Experts in the News

This fall, the Institute will launch a foundational, interdisciplinary program to lead in research related to neuroscience, neurotechnology, and society. The Neuro Next Initiative is the result of the growth of GTNeuro, a grassroots effort over many years that has led in the hiring of faculty studying the brain and the creation of the B.S. in neuroscience in the College of Sciences, and contributed to exciting neuro-related research and education at Georgia Tech. Guided by faculty members Christopher Rozell, professor and Julian T. Hightower Chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Simon Sponberg, Dunn Family Associate Professor of Physics and Biological Sciences; and Jennifer S. Singh, associate professor in the School of History and Sociology, the Neuro Next Initiative at Georgia Tech will lead the development of a community that supports collaborative research, unique educational initiatives, and public engagement in this critical field.

Researchers at Georgia Tech have received funding to study the concept of using modified strains of probiotic bacteria – that are already part of the human gut microbiome – to stimulate the formation of antibodies against the flu virus in the body’s mucosal membranes. The research, supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), will study whether or not the harmless bacteria can be successfully modified to carry snippets of a viral coat protein that could stimulate the desired response in mucosal membranes lining the gut. “We’re using some well-established probiotic bacteria that have been utilized for dozens of years, are well vetted and safe for humans,” said Brian Hammer, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences who specializes in bacterial genetics. 

Valerie C. Montgomery Rice, MD, FACOG, is a distinguished infertility specialist and researcher, renowned for her exceptional contributions to the field of medicine. She earned her bachelor's degree from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry from Georgia Tech and furthered her education with a medical degree from Harvard Medical School. In addition to her clinical and research achievements, Rice is a dedicated educator and mentor. Her talk at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) 2023 Scientific Congress & Expo in New Orleans, Louisiana, reflects her vast experience and wisdom in the medical field. Rice's impact as a practitioner, educator, and leader underscores her significant influence on health care.

Mijin Kim, assistant professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and a former postdoctoral researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), has been recognized with the prestigious Wunderkind award by STAT, the well-regarded news site covering science and medicine. Kim's research at MSK’s Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI) focused on biosensor development for cancer research and diagnosis using carbon nanotubes, which can be altered to emit infrared light in the presence of specific molecules. This award also helps mark a major milestone in her career, as the MSK community and Dr. Kim celebrated her transition to leading her own laboratory at Georgia Tech. 

A new kind of polymer membrane created by researchers at Georgia Tech could reshape how refineries process crude oil, dramatically reducing the energy and water required while extracting even more useful materials. The so-called DUCKY polymers are reported in Nature Materials. And they’re just the beginning for the team of Georgia Tech chemists, chemical engineers, and materials scientists. They also have created artificial intelligence tools to predict the performance of these kinds of polymer membranes, which could accelerate development of new ones. “We're establishing concepts here that we can then use with different molecules or polymers, but we apply them to crude oil because that's the most challenging target right now,” said M.G. Finn, professor and James A. Carlos Family Chair in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. (This research was also covered at ScienceDaily.) 

Godzilla first tore across screens in the 1954 Japanese movie Godzilla. Since then, he’s had many different forms in films and books. But most Godzilla forms feature his signature power move: atomic breath. This powerful beam of radiation shoots from his mouth as he roars. Maybe Godzilla’s awe-inspiring atomic breath could be possible. But it would take some special tricks of biology. No matter the shape of the emitted breath, Godzilla would need a source of radiation. Perhaps the radioactivity is coming from some truly awful breath. “If I was going to think about what’s the most noxious breath and lizards, it would probably be a large meat-eating lizard, like a Komodo dragon,” says James Stroud. an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences. 

Metagenomes encode an enormous diversity of proteins, reflecting a multiplicity of functions and activities. Exploration of this vast sequence space has been limited to a comparative analysis against reference microbial genomes and protein families derived from those genomes. Here, to examine the scale of yet untapped functional diversity beyond what is currently possible through the lens of reference genomes, a team of scientists has developed a computational approach to generate reference-free protein families from the sequence space in metagenomes. The researchers include Joel Kostka, professor and Associate Chair of Research in the School of Biological Sciences (part of the Novel Metagenome Protein Families Consortium), and Kostas T. Konstantinidis, Richard C. Tucker Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. (This research was also covered at Berkeley Lab.)

