Ravi Kane

Ravi Kane

Ravi Kane

Professor
Garry Betty/V Foundation Chair
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cancer Nanotechnology

Ravi Kane is the Garry Betty/V Foundation Chair and GRA Eminent Scholar in Cancer Nanotechnology. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 1993. Also, he received an M.S. in Chemical Engineering Practice and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT, working with Bob Cohen and Bob Silbey. After postdoctoral research with George Whitesides in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, he joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) as an assistant professor in 2001. He was promoted to associate professor in 2006, to full professor in 2007, and to the P.K. Lashmet Professor in 2008. He served as the head of RPI’s Howard P. Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering before moving to Georgia Tech in 2015. Prof. Kane has graduated 27 Ph.D students and contributed to over 130 scientific publications.

ravi.kane@chbe.gatech.edu

404-385-4608

Office Location:
EBB 5019

Website

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Cell Manufacturing
    • Drug Design, Development and Delivery
    • Molecular, Cellular and Tissue Biomechanics
    • Neuroscience
    Additional Research:
    Professor Kane's groupconducts research at the interface of biotechnology and nanotechnology.The group is designing nanoscale polyvalent therapeutics and working on the molecular engineering of biosurfaces and nanostructures. A major focus of the group's research involves the design of polyvalent ligands, i.e., nanoscale scaffolds presenting multiple copies of selected biomolecules.The Kane group has made seminal contributions to a fundamental understanding of polyvalent recognition and has designed polyvalent inhibitors that are effectivein vivo.Currently, the group is designing polyvalent molecules that control stem cell fate as well as polyvalent inhibitors of pathogens such as HIV and influenza.The group is also designing nanoscale scaffolds for antigen presentation as part of novel strategies for designing vaccines.The approach could lead to the development of "universal" influenza vaccines as well as effective vaccines targeting RSV and malaria.Other interests of the group involve optogenetics — the development and application of methods that use light to control cell function — as well as the design of enzymes and nanocomposites that target antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

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    Levi Wood

    Levi Wood

    Levi Wood

    Associate Professor

    Dr. Wood completed his graduate training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While there he worked under the guidance of Drs. H. Harry Asada and Roger Kamm to develop and use microfluidics to identify mechanisms governing vascular geometry. 

    During his postdoc, Dr. Wood worked under Dr. Kevin Haigis (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School) and Dr. Douglas Lauffenburger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to use systems biology to identify novel signaling mechanisms driving neuronal death in Alzheimer's disease and epithelial cell death during intestinal inflammation.

    levi.wood@me.gatech.edu

    404-385-4465

    Office Location:
    Petit Biotechnology Building, Office 3303

    Website

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Neuroscience
    • Regenerative Medicine
    • Systems Biology
    Additional Research:
    Our research focuses on applying systems analysis approaches and engineering tools to identify novel clinical therapeutic targets for complex diseases. It is challenging to develop new treatments for these diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease(AD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), because they do not have a single genetic cause and they simultaneously present broad physiologic changes. By combining novel engineeredin vitroplatforms, mouse models, and multivariate computational systems analysis, we will be able to 1) capture a holistic systems-level understanding of complex diseases, and 2) isolate specific mechanisms driving disease. The ultimate goal of our laboratory is to use these tools to identify new mechanisms driving disease onset and progression that will translate to effective therapeutic strategies.

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    Aditi Das

    Aditi Das

    Aditi Das

    Associate Professor

    Aditi Das did her BSc. (Hons.) Chemistry from St. Stephen's College Delhi, followed by M.S. (Chemistry) from I.I.T (Kanpur). She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Princeton University. She did post-doctoral work with Prof. Steve Sligar. She joined University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) as a tenure track assistant professor in 2012. In 2019, she was promoted to associate professor with tenure. In 2022, she joined School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Institute of Technology as an associate professor with tenure. Her research is in the area of enzymology of oxygenases that are involved lipid metabolism and cannabinoid metabolism.

