Peng Qiu

Peng Qiu's profile picture
peng.qiu@bme.gatech.edu
Website

Peng Qiu is a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech School of Engineering and Emory University School of Medicine. 

His research interests are in the areas of bioinformatics and computational biology, focusing on machine learning, data integration, statistical signal processing, control systems and optimization. 

In particular, he is interested in developing machine learning methods to advance single-cell data science, with applications in characterizing cellular heterogeneity, identifying cancer biomarkers, understanding disease progression, reconstructing gene regulatory networks, etc.

Professor
Phone
404-385-1656
Office
EBB 2107
Additional Research
  • Computational Biology
  • Machine Learning
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=huPJapcAAAAJ
Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Anqi Wu

Anqi Wu's profile picture
anqiwu@gatech.edu
Anqi Wu Research

Anqi Wu is an Assistant Professor at the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE), Georgia Institute of Technology. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. degree in Computational and Quantitative Neuroscience and a graduate certificate in Statistics and Machine Learning from Princeton University. Anqi was selected for the 2018 MIT Rising Star in EECS, 2022 DARPA Riser, and 2023 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. Her research interest is to develop scientifically-motivated Bayesian statistical models to characterize structure in neural data and behavior data in the interdisciplinary field of machine learning and computational neuroscience. She has a general interest in building data-driven models to promote both animal and human studies in the system and cognitive neuroscience.

Assistant Professor
Phone
323-868-1604
Research Focus Areas
BRAin INtelligence and Machine Learning (BRAINML) Laboratory

Ahmet Coskun

Ahmet Coskun's profile picture
acoskun7@gatech.edu
Website

Ahmet Coskun is a Bernie-Marcus Early-Career Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. Coskun is a systems biotechnologist and bioengineer, working at the nexus of multiplexed cell imaging and quantitative tissue biology. He directs an interdisciplinary research team at the Single Cell Biotechnology and Spatial Omics Laboratory, an interdisciplinary program strategically positioned for multiparameter imaging one cell at a time by spatial context and function. Coskun holds five issued patents and is also the co-author of more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in major scientific journals. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award 2024, NIH R35 MIRA Award 2023, Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award 2025, CMBE Young Innovator Award 2024, BMES-CMBE Rising Star Award 2023, American Lung Association Innovation Award 2022, Burroughs Welcome Fund CASI Award 2016, and Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: Class of 1934 CIOS Award, among other research and teaching awards. Previously, Coskun was an instructor at Stanford University. He received his postdoctoral training from the California Institute of Technology. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. His research has been supported by federal and private grants, including the National Institutes of Health (NIGMS, NIA, NIAID, NCI, NIDCR, OD, and ORIP), Wellcome LEAP, Burroughs Wellcome Fund (CASI), NSF CMaT, American Cancer Society IRG, Multi-cellular engineered living systems (M-CELS), and Regenerative Medicine Center. In addition, he leads outreach programs to engage K-12 students and undergraduate students through BioCrowd Studio, an innovative crowd-sourcing program bringing together interactive virtual media, distributed biokits, and collaborative spatial discovery.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Phone
404.894.3866
Office
Petit Biotechnology Building, Office 1311
Additional Research

The Single Cell Biotechnology Lab aims to study spatial biology in health and disease. Our research lies at the nexus of multiplex bioimaging, microfluidic biodynamics, and big data biocomputation. Using high-dimensional nanoscale imaging datasets, we address fundamental challenges in immuno-engineering, cancers, and pediatric diseases. Our lab pursues a transformative multi-omics technology to integrate spatially resolved epigenetics and spatial genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, all in the same platform. We uniquely benefit from super-resolution microscopy, imaging mass spectrometry, combinatorial molecular barcoding, and machine learning to enhance the information capacity of our cellular data. Variability of single cell images can be used to understand differences in therapeutic responses, as well as satisfy our curiosity on understanding how cells are spatially organized in nature.

University, College, and School/Department
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4MR2wSIAAAAJ&hl=en
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Greg Gibson

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greg.gibson@biology.gatech.edu
Website

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".

