Advancing Mass Spectrometry for Biophysics and Structural Biology 2025
Advancing Mass Spectrometry for Biophysics and Structural Biology 2025
Rozell Named Inaugural Executive Director of New Neuroscience Institute
Jul 14, 2025 —

Christopher Rozell, a first-generation scholar and interdisciplinary researcher, serves as the inaugural executive director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society (INNS).
Christopher Rozell, Julian T. Hightower Chaired Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will serve as the inaugural executive director of Georgia Tech’s new Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society (INNS).
INNS is one of two new Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRIs) launched at Georgia Tech on July 1. Dedicated to advancing neuroscience and neurotechnology, the institute aims to drive societal progress through discovery, innovation, and public engagement. By bridging disciplines across the sciences, engineering, computing, ethics, policy, and the humanities, INNS will serve as a collaborative hub for exploring the brain in all its complexity — from molecular mechanisms to behavior and cognition, and from foundational research to clinical and technological applications.
“Our neuro-related research community has built such a strong transdisciplinary vision for an IRI that I remain fully committed to its growth, even as we face a period of extreme uncertainty about federal research funding,” said Vice President for Interdisciplinary Research Julia Kubanek. “In fact, under Chris’s leadership I expect INNS to make our faculty more competitive and successful, bringing Georgia Tech closer to patient communities living with neurological conditions so that our research increasingly impacts people’s lives. INNS will also connect artists, social scientists, neuroscientists and engineers with entrepreneurial opportunities and non-traditional funding pipelines.”
The launch of INNS builds on more than a decade of groundwork laid by Georgia Tech’s neuroscience community. Rozell has played a key role in shaping the vision for INNS as a member of the Neuro Next Initiative’s executive committee, and before that, as a steering committee member as the initiative was developed. The executive committee included Simon Sponberg, Dunn Family Associate Professor in the School of Physics and the School of Biological Sciences; Jennifer Singh, associate professor in the School of History and Sociology; and Sarah Peterson, Neuro Next Initiative program manager.
“I'm excited to serve the INNS community in this next phase to build on the momentum generated across campus over many years,” said Rozell. “The brain is one of the great remaining frontiers, where discovery and innovation can unlock the future of human health and flourishing. INNS is uniquely positioned to lead in the modern interdisciplinary research necessary to address this grand challenge.”
Rozell brings a unique blend of technical expertise, interdisciplinary leadership, and public engagement to his role as the inaugural executive director of INNS. His work spans neuroscience, data and computer science, neuroengineering, and cognitive science, with a particular focus on developing scalable brain stimulation therapies for treatment-resistant depression. Rozell also serves on advisory boards for organizations at the forefront of neuroethics and scientific rigor, reflecting his commitment to responsible innovation.
Interdisciplinary from the outset, Rozell’s training in neuroscience has been shaped by a unique educational path that bridges engineering, the arts, machine learning, neuroscience and translational research. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music alongside his engineering degrees and has developed multiple initiatives that incorporate the arts into neuroscience research and public engagement.
Rozell’s research has been widely recognized, with over 130 peer-reviewed publications, multiple patents, and invitations to speak at high-profile venues, including a U.S. Congressional briefing celebrating the NIH BRAIN Initiative. A first-generation scholar, Rozell co-founded Neuromatch, a nonprofit dedicated to building an inclusive global neuroscience community. His contributions have earned him numerous honors, including the James S. McDonnell Foundation 21st Century Science Initiative Scholar Award, elected Fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and Georgia Tech’s top teaching accolades, underscoring his impact both in and beyond the lab.
Audra Davidson
Research Communications Program Manager
Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society
Breakfast Club Seminar
Karmella Haynes
Assistant Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Emory University and Georgia Tech
Breakfast Club Seminar
Farzaneh Najafi
Assistant Professor
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Tech and Emory University
These ‘Exploding’ Capsules Can Deliver Insulin Without a Needle
Jul 08, 2025 —

Georgia Tech engineers have created a pill that could effectively deliver insulin and other injectable drugs, making medicines for chronic illnesses easier for patients to take, less invasive, and potentially less expensive.
