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Georgia Institute of Technology announces that it will receive funding through Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that enables researchers worldwide to test unorthodox ideas that address persistent health and development challenges. Dr. Mark Styczynski, assistant professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, will pursue an innovative global health research project, titled “Pigment-Based, Low-Cost, Portable Nutrition Status Tests.”

Grand Challenges Explorations funds scientists and researchers worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges. Styczynski’s project is one of 108 Grand Challenges Explorations grants announced in November 2011 as part of Round 7 of the program.

“We believe in the power of innovation—that a single bold idea can pioneer solutions to our greatest health and development challenges,” said Chris Wilson, Director of Global Health Discovery for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Grand Challenges Explorations seeks to identify and fund these new ideas wherever they come from, allowing scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs to pursue the kinds of creative ideas and novel approaches that could help to accelerate the end of polio, cure HIV infection, or improve sanitation.”

Projects that are receiving funding show promise in tackling priority global health issues where solutions do not yet exist. This includes finding effective methods to eliminate or control infectious diseases such as polio and HIV as well as discovering new sanitation technologies.

To learn more about Grand Challenges Explorations, visit www.grandchallenges.org.

Styczynski’s project proposes to create portable, low-cost, bacteria-based genetic circuits to measure blood micronutrient levels without requiring sophisticated instrumentation to perform or read the test. These circuits would provide an inexpensive, rapid method to diagnose nutrition levels, such as vitamins and minerals, in the field.

“Sophisticated equipment is not easily operated in the field, which means that samples must be sent to regional labs for nutritional analysis, resulting in delays of potentially life-saving treatment,” Styczynski says. “We are looking to enable more point-of-care diagnostics using synthetic biology to eliminate the long wait and enable more rapid diagnosis and treatment of those with deficiencies.”

Styczynski received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007. He joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2009 after a postdoctoral appointment at the Broad Institute, a world-renowned genomic medicine research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Technology developed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University for delivering drugs and other therapeutics to specific locations in the eye provides the foundation for a startup company that has received a $4 million venture capital investment.

The Atlanta-based startup, Clearside Biomedical, plans to develop microinjection technology that will use hollow microneedles to precisely target therapeutics within the eye. If the technique proves successful in clinical trials and wins regulatory approval, it could provide an improved method for treating diseases that affect the back of the eye, including age-related macular degeneration.

The technology was developed in collaboration between the research groups of Mark Prausnitz, a Regents’ professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Henry Edelhauser, a professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at Emory School of Medicine. Research leading to development of the technology was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“We expect that targeting drug delivery within the eye will be helpful because we should be able to concentrate drugs at the disease sites where they need to act, and keep them away from other locations,” said Prausnitz. “This could reduce side effects and possibly also decrease the dose required.”

Prior to this development, drugs could be delivered to the retinal tissues at the back of the eye in three indirect ways: (1) injection by hypodermic needle into the eye’s vitreous humor, the gelatinous material that fills the eyeball, (2) eye drops, which are limited in their ability to reach the back of the eye, and (3) pills taken by mouth that expose the whole body to the drug.

The technology developed by Georgia Tech and Emory uses a hollow micron-scale needle to inject therapeutics into the suprachoroidal space located between the outer surface of the eye — known as the sclera — and the choroid — a deeper layer that provides nutrients to the rest of the eye. Preclinical research has demonstrated that fluid can flow between the two layers, where it can spread out to the entire eye, including structures such as the retina that are now difficult to reach.

By targeting this suprachoroidal space using microscopic needles, the researchers believe they can reduce trauma to the eye, make drugs more effective and reduce complications. The new delivery method could help advance a new series of drugs being developed to target the retina, choroid and other structures in the back of the eye.

“This is a significant advance in the field of ophthalmology,” said Edelhauser. “Until now, it has been difficult to target drug delivery to specific locations within the eye. This new microneedle technology enables precise drug targeting to the suprachoroidal space and other locations within the eye.”

In research reported in the January 2011 issue of the journal Pharmaceutical Research, the Georgia Tech-Emory team demonstrated for the first time that this technique can be used to deliver nanoparticles and microparticles to specific parts of the eye. In later research, they also showed that microneedle injections into the suprachoroidal space rapidly resulted in concentrations of drugs and particles that could be maintained for several months.

