forward to — personally or professionally — in 2023.

“My lab moved to Cherry Emerson late last year. So, this year I am looking forward to hallway conversations with my new neighbors, and I am hoping to strike up some new collaborations at the interface between biophysics, microbiology, and evolutionary biology.”

—Peter Yunker, associate professor, School of Physics

“I’m looking forward to shaping a more fulfilling and engaging employee experience at Georgia Tech. In Human Resources, we’ve been working tirelessly to develop programs and practices that will help Tech recruit, support and develop our talented workforce. I’m excited for faculty and staff to experience positive culture shifts and hope we inspire enthusiasm as we share and celebrate the deep love that exists for working at Tech.”

—Skye Duckett, vice president and chief human resources officer, Georgia Tech Human Resources

“Personally, I am looking forward to spending more time with my wife, Amanda, and our dog, Buzz, at our family place on the coast. I'm also looking forward to watching my fellow 2001 alumnus, Coach Brent Key, lead our Yellow Jackets this fall!”

—William Smith, director, Office of Emergency Management and Communications

“I am very much looking forward to taking the Cultivate Well-Being strategic focus to the next level as we are able to start planning and implementation in earnest, guided by our roadmap. I am also excited about the prospect of enhancing our efforts to promote student belonging and facilitate student success as we launch the new John Lewis Student Leadership Pathways and move toward making the Black cultural center a reality. I am also planning to visit the Georgia Tech-Europe campus for the first time! On the personal front, I can’t wait for Season 7 of Outlander (Starz) or Season 2 of Shadow and Bone (Netflix). I also get to celebrate my blue point Siamese kitten turning one year old in February.”

—Luoluo Hong, vice president for Student Engagement and Well-Being

“I am looking forward to all that 2023 has to offer me personally. I am the one who’s usually immersed in my professional career and family and friends. However, this year, it’s all about me, and accomplishing some of the personal goals that I’ve set for myself. So, I am excited and looking forward to the completion of my first children’s book series. I have been working on it for a few years and it’s finally coming together. It will be released in August 2023.”

—Quinae’ A. Ford, administrative manager, GTRI Project Management Office

“The Georgia Tech Alumni Association has named this the Year of Engagement. I am excited about connecting with even more alumni and inviting them to gather on campus and with Yellow Jackets in their community, to grow together with our professional education programs, and to give back to each other and the Institute. We are closing in on 200,000 living alumni this year, so we are grateful for the partnerships we enjoy across campus to help us reach our vast constituency. We are striving to build an Alumni Association that is with our alumni in 2023 and for a lifetime. Go Jackets!”

—Dene Sheheane, MGT 1991, president of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association

Summary sentence

Members of the Tech community share their plans for the new year.

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Members of the Tech community share their plans for the new year.

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Fri, 01/13/2023 - 12:00

victor.rogers@comm.gatech.edu

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Victor Rogers

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2023

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School of Biological Sciences

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Fri, 01/13/2023 - 10:07

To the Moon, Back, and Beyond

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 16:16:49 +0000

To the Moon, Back, and Beyond admin Thu, 11/17/2022 - 11:16

The Artemis I rocket launch is a major step in NASA's return to Earth's moon. Hear from seven Georgia Tech experts — including Thom Orlando of the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Physics, Feryal Özel of the School of Physics, and Frances Rivera-Hernández of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences — on why we're going and what we might find, the science and politics of space, and predictions on the broader future of space exploration.

To the Moon, Back, and Beyond

Why go back to the Moon now? Thom Orlando examines exploration of the moon and the search for water as the first step to human exploration in our solar system.

How will being on the Moon help us learn about the universe? Feryal Özel explains how the moon can help us learn more about what makes a planet habitable and the search for life throughout the universe.

How will returning to the moon help us answer astrobiological questions and prepare us for human expeditions to Mars? Frances Rivera-Hernández reveals how exploration of the Moon will be a key step forward in our understanding of how life emerged on Earth — and about the search for past evidence of microbial life on Mars.