Along with insulin, it also could be used for semaglutide — the popular GLP-1 medication sold as Ozempic and Wegovy — and a host of other top-selling protein-based medications like antibodies and growth hormone that are part of a $400 billion market.
These drugs usually have to be injected because they can’t overcome the protective barriers of the gastrointestinal tract. Georgia Tech’s new capsule uses a small pressurized “explosion” to shoot medicine past those barriers in the small intestine and into the bloodstream. Unlike other designs, it has no complicated moving parts and requires no battery or stored energy.
“This study introduces a new way of drug delivery that is as easy as swallowing a pill and replaces the need for painful injections,” said Mark Prausnitz, who created the pill in his lab with former Ph.D. student Joshua Palacios and other student researchers.
In animal lab tests, they showed their capsule lowered blood sugar levels just like traditional insulin injections. The researchers reported their pill design and study results DATE in the Journal of Controlled Release.
Read about the technology on the College of Engineering website.
Joshua Stewart
College of Engineering
Joel Kostka receives Humboldt Research Award
Jun 26, 2025 —

Professor Joel Kostka at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation annual meeting and reception in Germany this week.
This week, Professor Joel Kostka was awarded the prestigious Humboldt Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation during its annual meeting and reception with Germany’s Federal President Steinmeier in Berlin. Every year, the Foundation grants up to 100 Humboldt Research Awards worldwide, which recognize internationally leading researchers of all disciplines.
The award’s €80,000 endowment will support a research trip to Germany for up to a year — during which Kostka will collaborate with Professor Marcel Kuypers, director of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany — to assess the role of marine plant microbiomes in coastal marine ecosystem health and climate resilience.
Kostka, who holds joint appointments in the School of Biological Sciences and School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is also the associate chair for research in Biological Sciences. He was recently named the inaugural faculty director of Georgia Tech for Georgia's Tomorrow. The new Center, announced by the College of Sciences in December 2024, will drive research aimed at improving life across the state of Georgia.
Wetlands in a changing climate
“Human population is centered on coastlines, and coastal ecosystems provide many services for people,” Kostka says. “Although they cover less than 1 percent of the ocean, coastal wetlands store over 50 percent of the seafloor’s rich carbon reserves.” But researchers aren’t sure how these ecosystems will respond to a changing climate.
Microbes may be the key. Microbes play a critical role in maintaining plant health and helping them adapt to stressors, Kostka says. Similar to human bodies, plants have microbiomes: a community of microbes intimately associated with the plant that help it take up nutrients, stimulate the plant’s immune system, and regulate plant hormones.
“Our research indicates that plant microbiomes are fundamental to wetland ecosystem health, yet almost everything we know about them is from agricultural systems,” he adds. “We know very little about the microbes associated with these important marine plants that dominate coastal ecosystems.”
Kostka’s work in Germany will investigate how microbiomes help coastal marine plants adapt to stress and keep them healthy. From there, he will investigate how plant microbiomes contribute to the carbon and nutrient cycles of coastal ecosystems — and how they contribute to ecosystem resilience.
Expanding collaboration — and insights
One goal of the collaboration is to exchange information on two types of marine plants that dominate coastal ecosystems worldwide: those associated with seagrass meadows and salt marshes.
“I’ve investigated salt marsh plants in the intertidal zone between tides, and my colleagues at the Max Planck Institute have focused on seagrass beds and seagrass meadows, which are subtidal, below the tides,” Kostka says. “While these two ecosystems have some different characteristics, they both cover large areas of the global coastline and are dominated by salt-tolerant plants.”
In salt marshes, Kostka has shown that marine plants have symbiotic microbes in their roots that help them to take up nitrogen and deal with stress by removing toxic sulfides. He suspects that these plant-microbe interactions are critical to the resilience of coastal ecosystems. “The Max Planck Institute made similar observations in seagrass meadows as we did in salt marshes,” Kostka explains. “But they found different bacteria.”