    Das is recipient of an American Heart Associate (AHA) career award and has been funded by National Institute of Health (NIH - NIGMS, NIDA and NCCIH), USDA, and National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS). Her research was recognized by several National awards: Young Investigator award From Eicosanoid Research Foundation, Mary Swartz Rose Young Investigator Award and E.L.R. Stokstad award from American Society for Nutrition (ASN) for outstanding research on bioactive compounds for human health. She is also the recipient of Zoetis Research Excellence Award from her college. She was a co-organizer of the International Conference on Cytochrome P450. Recently her laboratory contributed several papers on cannabinoid metabolism by p450s. In recognition of this work, she was awarded El Sohly award from the ACS-Cannabis division for excellence in Cannabis research and is invited to give plenary lecture at ISSX meeting.  Das is also a standing study section member of BBM NIH study section. 

    aditi.das@chemistry.gatech.edu

    609-203-6924

    Office Location:
    3306 IBB

    Chemistry Profile

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Biobased Materials
    • Biochemicals
    • Bioengineering
    • Biotechnology
    • Cancer Immunotherapy
    • Cell Manufacturing
    • Chemical Biology
    • Drug Design, Development and Delivery
    • Health & Life Sciences
    • Neuroscience
    • Shaping the Human-Technology Frontier
    • Systems Biology

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    Thomas DiChristina

    Thomas DiChristina

    Thomas DiChristina

    Professor, Microbiology, School of Biological Sciences

    Thomas DiChristina, Ph.D., received a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester (NY) in 1982, a MS in Chemistry from the University of Bordeaux (France) in 1984, a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering Science from the California Institute of Technology (CA) in 1989, and a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (MA) in 1993. DiChristina has been at Professor of Microbiology in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech for 29 years. 

    thomas.dichristina@biology.gatech.edu

    404.556.6829

    Office Location:
    Ford Environmental and Technology Building, Room 1240

    Website

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Clean Water
    • Climate & Environment
    • Energy
    • Energy & Water
    • Environmental Processes
    • Water

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    Melissa Kemp

    Melissa Kemp

    Melissa Kemp

    Professor
    Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar

    Melissa Lambeth Kemp received her B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from MIT and her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from University of Washington. Dr. Kemp joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2006 after completing postdoctoral training at MIT. Her expertise is in computational modeling of metabolism and signal transduction, as well as developing statistical modeling tools to examine network relationships in high-dimension datasets. One major aspect of her research program linking ROS – the byproducts of aerobic metabolism – to the fundamental way that cells interpret instructions from their environment, their neighbors, and their own genetic blueprint. Specific applications of her diverse work include systems modeling of transient phosphatase oxidation of kinase cascades, patient-specific differences in cytotoxicity to redox-cycled chemotherapeutics and radiation, and the coordination of oxidative metabolism with epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Her research program also includes a component of developing high-throughput screening methods for assaying cue-signal-response relationships in cells and analytical tools for single cell gene expression. 

    Dr. Kemp currently serves as the Research Director of the multi-site NSF Engineering Research Center “Cell Manufacturing Technologies”. In her former role as Associate Director of the NSF Science and Technology Center “Emergent Behavior of Integrated Cellular Systems”, she spearheaded the multi-site center’s computational activities by developing agent-based models of context-dependent cellular decisions to generate new hypotheses of intercellular communication in pluripotent stem cell differentiation and emergent patterning; this work continues currently in quantifying organizational principles and spatial relationships in iPSC-derived tissues from multi-omics data. Dr. Kemp’s career honors include a Whitaker Graduate Fellowship, Merck/CSBi postdoctoral fellowship, Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar, NIH New Innovator Award, and the CSB2 Prize for Innovative Measurement Methods from the Council for Systems Biology in Boston.

    melissa.kemp@bme.gatech.edu

    404-385-6341

    Office Location:
    EBB 3019

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Cancer Biology
    • Chemical Biology
    • Systems Biology
    Additional Research:
    Systems biology, computational modeling, redox metabolism and signal tranduction.The Kemp Lab is focused on understanding how metabolism influences the decisions that cells make. Aging, stem cell differentiation, cancer metastasis, and inflammation rely on progressive changes in metabolism resulting in increased levels of reactive oxygen species. Collectively, the accumulation of these molecules is known as cellular oxidation, and pathological levels are referred to as oxidative stress. Our lab develops systems biology tools for investigating how cellular oxidation influences cellular fate and interpretation of cues from the extracellular environment. We are interested in the collective behavior that arises during stem cell differentiation, immune cell responses, or drug treatments from metabolic diversity in individual cells. Because of the numerous biochemical reactions involved, we develop computational models and analytical approaches to understand how complex protein network properties are influenced by redox-sensitive proteins; these proteins typically have reactive thiol groups that are post-translationally regulated in the presence of reactive oxygen species to alter activity and/or function. Experimentally, we develop novel high-throughput single cell techniques for the detection and quantification of intracellular oxidation.

