November 2011

November/ December 2011 Volume VI, Issue 3 THE PIONEER NEWSLETTER is

brought to you by the students,

faculty, and staff of the Wallace H.

Coulter Department of Biomedical

Engineering at Georgia Tech and

Emory University. The newsletter

staff and its collaborators strive to

bring you the latest news from all

aspects of the BME community. To

submit articles, opinions, ideas, or events for publication and for more

information about the newsletter,

please visit:

Issue inside this

www.thepioneer.gatech.edu

Jaemin Sung Selling and Protecting Ph.D. Student’s Research

Georgia Tech TI:GER Program

Subhendu De New Senior Associate Chair for Operations

Paul Benkeser, Ph.D.

“A Ph.D. student’s worst fear is that all the work [in research] he/she did

over many years will end up as some

manuscript in a drawer… and nobody is going

to ever care about it again,” said Melissa Li, a

Ph.D. candidate in the Wallace H. Coulter

Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. To avoid

this discouraging scenario, Li has been seeking

to promote the commercialization of her

research as a participant in the TI:GER®

program housed at the Georgia Tech College of Management.

Since its creation in 2002,

the TI:GER® (Technological

I n n o v a t i o n : G e n e r a t i o n

Economic Results) program has...

S temming from the tremendous growth of the department, several changes were made within the

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical

Engineering’s administration faculty shortly before the

commencement of the 2011-2012 academic year. Paul

Benkeser, Ph.D. was the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies for almost ten years, and has been with the Coulter

Department since its creation in 1997. Benkeser is now the

current Senior Associate Chair for Operations. In this

position, Benkeser will work together with the Department

Chair, Larry McIntire, Ph.D. in providing greater oversight on operations throughout the department while addressing

needs more efficiently. His previous position is now held by

Associate Professor Joseph LeDoux, Ph.D.

Over the past decade, Benkeser oversaw the creation

of the undergraduate curriculum for biomedical engineering, was instrumental in providing a vision for the department,...

Continued on Page 8

3 PRE-HEALTH COLUMN

Evaluating Your Options

4 ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Ann Ensley

4

BIOTECH CAREER FAIR

Job Hunting

6 RECENT PUBLICATIONS

7 NASA INTERN

Bethany Clement

9 GRADUATE SCHOOL APPS

Plan of Action

10 NOBEL LAUREATE

Aaron Ciechanover

11 ENGINEERING REIMAGINED

Innovation and Invention

12 DESIGNING FOR GOOD

GT Case Competition

Continued on Page 7

Team SpherIngenics

From Left to Right: Natalie Dana,

Christopher Lee, Christopher Palazzola,

Bryan Stewart, Eric Diersen.

(Photo: Jacob Khouri)

Paul Benkeser, Ph.D, the outgoing Asso-

ciate Chair for Undergraduate Studies.

(Photo: Nicole Cappello)

Page 2

WORDS from the editor in chief

Staff Members EDITOR IN CHIEF

Willa Ni

FACULTY SPONSOR

Dr. Wendy Newstetter

OFFICERS

Debika Mitra

WEBMASTERS

Timothy Lin

Sara Khalek

STAFF WRITERS

Alex Cooper

Dhruv Vishwakarma

Amrita Banerjee

Subhedu De

Belane Gizaw

Sarah Gonzales

Christine Hang

Cathy Heo

Asra Rehan

Harish Srinimukesh

Rachel Stewart

Jaemin Sung

Guergana Terzieva

Steven Touchton Jr.

The cooling weather this Fall also brings with it the last issue of The

Pioneer for 2011! As we face the promise of Thanksgiving and Winter Break

and the hurdles of finals and various applications, I hope The Pioneer

continues to serve as a source of advice and information. For students with

further schooling in mind, please refer to Jennifer Kimble’s Pre-Health

column and this month’s feature on Graduate School applications. For

others headed towards industry, draw from alumni and students before

you as resources. For all, explore the innovation and collaboration that

continues to define our biotechnology community.

The BMES Annual Meeting in Hartford, CT this past month assembled

the wider biomedical engineering community to unveil the vast array of

research topics and industry products that continues to evolve and define

biomedical engineering. Still resonating with the success of the Hartford

Meeting, we cannot help, but look forward to the 2012 Meeting hosted by

our very own Georgia Tech community!

Best of luck with the last months of 2011!