From Georgia to Germany
Beyond supporting excellence in research, another key goal of the Humboldt Research Award is to support international collaboration — something very familiar to Kostka. “I've been working with Professor Kuypers and the Max Planck Institute in Bremen for many years,” he says, adding that he completed his postdoctoral research at the Institute. “Max Planck's labs are some of the best in the world for what they do, and their imaging technology can give us an unprecedented look at plant-microbe interactions at the cellular level.”
“This project is also special because I am collaborating with other scientists in northern Germany,” Kostka adds. “The University of Bremen is home to the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM), which is designated as a Cluster of Excellence by the German National Science Foundation, so there are a number of fantastic research centers in Bremen to work with.”
His hope is that this project will deepen collaboration between the research at Georgia Tech and research in Germany. “I look forward to seeing what we can uncover about these critical systems while working together.”
Written by Selena Langner
Contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston
How New Information Triggers the Brain to Navigate Changing Environments
Jun 24, 2025 —

Stephanie Prince explains her research with a scenario many Atlantans can relate to.
Imagine you’re driving to the Atlanta airport to pick up a friend. They call to say they’re in the terminal — but they’re not sure which one. North, maybe? You head that direction through the maze of roads around the airport.
Then they call back. They’re actually in the South Terminal. So you make a quick mental adjustment and switch your route to arrive at the correct side of the airport.
You had a plan. You received new information. You quickly changed your destination.
The question Prince has studied is this: How does that process happen in the brain?
A new research paper in Nature Communications is offering insights into that decision-making. And it could help scientists as they work to better understand when brain disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s impair those processes.
Joshua Stewart
College of Engineering
Spring 2025 IMS Seed Grant Awards Announced
Jun 18, 2025 —

The Institute for Matter and Systems (IMS) at Georgia Tech has announced the Spring 2025 Core Facility Seed Grant recipients. The primary purpose of this program is to give graduate students in diverse disciplines working on original and unfunded research in micro- and nanoscale science and engineering the opportunity to access the most advanced academic cleanroom space in the Southeast. In addition to using the labs' state-of-the-art fabrication, lithography, and characterization tools, the awardees will have the opportunity to gain proficiency in cleanroom and tool methodology and access the consultation services provided by research staff members in IMS. Seed Grant awardees are also provided travel support to present their research at a scientific conference.
In addition to student research skill development, this biannual grant program gives faculty with novel research topics the ability to develop preliminary data to pursue follow-up funding sources. The Core Facility Seed Grant program is supported in part by the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor (SENIC), a member of the National Science Foundation’s National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI).
The five winning projects in this round were awarded IMS cleanroom and lab access time to be used over the next year.
The Spring 2025 IMS Core Facility Seed Grant recipients are:
Stretchable Power Sources for Vertically Integrated Bioelectronics
PI: Antonio Facchetti
Student: Sakshi Sharma
School of Materials Science and Engineering
Next-generation 3D Solid-state Neutron Detectors for Nuclear Nonproliferation
PI: Anna Erickson
Student: David Straub
George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
Programmable Microchip-based Cytotoxicity Assay for Real-Time Immune Cell Profiling
PI: Fatih Sarioglu
Student: Ahmadreza Rostamzadeh
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Experimental Study of Neutron-induced Radiation Damage in Lunar Materials with Key Implications for the Future of Lunar Geochronology
PI: Karl Lang
Student: Shreya Mukherjee
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Enhanced Dielectrophoretic Enrichment and Removal of Microplastics from Drinking Water via Engineered Nonuniform Electric Fields on Microfluidic Chips
PI: Xing Xie
Student: Shuai Wang
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Amelia Neumeister | Research Communications Program Manager
Institute for Matter and Systems
Georgia Tech Alumni Develop Device to Understand Moon’s Water Content
Jun 16, 2025 —

Athena landed on its side with MSOLO glowing. [Image courtesy of Intuitive Machines]
When NASA’s PRIME-1 Mission landed on the moon in March, an Intuitive Machine’s lander named Athena ended up on its side. The faulty landing meant the instruments couldn’t drill into the moon to measure water and other resources, as intended. But the mission wasn’t a total loss: PRIME-1’s The Regolith Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT) and Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSOLO) could still operate and gather some data. The mission, led by Georgia Tech alumni who collaborated with Georgia Tech faculty, is already pivotal to future NASA missions.