Professor
Director, Center for Integrative Genomics
Adjunct Professor, School of Medicine, Emory University
Phone
404-385-2343
Office
EBB 2115A
Additional Research
Quantitative Evolutionary Genetics. After 15 years working on genomic approaches to complex traits in Drosophila, my group has spent much of the past 10 years focusing on human quantitative genetics. We start with the conviction that genotype-by-environment and genotype-by-genotype interactions are important influences at the individual level (even though they are almost impossible to detect at the population level). We use a combination of simulation studies and integrative genomics approaches to study phenomena such as cryptic genetic variation (context-dependent genetic effects) and canalization (evolved robustness) with the main focus currently on disease susceptibility.​ Immuno-Transcriptomics.As one of the early developers of statistical approaches to analysis of gene expression data, we have a long-term interest in applications of transcriptomics in ecology, evolution, and lately disease progression. Since blood is the mostaccessible human tissue, we've examined how variation is distributed within and among populations, across inflammatory and auto-immune states, and asked how it relates to variation in immune cell types. Our axes-of-variation framework provides a new way of monitoring lymphocyte, neutrophil, monocyte and reticulocyte profiles from whole peripheral blood. Most recently we have also been collaborating on numerous studies of specific tissues or purified cell types in relation to such diseases as malaria, inflammatory bowel disease, juvenile arthritis, lupus, and coronary artery disease. Predictive Health Genomics. Personalized genomic medicine can be divided into two domains: precision medicine and predictive health. We have been particularly interested in the latter, asking how environmental exposures and gene expression, metabolomic and microbial metagenomics profiles can be integrated with genomesequencing or genotyping to generate health risk assessments. A future direction is incorporation of electronic health records into genomic analyses of predictive health. Right now it is easier to predict the weather ten years in advance than loss of well-being, but we presume that preventative medicine is a big part of the future of healthcare.​
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=e4_ZXcwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
http://www.biology.gatech.edu/people/gregory-gibson

Yuhong Fan

Yuhong Fan's profile picture
yuhong.fan@biology.gatech.edu
Associate Professor
Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Scholar
Phone
404-385-1312
Office
Petit Biotechnology Building, Office 2313
Additional Research
  • Bioinformatics
  • Chromatin
  • Epigenetics,  Epigenomics & Epidrugs
  • Gene Expression
  • Stem Cell Biology
  • Stem Cell Differentiation
Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=ESfeLxQAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&pagesize=100
LinkedIn Biological Sciences Profile

Julia Kubanek

Julia Kubanek's profile picture
julia.kubanek@biosci.gatech.edu
Lab Website

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.

Professor
Vice President of Interdisciplinary Research
Phone
404-894-8424
Office
ES&T 2242
Additional Research
All organisms use chemicals to assess their environment and to communicate with others. Chemical cues for defense, mating, habitat selection, and food tracking are crucial, widespread, and structurally and functionally diverse. Yet our knowledge of chemical signaling is patchy, especially in marine environments. In our research we ask, "How do marine organisms use chemicals to solve critical problems of competition, disease, predation, and reproduction?" Our group uses an integrated approach to understand how chemical cues function in ecological interactions, working from molecular to community levels. We also use ecological insights to guide discovery of novel pharmaceuticals and molecular probes. In collaboration with other scientists, our most significant scientific achievements to date are: 1) characterizing the unusual molecular structures of antimicrobial defenses that protect algae from pathogens and which show promise to treat human disease; 2) understanding that competition among single-celled algae (phytoplankton) is mediated by a complex interplay of chemical cues that affect harmful algal bloom dynamics; 3) unraveling the molecular modes of action of antimalarial natural products towards developing new treatments for drug-resistant infectious disease; 4) discovering that progesterone signaling and quorum sensing are key pathways in the alternating sexual and asexual reproductive strategy of microscopic invertebrate rotifers - animals whose evolutionary history was previously thought to preclude either cooperative behavior (quorum sensing) typically associated with bacteria and hormonal regulation via progesterone typically seen in vertebrates; 5) identifying a novel aversivechemoreception pathway in predatory fish thatresults inrapid recognition and rejectionofchemically defended foods, thereby protecting these foods (prey) from predators. Ongoing projects include: 1) Waterborne chemical cues in the marine plankton: a systems biology approach (including metabolomics); 2) Exploration, conservation, and development of marine biodiversity in Fiji and the Solomon Islands (including drug discovery, mechanisms of action, and chemical ecology); 3) The role of sensory environment and predator chemical signal properties in determining non-consumptive effect strength in cascading interactions on oyster reefs; 4) Regulation of red tide toxicity by chemical cues from marine zooplankton; 5) Chemoreception of prey chemical defenses on tropical coral reefs.
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AxeeT2wAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
http://biosciences.gatech.edu/people/julia-kubanek

Facundo Fernandez

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facundo.fernandez@chemistry.gatech.edu
Website