Check out the full feature in the Georgia Tech newsroom.

Summary sentence

The Artemis I rocket launch is a major step in NASA's return to Earth's moon. Hear from seven Georgia Tech experts on why we're going and what we might find, the science and politics of space, and predictions on the broader future of space exploration.

Summary

The Artemis I rocket launch is a major step in NASA's return to Earth's moon. Hear from seven Georgia Tech experts — including Thom Orlando, Feryal Özel, and Frances Rivera-Hernández — on why we're going and what we might find, the science and politics of space, and predictions on the broader future of space exploration.

Dateline

Wed, 11/16/2022 - 12:00

jess@cos.gatech.edu

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Jess Hunt-Ralston
Director of Communications
College of Sciences at Georgia Tech

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cos-planetary

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School of Physics

School of Chemistry and Biochemistry

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Artemis I

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Mars

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Thu, 11/17/2022 - 09:19

New International Center Will Support Collaborative Solutions to Improve Health of World’s Oceans

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 03:42:13 +0000

New International Center Will Support Collaborative Solutions to Improve Health of World’s Oceans admin Wed, 10/12/2022 - 23:42

In a significant response to urgent climate-related threats, a new international center headquartered at Georgia Aquarium, endorsed by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, will support versatile, collaborative solutions to improve the health of the world’s oceans.

The Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Center for Ocean-Climate Solutions (OV – UN DCC), a partnership with Ocean Visions, Georgia Aquarium, and Georgia Institute of Technology, is the only center of its kind in the United States.

The climate crisis is one of the greatest threats facing public health, natural resources and the economy worldwide, and ocean ecosystems are not only at risk, but also offer the potential of climate mitigation solutions.

The primary focus of the Center is to help co-design, develop, test, fund and deliver scalable and equitable ocean-based solutions to reduce the effects of climate change and build climate-resilient marine ecosystems and coastal communities. There are also tremendous opportunities to accelerate carbon clean-up and advance sustainable ocean economies.

“A diverse approach is critical to address today’s serious threats to ocean health,” said Brian Davis, Ph.D., president and CEO of Georgia Aquarium. “As a mission-focused conservation leader, Georgia Aquarium is keen to host this multinational center that will connect innovative researchers with the resources to create and launch projects that may solve ocean-climate issues.”

In affiliation with the Ocean Decade, run by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Center’s work will contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to achieve by 2030 that are a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.

“In response to the need for partnership and investment in ocean science, and to help urgently mitigate the impact of climate change on the ocean, the Ocean Decade movement thanks Ocean Visions, Georgia Aquarium, and Georgia Institute of Technology for this generous support and long-term commitment,” said Julian Barbière, Ocean Decade Global Coordinator and Head of the Marine Policy and Regional Coordination Section, IOC-UNESCO. “Such exemplary leadership by our Decade Collaborative Centers, spearheaded by the OV – UN DCC in the U.S. is an important step towards developing effective ocean-climate solutions.”

The ocean nurtures 80% of all life on Earth. Billions of people rely on food from the ocean, and world economies depend upon it for fishing, tourism, shipping, energy and more. It is the world’s largest carbon sink, vital to curbing the impacts of climate change. Healthy marine habitats defend coastal communities from intensifying storms and flooding.

“The ocean crisis and the climate crisis are two sides of the same coin, and we cannot have a healthy ocean without resolving the climate crisis and the greenhouse gas pollution causing it,” said Brad Ack, executive director and chief innovation officer at Ocean Visions, a nonprofit that develops solutions to complex ocean challenges.

“This work will take bold imagination, greatly expanded innovation, and many more people from around the world engaged in this effort collectively. This new Center will give us a framework to build the innovation ecosystem we desperately need,” said Emanuele Di Lorenzo, Ph.D., chairman and co-founder of Ocean Visions.