Sincerely,

Willa Ni

Interim Editor-in-chief

The Pioneer

Willa Ni

Iva Zivojinovic EDITORS

Gopi Patel

Shalv Madhani

Nida Dharani

Jackson Hair

Ayesha Patel

Elina Sarmah

Kristen Weirich

LAYOUT EDITORS

Kevin Lam

Yeonghoon Joung

Kelli Koenig

Candace Law

Summer Lee

Chang Hyeon Lim

Xurong Liu

Alexandra Low

Eesha Mathur

Anum Syed PHOTOGRAPHERS

Virginia Lin

Saranya Karthikeyan

Arthur Lo

Jacob Khouri

Sheridan Carroll

William Sessions

COLLABORATORS

Karen Adams

Paul Fincannon

Sally Gerrish

Marty C. Jacobson

Jennifer Kimble

Megan McDevitt

Mark P. McJunkin

Colleen Mitchell

Adrianne Proeller

Shannon Sullivan

“T ha t ’s So BM E!”

Pre-Health Column Events and Deadlines

Page 3

Pre-Health Column

GAP SEMINAR SERIES

The Graduate and Post-Doc (GaP) Seminar Series is a weekly event of

research presentations by two graduate students or post-docs

conducting bio-related research.

ibb.gatech.edu

Brandon Chaffins and Stephen Goldman Nov 2 Hyewon Lee and Catera Wilder Nov 30

Every Wednesday at 12:00pm in IBB 1128

SCEC SEMINAR SERIES

Jeffrey Karp, PhD - Harvard Stem Cell Institute Nov 8

Sharon Gerecht, PhD - Johns Hopkins University Nov 22

BIOE SEMINAR SERIES

Design, Synthesis and Evaluation of Surgical Biomaterials and

Vaccine Adjuvant Systems

David A. Putnam, PhD - Cornell University

IBB 1128

November 3, 2011 - 11:00am

8TH GEORGIA TECH-EMORY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON

BIOINFORMATICS: FROM GENOMICS TO SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY

Bringing together leading, world-renowned researchers in genomics

and bioinformatics to present recent advances in the field and to

discuss open problems.

ibb.gatech.edu

November 10, 2011 - 8:30am

IBB BREAKFAST CLUB SEMINAR SERIES

Creating Therapeutic Materials from Proteins Julie Champion, PhD - Assistant Professor, School of Chemical &

Biomolecular Engineering

IBB 1128

November 15, 2011 - 8:30am

Swimming in Sand Daniel Goldman, PhD - Assistant Professor, School of Physics

IBB 1128

December 13, 2011 - 8:30am

3RD ANNUAL WORKSHOP FOR MAGNETIC RESONANCE

IBB INDUSTRY PARTNER’S SYMPOSIUM

Open laboratory demonstrating the MRI scanner and a discussion

forum for students, postdocs and research scholars.

ibb.gatech.edu

December 13, 2011 - 9:00 am

CAREER SERVICES

Managing Your Money Nov 5

Internship Information Session Nov 15

www.career.gatech.edu

GT NEURO

Newsletter Info Session

Whitaker 1103

November 9, 2011 - 8pm

Evaluating Your Options: Other Health Careers By Jennifer Kimble

I f you ask children who takes care of sick people, they will say

“doctors and nurses.” When those same children go to college, they might be interested in working with sick people. Once again,

they gravitate to doctors and nurses and thus, they decide to be

doctors.

People are often surprised to learn that there are over 200

health professions out there! One reason that health profession schools don’t accept students at age 18 is that they want you to

EXPLORE and find the right career path for you while in college.

I’m always more than happy to discuss the different career

options with you. One starting website I urge

you to look at is explorehealthcareers.org. This website is hosted by the American Dental Education Association, but gives a

snapshot of careers ranging from chiropractic medicine to

veterinary medicine. Another website I recommend is

www.georgiahealth.edu/ahec/healthworkforce/healthcareers.

Please click the link that says “Health Careers in Georgia” manual.

Created by the Area Health Education Centers of Georgia, this manual shows you where in Georgia you can go to advance your

education. Both of these websites highlight the career growth and

average salaries of potential health careers.

Sadly, not every pre-med student goes to medical school. For

some applicants, they weren’t strong enough to stand out in a competitive application cycle. Our average GPA for accepted

students to medical school hovers around a 3.6 with MCATs of

about a 31.

