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8-25-04 NeuroLab grad student and group win first round of biotechnology competition

Congratulations to Chris Lessing and his group of BME graduate students! They have been selected to compete against three other North American teams in Scotland to develop the best biotechnology business plan. They have proposed development of an adhesive "that draws on the genetic mechanisms spiders use to control the protein composition of their treads." The competition is sponsored by the British government, and is entitled Biotechnology Young Entrepreneurs Scheme, or YES. The winner will go on to the finals in London and receive a cash prize. All groups will get expert advice on their business plan. Chris is in Dr. Michelle LaPlaca's research group. Read more about the team and the competition here. Good luck!

8-2-04 NeuroLab discussed on NeuroTechReports.com

In an article titled "New Microdevices Enable Fluidic Interface with Brain," Warren Grill discusses how our own Laboratory for Neuroengineering as well as the University of Michigan's neural engineering laboratory are building microfluidic interfaces with living cells. Potential applications include discrete targeting of pharmaceuticals to the brain areas that need them, and not the ones that don't. Full text.

7-30-04 Professor Stephen DeWeerth steps up to Associate Chair for Graduate Studies in BME

Dr. DeWeerth's new position as Associate Chair was recommended last spring by the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering Administrative Review. Congratulations!

7-23-04 Dr. Lena Ting and Dr. Robert Lee contribute to MATLAB News and Notes

In an article titled "Teaching Physiology with Simulink," Drs. Ting and Lee discuss how Simulink is implemented in graduate coursework to explore and then build physiological models, from drug metabolism to pain modulation. PDF

6-29-04 Dr. Steve Potter receives 2-year, $200,000 grant from National Institute on Drug Abuse

The proposal, entitled "Chemical Reward Systems for Embodied Cultured Networks" was accepted into NIDA's Cutting-Edge Basic Research Awards program. The grant will fund building systems to allow cultured networks to give themselves chemical neuromodulators. The idea is to study the cellular and network effects of drug-abuse related neurochemicals such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine. Network activity will be used to control location and timing of delivery of potentially reinforcing chemicals, using our closed-loop real-time systems.

6-21-04 Dr. LaPlaca featured in The Scientist article, "Tissue engineering advances central and peripheral nervous system repair" by Aileen Constans

Registered users can find the full text here. Excerpt: "Stem cell-based approaches such as Stupp's are gaining momentum in neural tissue engineering. Georgia Tech biomedical engineer Michelle LaPlaca develops injectable methylcellulose-laminin hydrogels that serve as a scaffold for neural stem cells. The gels are designed to be minimally invasive. 'In traumatic injury and other acute [CNS] injuries, you often have very irregularly shaped defects in the tissue, whether it be a cyst in the spinal cord or in an infarct in the brain. A minimally invasive gel would let you fill the space without opening up the brain or the spinal cord,' says LaPlaca."

5-7-04 Neurolab Multiphoton Microscope Delivers its First Image After 18 Months of Construction

Komal Rambini and primary faculty Dr. Steve Potter were on hand when the Neurolab Muiltiphoton Microscope delivered it's first image. The Multiphoton Microscope (picture at right) has been under construction for 18 months, and its inaugural image was of pollen. Komal will continue to refine the Microscope and it will soon be used to image living neurons. CBN Postdoc Mark Booth also made substantial contributions to the ongoing project, as did Edgar Brown and Ivan for their help with electronics! The project is funded by the Georgia Research Alliance, which we have the Georgia Lottery to thank for. If you bought a lottery ticket, then thanks to you too!

4-12-04 Dr. Lena Ting Awarded First Annual Best Professor Award

The first graduating class of Biomedical Engineering students have recognized Dr. Lena Ting as the Best Professor of the 2003-2004 Academic Year. Dr. Ting is described to be always encouraging, and wanting her students to succeed. She teaches BMED 3400 Introduction to Biomechanics, and BMED 8120 Physiologic Systems.

4-12-04 Dr. Lena Ting Awarded $1.1 million NIH Grant

Dr. Lena Ting has been awarded a 5 year NIH grant from the National Institute of Child Heath and Human Development (NICHD) to develop models of neuromuscular control of balance. The project is funded by an NICHD initiative in “Biomechanical Modeling of Movement” to encourage researchers to construct biomechanical models that enable the diagnosis of movement disorders and predict the outcome of clinical interventions. The results will have important implications in neural control of movement, rehabilitation and neural prosthetic design. Dr. Tom Burkholder (GT Applied Physiology), Dr. Richard Nichols (Emory Physiolgy) and Dr. Jane Macpherson (Oregon Health and Science University) are co-investigators on the grant.

Neurolab initiates IGERT award for highly qualified students

The Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University are proud to offer the IGERT program of graduate training focused on the creation of systems that integrate living neural tissue with engineered components through the integration of microelectronics/computing technology and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) with the study of cellular and systems neuroscience. The combination of these two previously disparate disciplines, has great potential for impacting research and applications ranging from the treatment of disease to the implementation of artificial systems inspired by biology. The realization of such far-reaching goals is limited under other educational programs. The IGERT program addresses these limitations by providing an environment that integrates the underlying disciplines fundamentally through a combination of educational infrastructure and interdisciplinary research opportunities. For more information on this award, please refer to our IGERT page.