The ocean has buffered humanity from the worst effects to date of climate disruption by directly absorbing about 30 percent of humanity’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and trapping more than 90 percent of the excess heat in the biosphere caused by CO2 pollution. However, both of these climate-buffering functions have come at a high cost – unraveling marine ecosystems and crippling the ability of the ocean to support the billions of people and other creatures dependent upon it.

The Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Center will work with an emerging global network of experts and collaborators associated with projects and programs to design, test and deploy viable solutions, such as Ocean Visions’ Global Ecosystem for Ocean Solutions, 1000 Ocean Startups and Stride.

For example, one issue being solved is securing investment in ocean solutions. The Center is helping advance the development of a new open-source tool called The Ocean Impact Navigator, which consists of 30 prioritized key performance indicators (KPIs), grouped in six main impact areas. It captures effects that innovators are driving across ocean health, climate change, human wellbeing and equity.

“This Center signals an urgent, strategic commitment to finding climate solutions,” said Susan Lozier, Ph.D., dean of the College of Sciences and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair at Georgia Tech and President of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). “Ocean health is also human health, and we must find effective ways to protect waters around the planet.”

“At this Center, the best and brightest minds—including our researchers, staff and students—will ensure that our ocean will remain vital for generations to come,” added Tim Lieuwen, Ph.D., executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute at Georgia Tech who also serves as Regents’ Professor and David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in the Institute's Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. “The solutions are there, and we look forward to working alongside Georgia Aquarium and Ocean Visions to find them, with the support of the Ocean Decade movement.”

For more information about the Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Center for Ocean-Climate Solutions, visit the website at oceanvisions.org/undcc/.

###

About Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Center for Ocean-Climate Solutions

The Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Center for Ocean-Climate Solutions is an innovative partnership between Ocean Visions, Georgia Tech and Georgia Aquarium, with headquarters at the Aquarium in Atlanta. The Center, endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, leads and supports processes to co-design, develop, test, fund and deploy scalable and equitable ocean-based solutions to reduce or reverse the effects of climate change, enhance food security and build climate-resilient marine ecosystems and coastal communities. The Center’s work contributes to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to achieve by 2030 that are a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.

About the Ocean Decade:

Proclaimed in 2017 by the United Nations General Assembly, the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) (‘the Ocean Decade’) seeks to stimulate ocean science and knowledge generation to reverse the decline of the state of the ocean system and catalyse new opportunities for sustainable development of this massive marine ecosystem. The vision of the Ocean Decade is ‘the science we need for the ocean we want’. The Ocean Decade provides a convening framework for scientists and stakeholders from diverse sectors to develop the scientific knowledge and the partnerships needed to accelerate and harness advances in ocean science to achieve a better understanding of the ocean system, and deliver science-based solutions to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The UN General Assembly mandated UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) to coordinate the preparations and implementation of the Decade.

About Georgia Aquarium

Georgia Aquarium is a leading 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Atlanta, Ga. that is Humane Certified by American Humane and accredited by the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. It is also a Center for Species Survival by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Georgia Aquarium is committed to working on behalf of all marine life through education, preservation, exceptional animal care, and research across the globe. Georgia Aquarium continues its mission each day to inspire, educate, and entertain its millions of guests about the aquatic biodiversity throughout the world through its hundreds of exhibits and tens of thousands of animals across its eight major galleries. For more information, visit georgiaaquarium.org.

About Georgia Tech:

The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a public research university developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts and sciences degrees. Its nearly 44,000 students representing 50 states and 149 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry and society.

This press release is shared jointly with the Georgia Aquarium and Ocean Visions newsrooms. Learn more: oceanvisions.org/undcc

Summary sentence

Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Center for Ocean-Climate Solutions (OV – UN DCC) will be headquartered at Georgia Aquarium

Summary

In a significant response to urgent climate-related threats, a new international center headquartered at Georgia Aquarium, endorsed by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, will support versatile, collaborative solutions to improve the health of the world’s oceans. The Ocean Visions – UN Decade Collaborative Center for Ocean-Climate Solutions (OV – UN DCC), a partnership with Ocean Visions, Georgia Aquarium, and Georgia Tech, is the only center of its kind in the United States.