Optometry

Personally, I would choose optometry out of all the health professions. For those of you who want to establish a strong

relationship with your patients, optometry has that. Think about it

- your patients see you every 12 months for a contact or glasses

prescription. And, really, who fears going to the optometrist?!

Also, you occasionally diagnose hypertension and diabetes, which manifest themselves in vision issues because patients are scared to

see their M.D. Some optometry schools offer summer programs

to highlight their career. One year, I had a pre-med student who

did an “OptoCamp” which opened his eyes (no pun intended) to a

career in optometry. When he got back to Tech, he took the Optometry Admissions Test and was accepted to several

optometry schools. For additional information on optometry,

please go to www.opted.org.

Podiatry

Many students aren’t aware that podiatrists attend a separate medical school leading to the Doctor of Podiatric Medicine

(D.P.M.) degree. In total, it includes four years of podiatric medical

school and a residency of about 36 months. A career bonus is that

podiatrists not only do patient consultations (check a patient’s gait,

deal with skin ulcers, cast broken bones, etc.), but also perform

surgeries. Some podiatrists are in private practice, but others work for hospitals, spine centers, military, athletic teams, etc.

Also, opposed to the 42,000+ applicants for 18,000 M.D. seats,

approximately 1000 applicants vie for almost 600 seats. The

average salary for a podiatrist is about $189,000 and it is a field

with high career growth. If interested, www.aacpm.org is a great website for you to peruse. One of my former pre-med students

realized her interest in podiatry by shadowing who she thought

was an M.D., but was actually a podiatrist specializing in foot and

ankle!

I hope that highlighting two of the lesser known health professions plants the seed that you don’t have to go to medical

school to make a difference in patients’ health.

Jennifer Kimble is the Georgia Tech Pre-Health Advisor.

Page 4

Job Hunting Season in Full Swing Biotechnology Career Fair By Belane Gizaw

A nxiously waiting to meet representatives of their dream companies, hopeful students compared networking tactics

and resumes while in line at the 7th Annual Georgia Tech

Biotechnology Career Fair, which took place on September 15,

2011. Three levels of the Molecular Science and Engineering

building were full of professionally dressed students filed in long winding lines. Judging by the length of the lines, most popular

companies included Medtronic, Epic, and Proctor & Gamble.

Other companies that also attracted attention included Eli Lilly and

Company, Edwards Lifesciences, and C.R. Bard. The majority of

these organizations looked to fill positions for full-time graduates. However, after speaking with a few representatives, the general

consensus from employers was that they wanted students to gain

experience throughout their college education via internships or

co-ops because learning in a lecture hall and putting that

knowledge to practice are two different skills. For this reason,

some firms provide such opportunities for undergraduates to allow them early exposure to the corporate world. Among these

are Eli Lilly and Company, Medtronic, Proctor & Gamble, and C. R.

Bard’s medical division. A resume with such experience gives many

students looking for full-time jobs an advantageous edge over their

competition. Those who attended this year’s Biotechnology Career Fair may

have found their first internship or the job that will launch their

career. For those who missed this year’s career fair, keep your

eyes open for other career fair opportunities this coming spring

and look to company websites for applications. By bringing these companies on our campus, the Biotechnology Career Fair

Committee has aided many biotechnology students in gaining early

and easy access to job applications and interviews that open the

door for post-graduation success.

Belane Gizaw is an undergraduate student in the Coulter Department.

Ann Ensley By Christine Hang Product Specialist at W.L. Gore & Associates

A nn Ensley is an alumnus of the Georgia Institute of Technology

currently working for W.L. Gore & Associates, a company with electronic, industrial, fabric and medical products divisions.

Ensley first entered Georgia Tech as an undergraduate in the

school of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. As an

undergraduate, she had the opportunity to perform research under

Ajit Yoganathan, Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair in Biomedical Engineering and Associate Chair for Research and

Regents’ Professor. From her second year until she graduated, her

research focused on fluid mechanics and biological situations, which

shaped her professional and educational career. Ensley took her

interests a step further by entering the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory

University as a Ph.D. candidate. During her time in graduate

school, she participated in sailing club and the IBB Regenerative

Club, which was instrumental in bringing the L.I.F.E. seminars

(Learning about Industry from Experts) to Georgia Tech.

After receiving her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, Ensley began working in Philadelphia as a product specialist with W.L.