PRIME-1, or Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1, is a combination tool of two instruments: TRIDENT and MSOLO. PRIME-1’s objective is to help scientists determine resources available on the moon, with the eventual goal of sending humans to live there. TRIDENT is a space-rated drill designed and built by Honeybee Robotics that can extract lunar soil up to 3 feet deep. MSOLO is a mass spectrometer that can analyze TRIDENT’s soil samples for water and other critical volatiles. Together, this data can show how viable living on and mining from the moon could be.
Two Georgia Tech alumna, Jackie Williams Quinn and Janine E. Captain, led the PRIME-1 team for NASA. They had help with computer modeling of PRIME-1’s mass spectrometer data from Georgia Tech’s Regents’ Professor Thom Orlando and Senior Research Scientist Brant Jones in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Georgia Tech to the Moon
Georgia Tech’s expertise influenced all areas of developing PRIME-1, but perhaps their biggest contribution was the collaboration across disciplines.
Quinn, a civil engineering graduate, wrote the initial proposal. She also managed TRIDENT’s development, through a contract with Honeybee Robotics, ensuring it was also built to operate in the harsh lunar environment (a process known as ruggedizing). The team worked with Honeybee’s Jameil Bailey, fellow Tech alumnus.
Captain, the MSOLO principal investigator and chemistry Ph.D. graduate, never planned to work at NASA. But her advisor, Orlando, got her interested.
“What drew me to NASA’s In-Situ Resource Utilization team is that I could apply the instrumentation techniques that I learned in my Ph.D. to measuring vital things like oxygen on the moon,” Captain said.
Ruggedization Redux
When it was confirmed in 2008 the moon had water, NASA wondered if humans could one day live there. Having a functional mass spectrometer on the moon was paramount to determining where the water was and how much of it existed. Captain’s team modified a commercial mass spectrometer and tested it in a harsh environment comparable to the moon: Hawaii’s dormant shield volcano, Mauna Kea. Once they demonstrated the mission operation in this environment, they worked to ruggedize an existing one manufactured by instrumentation company INFICON. The team worked with INFICON and through lab tests, they showed that all components of the mass spectrometer functioned in a lunar vacuum environment.
In Orlando’s lab, his team experimented with lunar material to determine how water interacts with lunar soil. From there, they created a theoretical model that simulated how much water they might find from what PRIME-1 sampled.
“To create the model, we used the data of how water sticks to the lunar surface — from controlled experiments carried out in our ultra-high vacuum chambers at Georgia Tech,” Orlando said. “We approached the problem from a surface physics point of view in these lab experiments, but then in our model, we were able to connect to the actual mission activity.”
Once PRIME-1 hardware validation testing was finished, NASA was ready to launch. That’s when things got hairy.
“We don't fully understand everything that happened during the landing, but the fact that PRIME-1 was fully functional is pretty amazing,” Captain said. “We got the data. It was so cool to know that all this work we did was worth it.”
Moon Milestones
Although they didn’t get the chance to drill into the moon as planned, they can still analyze the data PRIME-1 pulled from the lunar atmosphere. This data includes how the spacecraft may have contaminated the local atmosphere.
“PRIME-1 was the only instrument that got to fully run and check out everything because when the lander fell over, the instrument was on top,” Quinn noted. “They were able to extend the drill all the way out a meter. It was drilling into empty space, but we were able to show that the drill got the signal from Earth, fully extended, and was able to auger and percuss. We were also able to fully operate MSOLO and gather data on gases coming off the lander in its final resting orientation.”
Tess Malone, Senior Research Writer/Editor
tess.malone@gatech.edu