Dateline

Wed, 10/12/2022 - 12:00

jess.hunt@cos.gatech.edu

Contact

Jess Hunt-Ralston
Director of Communications
College of Sciences at Georgia Tech

Associated importer

Keywords

go-researchnews

CMDI

School of Biological Sciences

cos-climate

News room topics

Earth and Environment

Mercury ID

662002

Source updated

Wed, 10/12/2022 - 11:36

Research Next Enters New Phase

admin — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 15:26:16 +0000

Research Next Enters New Phase admin Thu, 08/25/2022 - 11:26

With the research landscape rapidly changing, Georgia Tech must respond to external forces to address local, national, and global challenges and produce novel ideas and actionable solutions. In alignment with the Institute strategic plan, Research Next positions Georgia Tech to respond to future challenges with innovation, expertise, creativity, and a dedication to improving the human condition.

“Georgia Tech envisions a future in which we continue to educate transformative researchers, strive for inclusive excellence and truth, and leverage our scale and resources to address the most urgent challenges of our time,” said Chaouki Abdallah, executive vice president for research at Georgia Tech. “Our plan is people centered, value based, and data informed. Like the Institute’s strategic plan, this belongs to all of us, and it will be up to us to make it a reality.”

To create the research strategy, Georgia Tech faculty, staff, and students assessed the current landscape for research-intensive universities. They identified the internal and external forces and factors that shape the research ecosystem. Out of this came a research landscape analysis. The Phase II work capitalized on the rich insights from the Phase I to identify 16 goals and 50 objectives for Georgia Tech to work toward over the next decade.

Now, seven initial projects have been identified to support the vision of the Research Next. They are large-scale, campus-wide projects. Four of the teams have assembled, and efforts are underway, including:

Project management support: large-scale projects and scaling PI operations
- This group develops project management recommendations that are proactively supporting researchers and thinking through the needs of both singular, large activities, as well as the demands for larger efforts distributed over a range of projects.
Research faculty engagement & career development
- This group takes a deeper look at Georgia Tech research faculty environment, including hiring, mentoring, career development, community and work environment, promotion, and compensation approaches.
All members of the research enterprise feel connected to and included in and able to contribute to the mission, conduct, and products of research
- This group makes our community feel appreciated and empowered by creating an environment and culture in which all can grow, thrive, and add value.
Strategic & operational expansion of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) & minority serving institutions (MSIs) research partnerships
- This group identifies and streamlines processes that enable collaborative research with MSIs; develops an ongoing process for identifying, networking, and finalizing potential research collaborations across Georgia Tech and MSIs; and establish/maintain a network of sources, sponsors, and new paradigms for funding long-term research partnerships.

Three additional teams will be launched in FY23, including:

Research prioritization & annual strategic analysis
This team will monitor progress and metrics across all Research Next initiatives, as well advise the research enterprise on large research initiatives and directions.
Organizational structures & pathways of interdisciplinary research
This team will address crosscutting educational offering, coordinating faculty hiring with research prioritization, and integrating campus operations with research. It will also create structures for supporting and incubating new ideas; funding models (fundraising); alignment and assessment of existing structures (startup/ sunset); and integration of social sciences, diversity efforts, and the arts.
Research leader & mentor development
This team will create a comprehensive research leadership development program for Georgia Tech. It will leverage and build off of other GTRI and Provost office leadership initiatives, but also develop the unique materials associated with research leadership.

The Research Next plan will leverage trends and thought leadership to prepare for changes in the research landscape, focus Georgia Tech’s efforts, and resolve grand challenges. Stay tuned for regular updates on how the project teams are evolving to meet the needs of the Institute and world.

Check out the full Research Next website.