Between two and three million eye injections are made each year, many of them to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The researchers believe that the microneedle-based technique could be useful for treating both AMD and glaucoma, as well as other ocular conditions related to diabetes.

The $4 million in funding for Clearside Biomedical will come from Hatteras Venture Partners, a venture capital firm based in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Hatteras focuses on seed and early-stage investments in companies developing products in biopharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic and related human health areas.

“Clearside Biomedical represents an ideal fit for Hatteras Discovery as the platform technology is highly innovative, based on elegant science and the lead product is expected to be in clinical trials in the United States in less than 18 months,” said Christy Shaffer, Ph.D., venture partner and managing director of the Hatteras Discovery Fund.

So far, the technique has been tested only in animals. The Hatteras funding will allow the company to conduct additional efficacy and safety testing needed to seek regulatory approval. The company’s first product is expected to address macular edema and retinal vein occlusion.

Clearside was formed with the assistance of Georgia Tech’s VentureLab program, which helped obtain early-stage seed funding from the Georgia Research Alliance. Georgia Tech VentureLab also helped the founders connect with the company’s president and CEO, Daniel White, a veteran ophthalmic entrepreneur. Before joining Clearside, White was a co-founder of Alimera Sciences, an Atlanta company that is developing ophthalmic pharmaceuticals.

Two researchers from the Prausnitz lab who have been involved in development of the ocular drug delivery technique will also join the company. They are Samirkumar Patel, a postdoctoral researcher and Vladimir Zarnitsyn, a research scientist.

Research leading to the development of the technology has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the principal investigators and does not necessarily represent the official view of the NIH.

Henry Edelhauser, Samirkumar Patel, Mark Prausnitz, Vladimir Zarnitsyn, Emory University and Georgia Tech have financial interests in Clearside Biomedical and its ocular platform. Edelhauser, Patel, Prausnitz and Zarnitsyn own equity in Clearside and the terms of this arrangement have been reviewed and approved by Emory University or Georgia Tech in accordance with their conflict of interest policies.

Julie Champion, assistant professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech, and Andrew S. Neish, professor of pathology at Emory University School of Medicine, are the recipients of one of two Breakthrough Awards launched by The Kenneth Rainin Foundation (KRF). Their research project on bioengineering bacterially derived immunomodulants for a novel treatment of inflammatory bowel disease received $100,000 in funding.

The Breakthrough Awards Program is designed to provide extended support to existing KRF-funded Innovator Award recipients to further research on Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and increase the likelihood of a breakthrough discovery. Last year, the team’s proposal received one of the inaugural Innovator awards given by the foundation.

Over the course of the next year, the team’s research will focus on developing effective therapeutics that harnesses the immunomodulatory properties of bacterial molecules for the treatment of IBD. By exploiting the inherent ability of intestinal pathogens to control inflammatory signaling pathways in the human body, the researchers hope to adapt bacterial regulatory molecules and use them as an immunotherapy.

“We intend to develop a new therapeutic paradigm that utilizes bacterial immunoregulatory mechanisms and engineers a nanoparticle delivery strategy essential for clinical viability,” says Champion. Immunomodulators are agents that alter the immune response by suppression (immunosuppressive) or enhancement (immunostimulant). “Our research focuses on exploiting the inherent abilities of intestinal bacteria to attenuate the symptoms of IBD,” she says.

IBD is a group of inflammatory conditions of the colon and small intestine, including the major types of IBD known as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Although the causes of IBD are unknown, medical experts believe the most likely cause is an immune reaction the body has against its own tissues in the intestine. Approximately five million people worldwide suffer from some form of IBD, with symptoms that include pain, bleeding, and debilitation. Current therapeutic options for patients are largely limited to the use of anti-inflammatory steroids applied either systemically or locally for the treatment of the symptoms, and removal of the colon is the only cure at this time.

The Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a private family foundation that funds inspiring and world-changing work.  The Innovator Awards Program for IBD Research encourages collaboration in the hope of finding new and better treatments, and ultimately a cure, for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. The key components for funding consideration include innovation, collaboration, scientific merit, and a high potential for success.

