Shu Takayama earned his BS and MS in Agricultural Chemistry at the University of Tokyo. He earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California studying bio-organic synthesis with Dr. Chi‐Huey Wong. He then worked as a postdoc with Dr. George Whitesides at Harvard University where he focused on applying microfluidics to studying cell and molecular biology.

Takayama began his career at the University of Michigan, where led his lab in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Macromolecular Science & Engineering for over 17 years. In 2017, the lab moved to Georgia Tech where Shu became the Georgia Research Alliance Price Gilbert Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Takayama’s research interests are diverse and motivated by clinical and biotechnology needs. He is always interested in hearing from stakeholders in these areas who are seeking engineering collaboration.

Young-Hui Chang is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences, Associate Dean of Faculty for College of Sciences, and director of research in the Georgia Tech Comparative Neuromechanics Lab where he studies the neuromechanics of movement in humans and other animals. Chang’s aim is to understand fundamental principles by which we control our movements as we move through our physical environment. This requires knowledge of the neural control of movement, the biomechanics of our musculoskeletal system, and the physics of our environmental interactions. The team also studies how our body adapts to acute and chronic changes. This involves processes of motor learning that are involved in everything from clinical rehabilitation to elite sports performance.

Greg Gibson is Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Integrative Genomics at Georgia Tech. He received his BSc majoring in Genetics from the University of Sydney (Australia) and PhD in Developmental Genetics from the University of Basel. After transitioning to quantitative genetic research as a Helen Hay Whitney post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University, he initiated a program of genomic research as a David and Lucille Packard Foundation Fellow at the University of Michigan. He joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in Fall of 2009, after ten years at North Carolina State University where he developed tools for quantitative gene expression profiling and genetic dissection of development in the fruitfly Drosophila. He is now collaborating with the Center for Health Discovery and Well Being on integrative genomic analyses of the cohort. Dr Gibson is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and serves as Section Editor for Natural Variation for PLoS Genetics. He has authored a prominent text-book, a "Primer of Genome Science" as well as a popular book about genetics and human health, "It Takes a Genome".

The questions that keep us up at night are: How does the immune system present and recognize antigens to combat disease? What are the molecular features involved in stimulating robust and specific immune responses? How can we exploit distinct features of immune recognition to develop new treatments for disease? Our research centers on answering these important questions. We focus on the CD1 family of major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) related proteins, which present both self and foreign lipids to αβ, γδ, and natural killer T cells. Examples of CD1 complexes involved in the adaptive and innate immune response to human disease include those associated with lipids derived from cancerous cells (Leukemia, Carcinoma, Lymphoma, Melanoma), wasp/bee venom including yellowjackets of the genus Vespula who represent Georgia Tech's mascot Buzz (Hymenoptera venom allergy), bacterial pathogens (Mycobacterium tuberculosis - Tuberculosis, Borrelia burgdorferi - Lyme Disease, Pseudomonas aeruginosa - Pneumonia), viral pathogens (HSV-1 - Herpes, HBV - Hepatitis B), marine sponges, and self cells in autoimmune disease (Dermatitis, Psoriasis, Lysosomal Storage Disease). Recent studies have shown that CD1 can also associate with and present a much broader range of antigens, such as skin oils that lack a discernible hydrophilic head group, lipopeptides, and non-lipid small molecules. Unlike peptide antigen presentation by high polymorphic human MHC-I complexes for which therapeutics must be tailored to a patients genetic background, the non-polymorphic nature of CD1 means that lipid/CD1 molecules are attractive candidates for donor-unrestricted (i.e. universal and patient-haplotype independent) vaccines and immunotherapy treatments. Progress in the development of lipid/CD1 mediated therapies has been hindered by an incomplete understanding in several important features of the CD1 antigen processing and presentation pathway as well as a lack of structural information for clinically relevant lipid/CD1 complexes. We aim to address these knowledge gaps with our research.
 

Prof. Ethier was originally trained as a mechanical engineer, receiving his Ph.D. from MIT in 1986 working in the lab of Roger D. Kamm. He then joined the University of Toronto, where he was a Professor of Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering and Ophthalmology, and latterly the Director of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering. Prior to joining Georgia Tech/Emory, Professor Ethier was the Head of the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College, London from 2007-12. 

His research is in the biomechanics of cells and whole organs. His specific research topics include glaucoma (biomechanics of aqueous humour drainage in the normal and glaucomatous eye, and the mechanical and cellular response of optic nerve tissues to intraocular pressure), study of hemodynamic basis of arterial disease.

Sheng Dai, Ph.D., P.E., earned his degrees from Tongji University and Georgia Tech. He worked as an ORISE postdoc at the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, and returned to Georgia Tech as a faculty member in 2015. He is currently an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ocean Science and Engineering. and holds a courtesy appointment at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.

Dr. Dai's group addresses emerging energy and environment challenges through studying subsurface geomechanics, geomaterials characterization, energy geotechnics, bio-inspired geotechnics, flow in porous media, and granular dynamics. His research has been funded by federal funding agencies (DOE, NSF, NASA, DOT), national labs (INL, NETL), and industry (AECOM, GTI, Leidos).  Dr. Dai has been recognized for his research and teaching, including being a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, the ORISE Fellowship, the Bill Schutz Junior Faculty Teaching Award, and the Class of 1969 Teaching Fellows at Georgia Tech.

He is an associated editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth and Advances in Geo-Energy Research, an editorial advisor of Geomechanics for Energy and Environment, and serves on the Pressure Core Advisory Board for U.S. Geological Survey, the GOM2 Marine Test Technical Advisory Committee for UT/DOE, the National Gas Hydrate Program for NETL, and the Task Force Leader of TC308 Energy Geotechnics of ISSMGE. 

Julia Kubanek serves as Georgia Tech’s Vice President for Interdisciplinary Research and is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In this role, she oversees and supports interdisciplinary activities at Georgia Tech including the Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRIs); the Pediatric Technology Center (PTC), the Novelis Innovation Hub; the Center for Advanced Brain Imaging (CABI); and the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI). She also partners across the institute on developing and advancing new research initiatives based on student and faculty interests, expertise, and societal need.

Kubanek has held several previous leadership roles at Georgia Tech, including Associate Dean for Research in the College of Sciences and Associate Chair in the School of Biological Sciences. She joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2001. Her areas of research interest include chemical signaling among organisms (especially in aquatic systems), natural products chemistry, metabolomics, chemical biology, and drug discovery. She has authored approximately 100 research articles on marine plankton and coral reef chemical ecology, and on the discovery, mechanism of action, and biosynthesis of marine natural products. She was awarded the NSF CAREER Award in 2002, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2004, and was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2012. In 2016, she served as chair of the Gordon Research Conference in Marine Natural Products; since 2016, she has chaired the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. Kubanek received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from Queen’s University, Canada, in 1991 and her Ph.D. in at the University of British Columbia in 1998, and performed postdoctoral research at the University of California – San Diego and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.