The Elgin, S.C., community has been shaken by over 80 earthquakes since December 2021, and after four months of no tremors, the area has started shaking again. “We weren't expecting anything to come back, and then these two in the last three days have reminded us it’s not over yet," said Daniel Frost, Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina Department's of Earth, Ocean & Environmental College. After studying the data, Frost and his collaborator, Zhigang Peng, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, have come up with an idea. “Our theory is they are occurring on a fault of the Eastern Piedmont fault system, which is a known fault system, not an active fault system but known," Frost said. "Any earthquakes happening on these pre-existing faults are just kind of resettling and shuffling, maybe a little of disturbance because something has changed, but it's not the kind of ongoing tectonics like on the West Coast.” 

If you notice an odor when you open your refrigerator, it might be time for a deep clean. But even immaculate shelves and crystal clear crisper drawers won’t save your fridge from that not-so-fresh smell if you frequently fill it with fancy cheese and fragrant leftovers. For most people, the solution is a box of baking soda. It’s a housekeeping hack that has stood the test of time because it works. But contrary to the story we’ve all been sold, baking soda doesn’t make your fridge smell better by “absorbing” unpleasant food odors. In fact, according to Anthony Rojas, senior academic professional in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the neutralization actually happens outside the box.

An annular "ring of fire" eclipse will stretch from Oregon to Texas next Saturday, October 14. During this type of eclipse, the Moon is near its farthest point from Earth, so it does not completely cover the Sun. The Moon appears as a dark disk on top of a larger, bright sun. In Georgia, we will see a partial solar eclipse. James Sowell, principal academic professional in the School of Physics and director of the Georgia Tech Observatory, said over the three-hour event the sun will take on a different appearance. "For those of us in Atlanta, it’s a little more than 50 percent. So you’d have the disk of the sun, and part of it would be blocked out. So you would first see a little blocked out, and ultimately about 50 percent... The sun would be a crescent and then the moon would work its way out," Sowell said. If you want to view the eclipse, you must do so safely. You'll need special protection. Special solar-safe glasses can be purchased online, which are much, much stronger than a normal pair of sunglasses. (11Alive also spoke with Sowell on Oct. 12)

The World Health Organization has identified antimicrobial resistance as a worldwide concern because most clinical antibiotics are no longer effective against certain pathogenic bacteria. Antibiotics work by targeting specific parts of a bacteria cell, such as the cell wall or its DNA. Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics in a number of ways, including by developing efflux pumps — proteins that are located on the surface of the bacteria cell. When an antibiotic enters the cell, the efflux pump pumps it out of the cell before it can reach its target so that the antibiotic is never able to kill the bacteria. However, in a new study published in Nature Communications, scientists say they've found a new class of molecules that inhibit the efflux pump and make the antibiotic effective again. The researchers include Katie M. Kuo, Ph.D. scholar in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and James C. Gumbart, professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics. 

Some insects can flap their wings so rapidly that it’s impossible for instructions from their brains to entirely control the behaviour. Building tiny flapping robots has helped researchers shed light on how they evolved to do this. For some insects, including mosquitoes, their brain signals and flapping are out of sync. After the initial signal to contract, the insects’ muscles undergo additional contract-relax cycles before they even receive another impulse from the brain. This so-called “asynchronous” flight allows them to flap their wings at exceptionally high rates. Several researchers from Georgia Tech set out to study the evolutionary history of this form of flight. Those researchers include Simon Sponberg, Dunn Family Associate Professor in the School of Physics and the School of Biological Sciences; Brett Aiello, former postdoctoral scholar in Sponberg's Agile Systems Lab; Ethan Wold, Ph.D. scholar in the School of Biological Sciences and the Quantitative Biosciences Graduate Program; and Jeff Gau, Ph.D. scholar in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Interdisciplinary Bioengineering Graduate Program. (This research was also covered at India Education Diary, ArsTechnica, UC San Diego, Earth.com and Phys.org.)