The U.S. Senate voted in late September to confirm Dr. Arnold F. Stancell, emeritus professor and Turner Servant Leadership Chair in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, as one of the newest members of the National Science Board (NSB).

Earlier this year, President Obama nominated Stancell to the board, which is the governing body of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Composed of 24 members, including Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson, the board serves as policy advisor to the President and Congress, oversees NSF’s $7 billion annual budget, and makes recommendations on funding competitively reviewed research proposals from U.S. universities and other research organizations. 

Candidates for the NSB must demonstrate leadership, intellectual contributions, breadth, depth, and understanding of scientific knowledge, distinguished service, and potential for further contribution. “I am honored by the President’s nomination, and I look forward to the opportunity to use my experience in technology and business to help foster science and engineering advances for the nation,” Stancell says.

Stancell joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 1994 after a 31-year career at Mobil Oil, where he first worked in research and development for ten years. He later served as vice president of U.S. exploration and production, and then retired in 1993 as vice president of international exploration and production after initiating, negotiating, and launching the now $70 billion Mobil–Qatar joint venture in liquefied natural gas, serving markets worldwide. 

He graduated magna cum laude in chemical engineering from the City College of New York and began his career in 1958, working for Esso at its Bayway Refinery in the Port of New York and New Jersey. Not long afterward, he decided to return to school and earned his doctoral degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he later returned as a visiting professor. 

While at MIT, Stancell mentored David Lam, a doctoral student who expanded on Stancell’s research on the reaction of plasmas (ionized gases) with surfaces. Lam ultimately utilized this work in the creation of computer chips, where plasmas were able to etch much smaller circuits into silicon, allowing for more numerous transistors on a chip. 

Lam went on to found Lam Research, which provides equipment to companies worldwide that manufacture the chips running today’s ever-smaller computers and electronic devices. Although Stancell was offered tenure at MIT, he decided to return to Mobil.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), Stancell is also the recipient of the National Award for Chemical Engineering Practice given by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. U.S. Black Engineer & IT Magazine named him Black Engineer of the Year in 1992, and in 1997, he was chosen by AIChE as one of One Hundred Chemical Engineers of the Modern Area. He was also selected by Georgia Tech students as the Outstanding Chemical Engineering Professor of the Year in 1997 and 2004.

Stancell’s nomination to the NSB marks the second time in recent years the government has called upon him for service. Shortly after the BP oil spill, the National Academy of Engineering asked him to serve on a committee formed at the request of the U.S. Department of the Interior. The committee investigated the cause of the rig explosion that resulted in one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history and provided recommendations to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. Stancell advised on near-term steps to improve offshore drilling safety, which President Obama formally announced in May 2010.

Stancell’s experience in higher education gives him insight into the research conducted by universities that seek funding from NSF. That insight, coupled with his expertise in energy, petrochemicals, and polymers, distinguishes him as an eminent leader well prepared for service on the NSB. His passion for science and engineering also fuels his enthusiasm for his new role.

“Technology is exciting,” Stancell says. “You open up new areas of innovation and then new jobs are created, triggering economic growth, which is the kind of momentum the National Science Foundation can bring about.”

New information on the role of insoluble dust particles in forming cloud droplets could improve the accuracy of regional climate models, especially in areas of the world that have significant amounts of mineral aerosols in the atmosphere. A more accurate accounting for the role of these particles could also have implications for global climate models.

Cloud properties can have a significant impact on climate, yet the effects of aerosols like dust is one of the more uncertain components of climate change models. Scientists have long recognized the importance of soluble particles, such as sea salt and sulfates, in creating the droplets that form clouds and lead to precipitation. But until now, the role of insoluble particles — mostly dust swept into the atmosphere from such sources as deserts — hasn’t figured significantly in climate models.

Using a combination of physics-based theory and laboratory measurement of droplet formation, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a model that can be added to existing regional and global climate simulations. The impacts of these refinements on cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity and droplet activation kinetics are still being studied.