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    Arijit Raychowdhury

    Arijit Raychowdhury

    Arijit Raychowdhury

    Chair, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
    ON Semiconductor Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Arijit Raychowdhury is currently an Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology where he joined in January, 2013. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University (2007) and his B.E. in Electrical and Telecommunication Engineering from Jadavpur University, India (2001). His industry experience includes five years as a Staff Scientist in the Circuits Research Lab, Intel Corporation, and a year as an Analog Circuit Designer with Texas Instruments Inc. His research interests include low power digital and mixed-signal circuit design, design of power converters, sensors and exploring interactions of circuits with device technologies. Raychowdhury holds more than 25 U.S. and international patents and has published over 80 articles in journals and refereed conferences. He serves on the Technical Program Committees of DAC, ICCAD, VLSI Conference, and ISQED and has been a guest associate-editor for JETC. He has also taught many short courses and invited tutorials at multiple conferences, workshops and universities. He is the winner of the Intel Labs Technical Contribution Award, 2011; Dimitris N. Chorafas Award for outstanding doctoral research, 2007; the Best Thesis Award, College of Engineering, Purdue University, 2007; Best Paper Awards at the International Symposium on Low Power Electronic Design (ISLPED) 2012, 2006; IEEE Nanotechnology Conference, 2003; SRC Technical Excellence Award, 2005; Intel Foundation Fellowship, 2006; NASA INAC Fellowship, 2004; M.P. Birla Smarak Kosh (SOUTH POINT) Award for Higher Studies, 2002; and the Meissner Fellowship 2002. Raychowdhury is a Senior Member of the IEEE

    arijit.raychowdhury@ece.gatech.edu

    404.894.1789

    Office Location:
    Klaus 2362

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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Computer Engineering
    • Micro and Nano Device Engineering
    • Miniaturization & Integration
    • Mobile & Wireless Communications
    • Optics & Photonics
    • Semiconductors
    Additional Research:
    Design of low power digital circuits with emphasis on adaptability and resiliencyDesign of voltage regulators, adaptive clocking, and power managementDevice-circuit interactions for logic and storageAlternative compute architectures

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    John Peroni

    John Peroni

    John Peroni

    Professor

    Research in the Peroni laboratory focuses on the use of regenerative therapies ranging from cellular to blood derived products to treat musculoskeletal injuries, with a concentration on minimally invasive surgery such as laparoscopy, thoracoscopy and arthroscopy.

    Current research project: The surgery, performed in May, is the second successful feline kidney transplant using feline adult stem cells performed at the hospital. “To the best of our knowledge, UGA is the only veterinary facility in the world to use adult stem cells in feline kidney transplantation,” said Dr. Chad Schmiedt, a board-certified small animal surgeon who heads UGA’s feline kidney transplant program.

    The service laboratory is managed by research professionals Merrilee Thoresen and Jenny Mumaw, who is enrolled in the college’s doctor of veterinary medicine program and will graduate in 2016. The service is headed by Dr. John Peroni, a board-certified large animal surgeon and associate professor whose research focus includes stem cell therapeutics. Read More

    jperoni@uga.edu

    Website

  • https://vet.uga.edu/lam/person/john_f._peroni
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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Regenerative Medicine
    Additional Research:
    Research in the Peroni laboratory focuses on the use of regenerative therapies ranging from cellular to blood derived products to treat musculoskeletal injuries, with a concentration on minimally invasive surgery such as laparoscopy, thoracoscopy and arthroscopy. Current research project: The surgery, performed in May, is the second successful feline kidney transplant using feline adult stem cells performed at the hospital. "To the best of our knowledge, UGA is the only veterinary facility in the world to use adult stem cells in feline kidney transplantation," said Dr. Chad Schmiedt, a board-certified small animal surgeon who heads UGA's feline kidney transplant program. The service laboratory is managed by research professionals Merrilee Thoresen and Jenny Mumaw, who is enrolled in the college's doctor of veterinary medicine program and will graduate in 2016. The service is headed by Dr. John Peroni, a board-certified large animal surgeon and associate professor whose research focus includes stem cell therapeutics.