Summary sentence

Georgia Tech’s Strategic Plan for Research will shape the future of innovation

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Dateline

Thu, 08/25/2022 - 12:00

georgia.parmelee@gatech.edu

Contact

Georgia Parmelee

Associated importer

Keywords

go-researchnews

CMDI

School of Biological Sciences

News room topics

Campus and Community

Mercury ID

660534

Source updated

Thu, 08/25/2022 - 10:50

Surveillance Testing Shown to Reduce Community Covid-19 Spread

bwaye3 — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 22:10:24 +0000

Surveillance Testing Shown to Reduce Community Covid-19 Spread bwaye3 Mon, 02/14/2022 - 17:10

Covid-19 is often asymptomatic and can lead infected individuals to spread the disease without knowing it. Yet, regular surveillance testing of a community can catch these cases and prevent outbreaks.

In early 2020, Georgia Tech researchers designed a saliva-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and encouraged community members to test weekly to track the health of the campus. Their strategy confirmed 62% of the campus’ positive cases in the Fall 2020 semester. The method of surveillance testing — focusing on case clusters and then having patients isolate — reduced positivity rates from 4.1% in the beginning of the semester to below 0.5% mid-semester. Their findings were published in the journal Epidemiology.

“One of the ways you can mitigate spread is not to think about testing as just an indicator for how bad things are, but actually use enough testing that you can begin to pull infected people out of circulation to reduce the spread,” said Joshua Weitz, Georgia Tech professor in the School of Biological Sciences who developed the infectious disease models used to monitor campus.

Surveillance testing not only kept the community safe, but also enabled an open campus during a period of the pandemic when vaccines were not available. The strategy showed that combining multiple mitigation efforts — from testing to social distancing — can keep a university operational.

Designing the Test

The program relied on saliva PCR tests compared to the more common nasal swab PCR tests.

“I saw data very early on that the saliva tests were actually probably a little bit more sensitive than the nasal ones,” said Greg Gibson, professor in the School of Biological Sciences. “I just knew that students would be more likely to do something that takes 30 seconds to give us spit. It’s easy and safe, so it was just a no-brainer.”

Saliva-based tests were a practical solution for a campus. The test could be self-administered, requiring fewer medical personnel and creating ease of access for students. The tests were also safer than nasal swabs because the collection tube contained a viral deactivation buffer that killed active virus but preserved the RNA at room temperature for analysis.

The Georgia Tech campus biomedical research labs were also ideal for this type of test. Andrés García, executive director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering & Bioscience, realized robotics labs could build and run tests and make the program scalable.

“Testing requires precisely distributing different amounts of fluid to volumes, and this is a task really well suited for a robot,” García said. “With the large number of tests that we were expecting to need to administer, there was really no choice because having the robot really cut down on the human error.”

Another novel strategy was double pooling. Each saliva sample was pooled twice into a group of five samples and processed. This had multiple advantages, according to Gibson. One was it prevented false results because each sample had to test positive twice to be considered positive. And, by pooling, the testing system could clear dozens of individuals at once, while also focusing on a positive individual and then referring them for further diagnostic testing.

“A purely surveillance test where you don't give anybody results can be done without much regulation, but it’s minimally useful,” said Gibson, who is a Regents’ Professor, Tom and Marie Patton Chair in Biological Sciences, and serves as director of the Center for Integrative Genomics at Georgia Tech. “The double pooling strategy was a way for us to be able to identify exactly who was responsible for positive tests, and then go back to their original test and do a diagnostic one in a CLIA-certified lab.” CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments) certification indicates a lab has met federal quality standards for diagnostic testing on human samples.

The Testing Strategy

Creating an effective testing infrastructure was also key to the success of the program. A university is a high-density environment where a community lives, learns, and works. When the program was first implemented in the Fall 2020 semester, Georgia Tech had 7,370 people in residence and 5,000 students, faculty, and staff who visited daily.