Gore Medical Products Division, the largest division, which focused

on implantable medical devices. According to Ensley, “[W.L. Gore]

makes implantable devices from applications in cardiology to

dialysis, as well as general surgery applications, and even medical electronics.” Some of the products made by W.L. Gore include

hernia repair meshes, hernia plugs and staple-line reinforcements.

A section of the medical division is also dedicated to new product

development in which Ensley must “work with physicians to

understand what their current needs are” to see if W. L. Gore can help make appropriate products for their specific needs.

As a product specialist, Ann acts in a “central role for a given

product.” She must keep in mind the commercial and marketing

aspects of each device by meeting with manufacturing associates

and technology groups. The device must also be profitable and create business revenue. Ensley also deals with new product

development. “My role is to work with an engineering team, to

develop these new products… Problem-based learning is what we

do every day.” Some topics discussed with engineering teams

include creating physiologically-relevant tests, tests ensuring the

reproducibility of every device, device functionality, physiological

need and reliability. Ensley testifies that many of the tasks she performs in her every day job are analogous to BMED 2300.

Lastly, Ensley has some advice for current Georgia Tech

students. Undergraduate research is “an opportunity for folks to

get involved in. It was really helpful to me.” This was especially

the case for her graduate school and occupational interviews. Also, “practice effective teaming. [You] don’t always have to lead

but improve the team to be more effective.”

Christine Hang is an undergraduate student

in the Coulter Department.

Ann Ensley (Photo: Sheridan Carroll)

Page 5

Cathy Heo is an undergraduate student in the Coulter Department.

a member of the “Viable Designs” group said, “We didn't expect it

at all! Especially after third and second place were announced. It

was an incredible feeling.” She continued with a hopeful look, “As a

future architect and/or civil engineer it was really a dream come true to hear that our design would be built and would help 250

families. I'm very excited to be able to help build and live in our

design for a week!”

Saving All Families Endeavor, or “SAFE” camp, also participated

in the competition and their focus was distribution of water supply to the refugees. “Our ultimate goal was to provide clean water to

250 family members in refugee camp with [a] cost and energy

efficient, portable and sustainable solution that incorporates the

community,” said Mijin Lee, who is a pursuing a 2012 Master’s

degree in the Georgia Tech College of Management. Lee said she was inspired by simple designs with simple solutions and

“appropriate technology,” such as the life straw, a portable water...

filter for areas without clean water supply and the Q drum, a

rolling water container for developing countries which eases the

burden of fetching water over long distances.

“Students should definitely get involved with this competition because it's an opportunity to design for a problem that exists in

the world today,” said Wong. “It really gets you thinking about the

current issues and how we can address these issues as future

leaders in innovative solutions. It was also really nice to be able to

work with disciplines and majors outside of [my] own and to interact with mentors who are already working in the field.”

This experience could even have an impact on career goals,

since the exposure is so different from other college experiences.

“Personally, I was never exposed to something like this when I was

a student. And if I had [been], I think my career choice would’ve been [a] lot different. I was never exposed to anything like global

issues and for most students, they end up going to school, get their

degree and end up in an office somewhere,” said Parks. “We have

the opportunity to be aware of these global issues and the

opportunity to affect them in a positive way. And, in this circumstance, potentially improve the lives of millions of people.”

The teams presented their design to a panel of judges familiar

with the issues at hand, from Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Peace

Corps, CARE, Siemens, Inc. and more. The top designs will be combined to construct a refugee camp in rural Georgia using non-

profit and student labor. The camp will be populated with

volunteers for one week to assess its functionality and the living

conditions and camp logistics will be documented thoroughly. The camp will then be disassembled and reconstructed in Arizona so

that the UN can evaluate the mobility of the camp as well as the

final design. Through these camps, UN standard operating

procedures for mobile refugee camp construction, oversight and

management will be improved. “Designing For Good” will hopefully become an annual event –

one of Georgia Tech’s first design competitions that focuses on the

global level. Additionally, a focus on successful implementation will

allow students to feel connected to those they are helping and to

make a difference in the world.