Facundo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received his MSc in Chemistry from the College of Exact and Natural Sciences, Buenos Aires University in 1995 and his PhD in Analytical Chemistry from the same University, in 1999.  In August 2000, he joined the research group of Prof. Richard N. Zare in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University.  His work focused on several aspects of Hadamard transform time-of-flight mass spectrometry with an emphasis on coupling this technique to capillary-format separation methods.  In 2002, he joined the group of Prof. Vicki Wysocki in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Arizona, to develop novel tandem mass spectrometers for gas-phase peptide ion studies. In 2004 he joined the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology where he currently holds the position of Vasser-Woolley Endowed Professor in Bioanalytical Chemistry and Associate Chair for Research and Graduate Training. He is the author of over 185 peer-reviewed publications and numerous invited presentations at national and international conferences. He has received several awards, including the NSF CAREER award, the CETL/BP Teaching award, the Ron A. Hites best paper award from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and the Beynon award from Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, among others. He serves on the editorial board of The Analyst and as an Associate editor for the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. His current research interests include the field of metabolomics and the development of new ionization, imaging, machine learning and ion mobility spectrometry tools for probing composition and structure in complex molecular mixtures. In his (limited) free time, Facundo enjoys a number of activities that include camping with his family, rock climbing, paddling, archery, photography and ham radio. 

Vasser Woolley Foundation Chair in Bioanalytical Chemistry
Professor; School of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Phone
404.385.4432
Office
ES&T L1244
Additional Research
Mass Spectrometry (MS) is one of the key analytical methods used to identify and characterize small quantities of biological molecules embedded in complex matrices. Although MS has found widespread use, improvements are still needed to extend its application to the grand challenges of this century. Since starting my position at Georgia Tech in 2004, my group members and I have used an integrated strategy with roots in bioanalytical chemistry, instrumentation development, bioinformatics, and theoretical modeling to focus on questions of great societal and scientific significance. To this purpose, we have integrated with cross-cutting teams devoted to problems that range from explaining the origins of life on Earth and diagnosing cancer at an early stage, to tracking the sources and prevalence of counterfeit pharmaceuticals worldwide. The common theme along these questions is the need for highly accurate tools for quantifying, identifying, and imaging trace chemicals in complex mixtures. Research in our lab uses state-of-the-art mass spectrometry, ion mobility gas-phase separations,ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography, and new soft ion generation techniques. We investigate the obtained data using machine learning and other powerful bioinformatic approaches. Our group is very dynamic, and each student pursues more than one project at a time, usually in collaboration with other group members or with other research groups at GT or elsewhere. Graduate and undergraduate students are trained in a variety of bioanalytical instrumentation/methodologies, with an emphasis on the fundamentals. We are analytical mass spectrometrists at heart, and strive to answer "big" scientific questions or questions with a large societal impact.
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&tzom=240&user=7FB1qOYAAAAJ
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James Gumbart

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gumbart@physics.gatech.edu
Website

My lab is focused on understanding how proteins and other biological systems function at a molecular level. To probe these systems, we carry out molecular dynamics simulations, modeling biological behavior one atom at a time. The simulations serve as a "computational microscope" that permits glimpses into a cell's inner workings through the application of advanced software and high-powered supercomputers. We are particularly interested in how bacteria utilize unique pathways to synthesize proteins and insert them into both the inner and outer membranes, how they import nutrients across two membranes, and how their cell walls provide shape and mechanical strength.

Associate Professor
Phone
404-385-0797
Office
Howey W202
Additional Research

Computational Chemistry

Research Focus Areas
University, College, and School/Department
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DOMzcTgAAAAJ&hl=en
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Melissa Kemp

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melissa.kemp@bme.gatech.edu
Website

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.

Professor
Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar
Phone
404-385-6341
Office
EBB 3019
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.
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WUN5ok8AAAAJ&hl=en
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Christine Heitsch

Christine Heitsch's profile picture
heitsch@math.gatech.edu

Christine Heitsch is Professor of Mathematics at Georgia Tech, with courtesy appointments in Biological Sciences and Computational Science & Engineering as well as an affiliation with the Petit Institute for Bioengineering & Bioscience.

She is also Director of the new Southeast Center for Mathematics and Biology (SCMB), an NSF-Simons MathBioSys Research Center, and finishing her tenure directing the GT Interdisciplinary Mathematics Preparation and Career Training (IMPACT) Postdoctoral Program.

Heitsch's research interests lie at the interface between discrete mathematics and molecular biology, specifically combinatorial problems "as motivated by" and "with applications to" fundamental biomedical questions like RNA folding.

Students interested in pursuing graduate studies in discrete mathematical biology can do so through a number of GT PhD programs including Bioinformatics or Quantitative Biosciences as well as Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization (ACO), Computational Science & Engineering (CSE), and (of course) Mathematics.
 

Professor
Phone
404-894-4758
Office
Skiles 211B
Additional Research
Heitsch's research interests lie at the interface between discrete mathematics and molecular biology, specifically combinatorial problems "as motivated by" and "with applications to" fundamental biomedical questions like RNA folding.
Research Focus Areas
University, College, and School/Department
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