NeuroLab students presenting research in Australia

Three NeuroLab students, Sarah Stabenfeldt (BE, Dr. LaPlaca), Ryan Gilbert (BME, Dr. Bellamkonda), and Justin Saul (BME, Dr. Bellamkonda) have been selected for oral presentation of their research at the World Biomaterials Conference to be held in May 2004 in Sydney Australia.

Dr. Bellamkonda invited to be editor of new journal

NeuroLab faculty member Dr. Ravi Bellamkonda has been invited to join the Editorial Board of a new journal, "Journal of Neural Engineering" ( http://www.iop.org/EJ/jne ).

Dr. Bellamkonda awarded 4-year $1 million NIH grant

Dr. Ravi Bellamkonda was recently awarded a new four year NIH grant from NIDCD to develop neuro-integrative coatings for multi-electrode arrays.  The award totals $1,057,241 and will help facilitate stable chronic in-vivo recordings using multi-electrode arrays.  Dr. Robert Lee is co-investigator on this grant and other collaborators include Andy Schwartz ( University of Pittsburgh ), David Kleinfeld (UCSD) and Andrew Rollins (CWRU).

NeuroLab highlighted in Atlanta Journal Constitution article

In an article in the November 7th issue of the AJC, reporter David Wahlberg writes about the work of NeuroLab, with a special focus on Dr. Steve DeWeerth's projects. It also discusses collaboration across institutions and the medical potential from NeuroLab's research. The full article is available in PDF format here. (Published with permission of the Atlanta Journal Constitution).

IEEE Intelligent Systems writes about Potter Group MEART project

In the September/October 2003 issue of Intelligent Systems, Danna Voth describes the collaborative work between the Potter Group and artists at SymbioticA. The collaborative project uses cultured rat cortical neurons to control a remote robotic arm that draws pictures. The article describes the methods used, as well as the information used to drive the generative artwork. Others comment on the mechanisms and implications of finding emergent behavior. In recent decades, new media art has often focused on the relationship between artists and scientists. MEART is an excellent example of the artist-scientist collaboration and the exploration of creativity. The full article can be found here.

Neuro grad students help make science hands-on for high schoolers

Neurolab students helped organize a high school open house dubbed "Buzz on Technology." The goal of the high school open house was to increase high school students' understanding of biotechnology techniques and areas of BME research. Students from 85 high schools were invited, and about 180 students participated on September 21st, a marked increase from last year's 80 students. Activities included hands-on demonstrations, lab tours, and technical demonstrations (i.e., confocal microscopy and mass spectrometry). Neuro demos included: brain injury awareness, biomechanics of balance, and muscle-generated electricity to power propeller caps. All involved agree that Buzz on Technology was an enormous success. More on the GTEC newsletter. For Picures of this event, check the GTEC website.

Neurolab Student wins "Best Paper" Competition

Michael Sorensen won the student paper competition at the 25th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society for his original paper "Control of Bursting Activity with an Intrinsic Current in a Hybrid Half-Center Oscillator". Michael is a student of Dr. Steve DeWeerth in the department of Biomedical Engineering. This work would not have been possible without the immense help and support of Dr. DeWeerth and Drs. Ron Calabrese and Gennady Cymbalyuk of Emory University.

Six Neuro Faculty are to attend the Society for Neuroscience conference in New Orleans

Several of the Neuro faculty are preparing to attend the 33rd annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans. The following is a list of abstracts of the Laboratory for Neuroengineering faculty attending this meeting:

Lena Ting Awarded prestigious Whitaker grant for Neuromechanical Determinants of Postural Responses

This project will develop experimental and theoretical tools for investigating the time-varying relationship between body biomechanics and neuromuscular coordination during balance control. We hypothesize that sensorimotor processes continually modify muscle activity in response to the acceleration, velocity, and displacement of the body's center of mass during perturbations to balance. Our study is designed to answer three yet-unanswered questions relevant to clinical characterization of balance impairments: How rapidly can an ongoing postural response be modified following a change in perturbation characteristics? How do biomechanical properties of the perturbation and the body affect time-varying characteristics of the postural response? How do ongoing voluntary and involuntary movements influence postural responses? We will develop an experimental device to apply novel, dynamically changing perturbations to the support surface. We will also develop computer simulations of the interactions between body biomechanics postural responses, to determine which perturbation features contribute to temporal changes in muscle activity patterns. This combined experimentation and modeling approach will allow us to dissect out the interdependent influences of sensory, motor, and biomechanical factors on postural stability. This work will significantly advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying postural control in the natural environment, and we believe that the data derived from these analyses will form the foundation for the development of more rational, novel, and effective interventional tools to reduce the deleterious effects of falls among older adults. Our work will also provide a new foundation for the design of prosthetic and robotic devices that assist balance control.