Shelter Water Treatment and Distribution Sanitation

Viable Designs:

Moinak Banbyopadhyay, Chandim

Chatterjee, Mudit Palival, Shaleen Jain, Catherine Wong

J & J:

Ho Cheong Leung, Jasdeep Singh, Jon

Callura, Onika Anglin, Julian

Nomad:

Bilal Bari, Kate Wharton, Joshua Lee, Ke Du, Kristen King

Two-Hearted:

Daniel Schuetz, Jiwoong Son,

Ariel James E. Livica, Jiwoo Son,

Christy Seerlwy

Vumilia:

Thejas Hiremath, Sushanth Reddy, Silvia

Roscot

Communitas:

John Zelek, Tomas Leon, Emma

Bones, Aaron Greenwood, Mike

Donohue

D:

Sabrin Stein, Christopher Orlan-

do, Jessica Vanterpool, Ahmed Hamed, Andrew Ivey

E:

Alfonso Hernandez, Ritika Thapar, Cessunica Ivey, Ali Perry, Mohan Rajen-

dran

CEDC-1:

Amelie Cardon, Marcela Preininger,

Murray Fisher, Paul Duhhan, Donald West

Designing for Good 2011 Winners

Designing for Good from Page 12

Page 6

Recent Coulter Department Publications AAPS PHARMSCITECH

Recovery of Skin Barrier After Stratum Corneum Removal by Microdermabrasion.

Andrews S, Lee JW, Prausnitz M.

ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE

Fiber-Based Hybrid Nanogenerators for/as Self-Powered

Systems in Biological Liquid.

Pan C, Li Z, Guo W, Zhu J, Wang ZL.

ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

Effect of Zinc and Nitric Oxide on Monocyte Adhesion to

Endothelial Cells under Shear Stress. Lee S, Eskin SG, Shah AK, Schildmeyer LA, McIntire LV.

ANTIOXIDANTS AND REDOX SIGNALING

Systemic redox regulation of cellular information processing. Dwivedi G, Kemp ML.

ARCHIVES OF BIOCHEMISTRY AND BIOPHYSICS

Manipulating substrate and pH in zymography protocols selectively distinguishes cathepsins K, L, S, and V activity in cells

and tissues.

Wilder CL, Park KY, Keegan PM, Platt MO.

ARTIFICIAL ORGANS

Laser Flow Measurements in an Idealized Total Cavopulmonary

Connection With Mechanical Circulatory Assistance. Chopski SG, Downs E, Haggerty CM,

Yoganathan AP, Throckmorton AL.

BIOMATERIALS

Engineering fibrin polymers through engagement of alternative

polymerization mechanisms.

Stabenfeldt SE, Gourley M, Krishnan L, Hoying JB, Barker TH.

BMC BIOINFORMATICS

caCORRECT2: Improving the accuracy and reliability of

microarray data in the presence of artifacts. Moffitt RA, Yin-Goen Q, Stokes TH, Parry RM,

Torrance JH, Phan JH, Young AN, Wang MD.

BMC SYSTEMS BIOLOGY

Systemic remodeling of the redox regulatory network due to

RNAi perturbations of glutaredoxin 1, thioredoxin 1, and

glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. Kippner LE, Finn NA, Shukla S, Kemp ML.

CURRENT PROTOCOLS IN BIOINFORMATICS

Eukaryotic gene prediction using GeneMark.hmm-E and GeneMark-ES.

Borodovsky M, Lomsadze A.

DISABILITY AND REHABILITATION. ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY

Dusty: an assistive mobile manipulator that retrieves dropped objects for people with motor impairments.

King CH, Chen TL, Fan Z, Glass JD, Kemp CC.

INVESTIGATIVE OPHTHALMOLOGY VISUAL SCIENCE

Computerized macular pathology diagnosis in spectral domain

optical coherence tomography scans based on multiscale

texture and shape features. Liu YY, Ishikawa H, Chen M, Wollstein G, Duker JS,

Fujimoto JG, Schuman JS, Rehg JM.

THE JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE

Cortical Excitation and Inhibition following Focal Traumatic

Brain Injury.

Ding MC, Wang Q, Lo EH, Stanley GB.

LAB ON A CHIP

Microfluidic chamber arrays for whole-organism behavior-based

chemical screening. Chung K, Zhan M, Srinivasan J, Sternberg PW,

Gong E, Schroeder FC, Lu H.

MEDICAL IMAGE COMPUTING AND COMPUTER-ASSISTED

INTERVENTION

An analysis of scale and rotation invariance in the bag-of-

features method for histopathological image classification. Raza SH, Parry RM, Moffitt RA, Young AN, Wang MD.

NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH

Genome-wide prediction and analysis of human chromatin boundary elements.

Wang J, Lunyak VV, Jordan IK.

NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH

Integration of sequence-similarity and functional association

information can overcome intrinsic problems in orthology

mapping across bacterial genomes. Li G, Ma Q, Mao X, Yin Y, Zhu X, Xu Y.

PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY

A switching mechanism in Doxorubicin bioactivation can be exploited to control Doxorubicin toxicity.

Finn NA, Findley HW, Kemp ML.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF

THE USA

Large area and structured epitaxial graphene produced by

confinement controlled sublimation of silicon carbide. de Heer WA, Berger C, Ruan M, Sprinkle M,

Li X, Hu Y, Zhang B, Hankinson J, Conrad E.

TI:GER® Program assembled and trained teams that each consists of one Ph.D.

candidate and two M.B.A. students from Georgia Tech and two

J.D. students from Emory University. In the frame of this two-year

interdisciplinary program, each team works with a goal of

commercializing a Ph.D. student’s innovative research and obtaining legal protection of the product of the research. The

program is designed to benefit second or third year Ph.D. students

who have a strong interest in business or legal aspects of the

product development process and want to acquire entrepreneurial

skills. Li’s research is focused on using microfluidics to make

personalized point-of-care devices that diagnose platelet activity in

blood. Platelets that tend to clog and form a blockage in the blood

vessel prevent the flow of blood and thus, cause heart attacks.

During her first semester in the program, her team, Cardiam,

examined the current biotechnology market, learning what biomedical companies might be interested in Li’s research and

where the big areas of growth for her research could be.

The program provides tools for making a business out of the

research product for each TI:GER® team. For instance, Li “had a

lecture in how to write a license agreement, and how to get money from venture capitalists.” Besides learning about the

commercialization of her research from the courses, she finds her

team members to be an excellent resource. The M.B.A. students

have “a great deal of knowledge about how to develop your

product and whether its profitable in the market, [while] the J.D. students will give you an idea of what a good patentable part of

your research idea is.” Li thoroughly enjoys her experience with

TI:GER® as “it gives you appreciation for technical aspects of

other people’s work.”

Christopher Lee, also a Ph.D. candidate in the Coulter Department, is part of the TI:GER® team SpherIngenics. His team

has won third place in the 2011 Georgia Tech Business Plan

Competition for its microencapsulation technology for cell-based

therapies, specifically using adult stem cells to regenerate tissues that are orthopedic in nature. At the onset of its path to placing in

the competition, Lee’s team had to determine the first application

of its cell delivery technology and the first target market. After the

market analysis, the J.D. students worked on drafting patents for

the technology. SpherIngenics is now a start-up company which holds five U.S. patents pending.

The most important aspect about this program is the

educational diversity on the team. Lee describes his experience

with the TI:GER® as completely different from his prior research

environment. For him, “working with two J.D. and two M.B.A. students is entirely different from working with typical researchers

or biomedical engineers.” As the diverse educational backgrounds

mesh together upon one long-term project, Lee feels that it has

been a great experience to work with people with different ways

of thinking and different ways of working.

Furthermore, “learning how to present and market [himself] for future jobs” is one important career-oriented skill that Lee

took away from his experience with the TI:GER® so far. The

program has taught him to talk akin to a businessman’s manner of

speaking and helped him adopt a lawyer’s mindset in evaluating his

own technology. With all the valuable skills that the program has offered, Lee feels that the TI:GER® has solidified his goal of

becoming an entrepreneur. His team SpherIngenics is now in

Munich, Germany and consults for a start-up research company

who is seeking to expand to the market in the United States.

The TI:GER® program is open to Ph.D. candidates who are highly interested in tailoring themselves towards the development

of their research and marketing. For interested applicants, look for

the admission application for the program to be released around

February.

E very semester, Tech students strive to become involved with a variety of research, co-ops, and internships whose topics begin

to seem repetitive – device design, tissue engineering, computa-

tional modeling, etc... Bethany Clement, a fourth year biomedical

engineering student, travelled a less worn path and undertook an

internship program with NASA’s space medical division last spring in Houston, TX. As part of her internship program, she worked on

medical kits to be sent up to the space station with the goal of

updating them and improving methods of inventorying supplies.

Clement was able to redesign the kits as well as familiarize herself

with government paperwork that is required for projects such as these.