“Understanding that insoluble dust forms more droplets than we thought it could, and that those droplets form close to the sources of the particles, could change our picture of how precipitation is formed in areas like the Mediterranean, Asia and other climate-stressed regions,” said Athanasios Nenes, a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. The findings were described at the Fall 2011 meeting of the American Chemical Society in Denver, and reported in the journals Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Geophysical Research and Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. A new paper on the global modeling impacts has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Soluble particles nucleate droplets by absorbing water under conditions of high humidity. Insoluble materials such as dust cannot absorb water, so it was thought that they played little role in the formation of clouds and precipitation.

However, Nenes and collaborators realized that these dust particles could nucleate droplets in a different way — by adsorbing moisture onto their surfaces, much as moisture condenses on window glass during temperature changes. Some insoluble particles containing clay materials may also adsorb moisture, even though they don’t dissolve in it.

Working with Irina Sokolik, also a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Nenes and graduate student Prashant Kumar studied aerosol particles created from samples of desert soils from several areas of the world, including Northern Africa, East Asia/China and North America. In laboratory conditions simulating those of a saturated atmosphere, these insoluble particles formed cloud droplets, though the process was slower than the one producing droplets from soluble materials.

“We generated particles in the laboratory from materials we find in the atmosphere,” explained Nenes, who also holds a faculty appointment in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “These particles take up water using a mechanism that had not been considered before in models. It turns out that this process of adsorption soaks up enough water to form cloud droplets.”

The laboratory work showed that smaller particles were more likely than expected to generate droplets, and that their effectiveness as cloud condensation nuclei was affected by the type of minerals present, their size, morphology and processes affecting them in the atmosphere. The dust particles ranged in size from 100 nanometers up to a few microns.

These mineral aerosols may consist of iron oxides, carbonates, quartz and clays. They mainly originate from arid and semi-arid regions, and can remain suspended in the atmosphere for as long as several weeks, allowing them to be transported long distances from their original sources. In the atmosphere, the dust particles tend to accumulate soluble materials as they age.

“We can simulate what is happening to the particles as they get slowly coated with more and more soluble materials,” said Nenes. “As they get more and more soluble coatings on them, they become more hygroscopic.”

The researchers are now working with collaborators in Germany to incorporate their new theories into existing climate models to see how they may change the predictions. They also hope to carry out new field work to measure the activity of these insoluble aerosols in real-world conditions.

“We now need to study the cloud particles in the atmosphere and their ability to form droplets to verify our theory using real atmospheric data,” Nenes said. “We also need to look at dust and clouds from more regions of the world to make sure that the theory works for all of them.”

Clouds play an important role in governing climate, so adding new information about their formation could improve the accuracy of complex climate models.

“The reason that we care about particle-cloud interactions is that they introduce a lot of uncertainties in climate model predictions,” Nenes said. “Anything that can be done to improve these predictions by providing more specific cloud information would be helpful to projecting climate change.”

The Georgia Institute of Technology will receive funding through Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that enables researchers worldwide to test unorthodox ideas that address persistent health and development challenges. Mark Prausnitz, Regents’ professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, will pursue an innovative global health research project focused on using microneedle patches for the low-cost administration of polio vaccine through the skin in collaboration with researchers Steve Oberste and Mark Pallansch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Grand Challenges Explorations funds scientists and researchers worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges. The Georgia Tech/CDC project is one of 110 Grand Challenges Explorations grants announced November 7th.

“We believe in the power of innovation — that a single bold idea can pioneer solutions to our greatest health and development challenges,” said Chris Wilson, director of global health discovery for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Grand Challenges Explorations seeks to identify and fund these new ideas wherever they come from, allowing scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs to pursue the kinds of creative ideas and novel approaches that could help to accelerate the end of polio, cure HIV infection or improve sanitation.”

Projects that are receiving funding show promise in tackling priority global health issues where solutions do not yet exist. This includes finding effective methods to eliminate or control infectious diseases such as polio and HIV as well as discovering new sanitation technologies.

The goal of the Georgia Tech/CDC project is to demonstrate the scientific and economic feasibility for using microneedle patches in vaccination programs aimed at eradicating the polio virus. Current vaccination programs use an oral polio vaccine that contains a modified live virus. This vaccine is inexpensive and can be administered in door-to-door immunization campaigns, but in rare cases the vaccine can cause polio. There is an alternative injected vaccine that uses killed virus, which carries no risk of polio transmission, but is considerably more expensive than the oral vaccine, requires refrigeration for storage and must be administered by trained personnel. To eradicate polio from the world, health officials will have to discontinue use of the oral vaccine with its live virus, replacing it with the more expensive and logistically-complicated injected vaccine.

