Experts in the News

Karla Haack, who received her Ph.D. in 2009 in molecular biology from the School of Biological Sciences, and is a member of the College of Sciences Advisory Board, is one of five new 2023-2024 member leaders of the American Physiological Society (APS). Haack, a medical writer for Merck, was elected as a councilor during the recent APS Summit in Long Beach, California. Prior to joining Merck in 2021, Haack taught anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology courses at Kennesaw State University (KSU) in Georgia. Haack completed her postdoctoral research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Blinking is crucial for the eye. It's how animals clean their eyes, protect them, and even communicate. But how and why did blinking originate? Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Seton Hill University, and Pennsylvania State University studied the mudskipper, an amphibious fish that spends most of its day on land, to better understand why blinking is a fundamental behavior for life on land. By comparing the anatomy and behavior of mudskippers to the fossil record of early tetrapods, the researchers argue that blinking emerged in both groups as an adaptation to life on land. One  of the researchers, Brett Aiello, an assistant professor of biology at Seton Hill University, is a former postdoctoral fellow in the Agile Systems Lab at Georgia Tech. Saad Bhamla, assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is a co-author of the study.  (This story is also covered in Earth.com, SciTechDaily and the Latrobe Bulletin.) 

Yeast are carb lovers, sustaining themselves by fermenting sugars and starches from sources such as dough, grapes, and grains, with bread, wine, and beer as happy byproducts. Now, researchers have made one type of yeast a little less dependent on carbs by enabling it to use light as energy. The work, reported last week on the preprint server bioRxiv, is “the first step in more complex modes of engineering artificial photosynthesis,” says Magdalena Rose Osburn, a geobiologist at Northwestern University who was not involved in the research. The study's four co-authors are all with the School of Biological Sciences and Georgia Tech's Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection: Ph.D. student Autumn Peterson, senior scientist and grant writer Carina Baskett; Will Ratcliff, associate professor and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences; and research scientist Anthony Burnetti. 

Fermented foods like kimchi have been an integral part of Korean cuisine for thousands of years. Today, most kimchi is made through mass fermentation in glass, steel, or plastic containers, but it’s long been claimed that the highest quality kimchi is fermented in traditional handmade clay jars called onggi. David Hu, a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the Georgia W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, used fluid dynamics to prove how onggi make kimchi taste so good. The results were published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. (This story was also covered in list23, SFGate, The Washington Post, Scientific American, Gulf News, Yahoo!News, Ars Technica and Technology Networks.)

Life depends on molecular machines made of proteins that interact with each other to form functional complexes. Researchers need accurate descriptions of protein-protein interactions to understand molecular biosystems, but obtaining such descriptions is very challenging, especially for theoretical approaches. Generalizing AlphaFold 2, a powerful deep learning algorithm for predicting protein structures from sequence, researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and Oak Ridge National Laboratory proposed a computational approach, AF2Complex, to not only predict the atomic structural models of interacting proteins, but also to predict whether multiple proteins interact, even if they experience transient interactions that are difficult to capture experimentally. The Georgia Tech School of Biological Sciences researchers are Mu Gao, senior research scientist, and Jeffrey Skolnick, Regents' Professor; Mary and Maisie Gibson Chair & GRA Eminent Scholar in Computational Systems Biology. (Their study is funded in part by the U.S. Dept. of Energy and the National Institutes of Health.)

Two prominent origin-of-life chemists have published a new hypothesis for how the first sugars — which were necessary for life to evolve — arose on the early Earth. In a paper in the journal Chem, chemists from Scripps Research and the Georgia Institute of Technology propose that key sugars needed for making early life forms could have emerged from reactions involving glyoxylate (C2HO3–), a relatively simple chemical that plausibly existed on the Earth before life evolved. Charles Liotta, Regents' Professor Emeritus in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is one of the study's authors. (This study was also covered in Astrobiology and Mirage News.)

The 2019 release of the first image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), was hailed as a significant scientific achievement. But truth be told, it was a bit blurry — or, as one astrophysicist involved in the effort called it, a "fuzzy orange donut." Scientists on Thursday unveiled a new and improved image of this black hole — a behemoth at the center of a nearby galaxy — mining the same data used for the earlier one but improving its resolution by employing image reconstruction algorithms to fill in gaps in the original telescope observations. The use of machine learning to improve the photo is detailed in a study in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Two professors in the School of Physics who are EHT founding members — Feryal Ozel, who is also school chair, and Dimitrios Psaltis — are co-authors of the study. (This story was also covered in Space Daily, ScienceDaily and the Calgary Herald.)

This story about an AI enhancement of the famous 2018 photo of the first-ever image of a black hole — captured by the Event Horizon Telescope featuring EHT founding members and School of Physics professors Feryal Ozel (also school chair) and Dimitrios Psaltis — is also covered in Scientific American, Ars Technica, The Washington Post, Phys.org, NPR, Sky News, MSN, USA Today, Yahoo!News, CBS News, Space.com, The Associated Press,   LiveScience, Smithsonian Magazine, Economic Times, Voice of America News, and UK Daily Mail. 

In February, the countries of Turkey and Syria were devastated by a pair of high-magnitude earthquakes occurring nine hours apart. The two events, 7.8- and 7.5-magnitudes respectively, caused thousands of deaths and widespread destruction of infrastructure. Both occurred along the East Anatolian fault, one of Turkey’s two main earthquake zones. A team of scientists from Georgia Tech, the University of Missouri, and the Scientific and Technological Research Institution of Turkey (TUBITAK) are working to better understand the makeup of the earthquake zone and surrounding areas to help scientists better explain why February’s earthquakes were unusually intense. Zhigang Peng, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, will join colleagues in placing 250 autonomous, wireless sensors near the fault. (This story was also covered in the Columbia Daily Tribune.)

College of Sciences alumna Natalie Lembeck ('15 Psychology) is included in Psychedelic Spotlight's 30 Under 30 feature on rising stars in the psychedelic field, as they work towards psychedelic legalization and decriminalization, research discoveries, harm reduction, and adequate mental health care. Lembeck has worked in labs and clinics involved in Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies-sponsored research, focusing on the use of cannabis and MDMA to aid in the treatment of PTSD. She currently works as the executive assistant to Dr. Michael Mithoefer, clinical researcher and psychotherapist. 

Understanding the universe isn't just about visually mapping celestial bodies, it's also about listening to the heavens. Data sonification takes astronomical data and turns it into sound. It could help find new patterns in the huge amount of digital information. And it's a way of enhancing astronomy by promoting greater engagement and accessibility — a musical mix of science, art and cold, hard data. Bruce Walker, professor in the School of Psychology and the School of Interactive Computing, and director of Georgia Tech's Sonification Lab, joins a panel of scientists for an April 15 program on what sonification can add to astronomy. 

The Roger A. and Helen B. Krone Engineering Biosystems Building (EBB) at Georgia Tech is an interdisciplinary facility for researchers from biology, chemistry, and engineering, all working to elevate understanding of living systems and bring about new cures for diseases. The facility houses the Children’s Pediatric Technology Center, a research partnership with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University. This Forbes profile of alumni Roger A. Krone, who is retiring as CEO of government information system provider Leidos, looks back on his business career and his ability to adapt to changing times.