Applicants are normally placed into a division most closely

related to their major; however, due to Clement’s biomedical

engineering major, the program coordinators allowed her to

choose from a wide variety of projects. She eventually chose one related to her interest in the health field. The application process

required basic information, essays on why each applicant would

like to work at NASA, what they would bring to the program,

transcripts, a resume and letters of recommendation. The program

is available throughout the year and is targeted toward third and

fourth year students although exceptions can be made for second year students. Due to geographical inconveniences, the interview

process is conducted by the Undergraduate Student Research Program (USRP) over the phone.

While heavily involved in the research project, Clement was

also able to shadow other areas of NASA and even help other

internship divisions with their projects whenever she had a free

day. Clement discussed how her coursework with computer programming was useful for these other projects. She also found

the team-oriented skills she obtained from BMED 1300 and BMED

2300 essential to her work at NASA’s campus where she handled

problems such as questioning the efficacy of a packaging method

for medical kits. Coming out of the program, Clement shared that she was

really able to develop her time management skills. She discussed

that she “is now able to get as much done as possible between 9

to 5, [rather than] being up until the crack of dawn [working].”

With so much to offer to interested interns, NASA has projects available for a variety of majors. Back at Tech, Bethany has taken

on research in the McDevitt lab doing working on stem cell

research this semester. Her post-graduation plans include jumping

into industry, which will be guided by exposure to the various

aspects of biomedical engineering and finding her niche.

NASA Intern: Bethany Clement Taking the Road Less Travelled By Harish Srinimukesh

from Page 1

Jaemin Sung is an undergraduate student in the Coulter Department.

Page 7

Harish Srinimukesh is undergraduate student in the Coulter Department

Benkeser

and laid the groundwork for the integration

of the successful problem based learning

(PBL) education model into the curriculum.

With the rest of the faculty available at the

time, Benkeser began to conceive an undergraduate curr icu lum whi le

simultaneously hiring faculty. As he reflects

on being the Associate Chair for

Undergraduate Studies, Benkeser says, “A

lot of time and effort has gone into shaping individual courses and the curriculum as a

whole. It was made through a partnership

of faculty, students, and now a sizable

number of alumni that have all contributed

to what we now call the undergraduate

program.” He initially worked with faculty in the

Department of Biomedical Engineering at

Johns Hopkins University about learning

the challenges of developing a functional

undergraduate program in biomedical engineering. Georgia Tech, according to

Benkeser, was “one of the first big

engineering schools with a BME

undergraduate program.” Because they

were able to start with a “blank slate,” the faculty was able to develop a unique

undergraduate curricu lum which

incorporated PBL. This parallels how many

medical schools use PBL to develop diagnostic skills in students. In order to

adapt it for an undergraduate engineering

curriculum, some fundamental changes

were necessary. “What was different was

that we weren’t interested in students just learning facts or theories,” said Benkeser,

“but in developing the students’ biomedical

engineering problem solving skills.” This

vision has come to define the undergradu-

ate BME curriculum. However, the road to reaching the

current curriculum was not smooth.

Benkeser recalled early tensions amongst

the faculty, over whether the degree would

focus on students seeking either a pre-

medicine track or an engineering track. Another concern was that the nature of

the curriculum might not allow students to

explore options of technical electives as

much. There were also concerns that the

undergraduate BME curriculum, while offering diversity and breadth, did not offer

enough depth in any one area. Despite

these concerns, Benkeser, along with the

BME faculty, were able to meet each and

every challenge head on. Their success was shown in the positive

response from hundreds of alumni in

recent survey conducted by Benkeser,

which he regards as his greatest success. The alumni stated that the BME

undergraduate experience “helped them

get to where they wanted.” Benkeser also

consulted with engineers in industry in

regards to the curriculum, noting that industry consistently ranks “good

communication skills, team work skills,

problem solving skills, and self-directed

learning” as key fundamentals of education.

Furthermore, he observed that the trend in industry “is not on people who have a

narrow focused depth in one area,” but is

on “students who have both breadth and

depth.” With these revelations from alumni

and industry, Benkeser spearheaded the

recent overhaul of the undergraduate curriculum, which now incorporates both

breadth and depth electives. The new

curriculum is the most flexible curriculum

so far, and is ultimately the result of

Benkeser’s vision for the undergraduate BME experience.

from Page 1

Subhendu De is an undergraduate student

in the Coulter Department

Page 8

Page 9

Graduate School Applications Plan of Action By Dhruv Vishwakarma

S tressful doesn't even begin to describe the environment surrounding a

Biomedical Engineering student in his/her

last year. For the prospective graduate

student, a heaving spoonful of graduate

school application just adds to an already overflowing schedule of classes and

worries. Although the application process

seems intimidating, it can be managed by

tackling it in small chunks and thinking

carefully about future goals. In the broadest sense, the first few

things to consider is whether to pursue a

Master’s or a Ph.D. Master’s programs will

generally have a higher proportion of

classes to independent research, while doctorate programs usually involve classes

and more research. In engineering

doctorate programs, the entirety of work

over the 4-6 years will be research, with

the exception of a few classes.