With the ability to run 1,500 tests at the beginning of the semester and up to 2,850 by the end, the program enabled most people on campus to test weekly. Testing weekly helped catch cases early with Covid-19’s seven-day incubation period, and positive individuals isolated for 10 days.

Part of why this approach was so successful was because of what Gibson calls “synergistic effectiveness.” By combining testing with mitigation strategies like masking and social distancing, Georgia Tech was able to reduce positivity rates.

“We've shown that testing doesn't have to be comprehensive with everybody testing every other day to be effective,” Gibson said.

This strategy enabled the researchers to focus on campus hotspots and control spread. In the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester, campus positivity was at 0.5% until a cluster was identified in Greek housing in August. This enabled a targeted campaign where 90% of on-campus residents were tested. The asymptomatic positivity rate peaked at 4.1%, but steadily declined back to 0.5% by mid-September thanks to rapid identification and isolation of positive individuals.

“We are a technical university — that doesn't have a medical school or a school of public health — that developed its own effective testing program and was able to deploy it to test a large segment of the population and keep the campus in operation,” said García, who additionally holds the Petit Director’s Chair in Bioengineering and Bioscience and is a Regents’ Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

Due to the success of surveillance testing, cases were kept at a manageable number. Most importantly, campus was able to stay open throughout the pandemic. The Georgia state legislature also adopted Georgia Tech’s surveillance testing system in January 2021 and is using the program to track and manage cases during this year’s legislative session. The strategy continues to keep Georgia Tech an active campus with in-person learning as the pandemic evolves. Ideally, the program established at Georgia Tech will remain in place, prepared to deal quickly with future infectious disease epidemics should the need arise, according to Gibson.

“We developed a program that in practice – and psychologically – provided a benefit to community members,” said Weitz, who also serves as the Tom and Marie Patton Chair in Biological Sciences and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences. “Many people could go get tested and know that they weren't infectious so that they had a less likely chance of infecting others. Or, if they did end up testing positive, they were able to isolate themselves so they didn't infect others. That is of significant benefit.”

CITATION: G. Gibson, J.S. Weitz, M.P. Shannon et. al, “Surveillance-to-Diagnostic Testing Program for Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infections on a Large, Urban Campus in Fall 2020.” (Epidemiology, Dec. 2021)

DOI: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001448

###

The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a top 10 public research university developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its nearly 44,000 students, representing 50 states and 149 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.

Writer: Tess Malone

Media Contacts:
Georgia Parmelee | Georgia.Parmelee@gatech.edu
Steven Norris | Stephen.Norris@gatech.edu

Summary sentence

In early 2020, Georgia Tech researchers designed a saliva-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and encouraged community members to test weekly to track the health of the campus.

Summary

In early 2020, Georgia Tech researchers designed a saliva-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and encouraged community members to test weekly to track the health of the campus.

Dateline

Mon, 02/07/2022 - 12:00

tess.malone@gatech.edu

Contact

Tess Malone, Research Writer/Editor

Associated importer

Keywords

go-researchnews

CMDI

go-ibb

School of Biological Sciences

News room topics

Health and Medicine

Science and Technology

Categories

Biotechnology, Health, Bioengineering, Genetics

Institute and Campus

Life Sciences and Biology

Student and Faculty

Mercury ID

655262

Source updated

Tue, 02/08/2022 - 12:01

CMDI

19 Tech Faculty Receive Regents' Distinctions

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CMDI: Mighty Microbial Dynamics for a Healthier People and Planet

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Researchers Create Light-Powered Yeast, Providing Insights Into Evolution, Biofuels, Cellular Aging

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Graduate Student and Advisor Pair Awarded HHMI Gilliam Fellowship

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What's on the Horizon for 2023?

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To the Moon, Back, and Beyond

To the Moon, Back, and Beyond

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New International Center Will Support Collaborative Solutions to Improve Health of World’s Oceans

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Research Next Enters New Phase

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Surveillance Testing Shown to Reduce Community Covid-19 Spread

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