Prausnitz and his CDC collaborators believe the use of microneedle patches could reduce the cost and simplify administration of the injected vaccine. Use of the patches, which carry vaccine into the body by dissolving into the skin, could eliminate the need for administration by highly-trained personnel and the “sharps” disposal problems of traditional hypodermic needles. Because skin administration produces an immune response with smaller doses of vaccine than traditional deep intramuscular injection, the researchers expect to reduce the per-person cost of vaccine. And by incorporating dried vaccine into the microneedles, they hope to eliminate the need for vaccine refrigeration — a challenge in remote areas of the world.

“We envision vaccination campaigns in which minimally-trained personnel go door-to-door administering microneedle patches rather than oral polio vaccine,” Prausnitz explained. “Our goal for this study will be to provide the data to scientifically justify moving the microneedle patch for polio vaccination into a human trial.”

In research that will complement the Grand Challenges Exploration grant, Prausnitz and his team have also received funding from the World Health Organization (WHO) to support development of the polio vaccine application for microneedle patches. And in a project sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Prausnitz and other Georgia Tech researchers are collaborating with Emory University scientists on development of a microneedle patch for administering flu vaccine.

The University System of Georgia Board of Regents today appointed three Georgia Tech faculty members as Regents’ Professors and two as Regents’ Researchers.

The three new Regents’ Professors at Georgia Tech are Mark Prausnitz, professor and director of the Center for Drug Design, Development and Delivery in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering; Seth Marder, professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and founding director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics in the colleges of Engineering and Sciences; and Gary Schuster, Vasser Woolley Professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Two Regents’ Researchers appointed include Gisele Bennett, professor and director of the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory in the Georgia Tech Research Institute; and Suzanne Eskin, principal research scientist in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

“We are immensely proud of our new Georgia Tech Regents’ Professors and Researchers,” said G. P. “Bud” Peterson, Georgia Tech’s president.  “They are conducting breakthrough research that is gaining national attention.  The fact that we have five Georgia Tech faculty members receiving this honor from the Board of Regents in one year is a reflection of the caliber of scholars we have at Tech.”

A Regents’ Professorship and Regents’ Researcher title represents the highest academic status bestowed by the University System of Georgia. It is meant to recognize a substantial, significant and ongoing record of scholarly achievement that has earned high national esteem over a sustained period. 

Prausnitz has received international acclaim for his research on biophysical methods of drug delivery, which employ microneedles, ultrasound, lasers, electric fields, heat, convective forces and other physical means to control the transport of drugs, proteins, genes and vaccines into and within the body.

Marder is working on bringing nanotechnology out of the lab and into the marketplace. Using a process known as two-photon absorption, the research groups of Marder and colleague Joseph Perry are developing a broad set of materials for 3D micro- and nanolithography.

Schuster is a nationally known scholar and researcher with an extensive list of published articles on topics ranging from biochemistry through physical chemistry, as well as a number of scientific discoveries with commercial applications. He also held top leadership roles at Georgia Tech such as interim president, provost and dean of the College of Sciences.

Bennett has been praised for the programs she has built around automatic identification technologies using radio frequency identification and container security. Her research activities include the study of optical coherence imaging systems.

Eskin has contributed to research on vascular biology, cardiovascular tissue engineering and gene expression of vascular cells. She studies the comparative effects of mechanical forces accompanying blood flow and pressure on the blood vessel wall.

The titles are awarded by the Board of Regents, which governs the University System of Georgia, upon the unanimous recommendation of the president, the chief academic officer, the appropriate academic dean and three other faculty members named by the president, and upon the approval of the chancellor and the committee on academic affairs. 

Related Links

• Professor Mark Prausnitz
• Principal Scientist Suzanne Eskin
• Professor Gary Schuster
• Professor Gisele Bennett
• Professor Seth Marder

(Source: regents)