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    Timothy Cope

    Timothy Cope

    Timothy Cope

    Professor

    My research interests center on control of movement by sensorimotor integration in the mammalian spinal cord. Using predominantly electrophysiological methods applied in vivo, we study neural signaling by spinal motoneurons, somatosensory neurons, and their central synapses. Our primary analyses include electrical properties, synaptic function, and firing behavior of single neurons. We are actively examining how these neurons and synapses respond soon and long after peripheral nerve injury and regeneration. Our recent findings demonstrate that successful regeneration of damaged sensory axons does not prevent complex reorganization of their synaptic connections made within the spinal cord. In separate studies, we are examining novel mechanisms of sensory encoding and their impairment which recently discovered in rodents treated with anti-cancer drugs. Both nerve regeneration and chemotherapy projects are driven by the long-term goal of accurately identifying the neural mechanisms behind movement disorders. We also continue to explore fundamental operations of the normal adult nervous system. Our most recent studies focus on synaptic modulation of motoneuron firing and on interspecies comparisons of spinal circuits.

    tim.cope@gatech.edu

    404-385-4293

    Office Location:
    555 14th Street NW Room 1425

    Website

  • https://biosci.gatech.edu/people/timothy-cope
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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Neuroscience
    • Regenerative Medicine

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    Yury Chernoff

    Yury Chernoff

    Yury Chernoff

    Professor
    Director, Center for Nanobiology of the Macromolecular Assembly Disorders (NanoMAD)

    Yury O. Chernoff is a professor in the School of Biology and Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Prion. He received his undergraduate and graduate training and Ph.D. degree in biology from St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) State University (Russia) and performed postdoctoral research at Okayama University (Japan) and University of Illinois at Chicago. 

    Major topics of Dr. Chernoff’s research include yeast models for the protein aggregation disorders with an emphasis on the cellular control of protein aggregation and prion propagation, sequence-specificity of amyloid formation, and evolution of prion properties. 

    Dr. Chernoff’s work provided the first experimental evidence for the chaperone role in prion phenomena.

    yury.chernoff@biology.gatech.edu

    404-894-1157

    Office Location:
    EBB 5016

    Website

  • http://www.biology.gatech.edu/people/yury-chernoff
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    Research Focus Areas:
    • Molecular Evolution
    Additional Research:
    Yeast genetics and molecular biology, chaperones and protein misfolding, amyloid and prion diseases, epigenetics and protein-based inheritance. Mylaboratory employsyeast models to studyprionsandamyloids.Prionswere initially identified as proteins in an unusual conformation that cause infectiousneurodegenerativediseases, such as "mad cow" disease,kuruorCreutzfeldt-Jakobdisease. Infection depends on theprion'sability to convert anon-prionprotein, encoded by the same host maintenance gene, into theprionconformation.Prionsform ordered cross-beta fibrous aggregates, termed amyloids. A variety of human diseases, includingAlzheimer'sdisease, are associated with amyloids and possess at least someprionproperties. Someamyloidshave positive biological functions. Manyproteins can formamyloidsin specific conditions. It is thought thatamyloidrepresents one of the ancient types of the protein fold. Some yeastnon-Mendelianheritable elements are based on aprionmechanism. This shows that heritable information can be coded in protein structures, in addition to information coded in DNA sequence. Therefore,prionsprovide a basis for the protein-based inheritance in yeast (and possibly in other organisms). Major topics of research in my lab include cellular control of prion formation and propagation (with a specific emphasis on the role of chaperone proteins), and development of the yeast models forstudying mammalian and humanamyloids, involved in diseases.Our research has demonstrated thatprionscan be induced by transient protein overproduction and discovered the crucial role of chaperones inprionpropagation, shown evolutionary conservation ofprion-formingproperties, established a yeast system for studying species-specificity ofpriontransmission,and uncovered links between prions,cytoskeletalnetworks and protein quality control pathways.

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