Undergraduate research is the best way to find out which level of research is

appropriate and graduate admissions

committees put a lot of weight on an

applicant's previous research experience.

After deciding, the next step is to make a plan to cover all the bases required for

graduate school admission. The 4

categories that most affect your admission

are GPA, GRE score, personal statement

and letter of recommendation. Graduate schools use this information to make a

decision on whether you have the right

qualifications to succeed in their program.

If a school or a professor is going to invest

time and money into training a Ph.D. student, they want assurance that the

student will be motivated and responsible.

GPA is considered the biggest factor in

admissions and for good reason. It reflects

4-5 years of consistent work and effort and informs schools of your standing compared

to other applicants. Even though not all schools have the same coursework rigor,

top graduate programs do have a sense of

the difficulty of undergraduate programs,

though there is no official normalization of

GPA. Normalization across the entire pool of

applicants is done through the Graduate

Record Examination (GRE) score. The GRE

is a standardized test that tests verbal

reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and analytical writing. A high GRE

score could possibly offset some other

factors, such as a low GPA. The new GRE

introduced this fall is completely computer-

based, includes section-based difficulty adjustment, and relieves students from

questions types like analogies or antonyms.

The 200-800 scale is now a 130-170 scale.

Take the GRE early on so that you can

take it again if you are not satisfied with

your score since schools consider only the highest scores per section.

Next up in order of importance are

personal statements and a letter of

recommendation. While GPA and GRE

scores inform schools of your thinking ski l ls , personal statements and

recommendation letters reflect your

performance in research. Personal

statements should answer questions like

"What skills do you possess that qualify you as a good candidate?" and "Why are

you interested in your field or our program

specifically?" This is the point in the

application process where you have to

"sell" yourself to the admissions committee. They want to know why you

think you would make a good graduate

student in their program.

After understanding your rationale for

applying, the school then checks this rationale with other sources - your letters

of recommendation. These letters are a way for the committee to see why your

research advisor thinks you would be a

good candidate. The letter can tell the

school how dedicated you are to research,

how much effort you have put in, and whether they believe you will succeed in

graduate school. The ideal candidate to

write letters of recommendation is your

research PI. If the reviewing faculty

member at your prospective school has a personal relationship with your research PI,

he/she may offer you special consideration.

Though application time usually

coincides with the busiest time of your

college career, it can be broken down and handled in small pieces. It is important to

get started as early as possible. By

sophomore or junior year, you should be

involved in research. Plan on taking your

first GRE towards the end of junior year or

earlier and take the last GRE at the beginning of your last year. The summer

before the last year, pick out your

prospective schools - usually around 3-5

schools, including a safety, a moderately

competitive and a reach school. During that summer, make sure to contact your

letter-writers to make sure they have

enough time to put together a well-written

one. Application deadlines are usually

around December-January, and by February or March, you should know your

options. In that last stretch of waiting, plan

on missing a few days for campus visits and

let your professors know. If you can

smoothly distribute the application workload across a long time frame, you can

minimize the stress you will incur during

that monstrous last year.

Dhruv Vishwakarma is an undergraduate student

in the Coulter Department.

Join us for the 2012 meeting which attracts leading scientists, engineers, clinicians and industry participants to discuss the latest cutting edge research in the regenerative medicine field.

Call for Abstracts November 1, 2011 - December 16, 2011

www.hiltonhead.gatech.ed

Summer Internship Program At the Institut Pasteur in PARIS, FRANCE

Looking for motivated undergraduate summer interns in the biological sciences Application Deadline: December 16, 2011

www.pasteurfoundation.org

Page 10

Nobel Laureate Aaron Ciechanover By Rachel Stewart

W ill Emory University shut down its

school of medicine? Will the Kettering Cancer Center close its doors?

These are just a few of the colossal

implications of the question that Aaron

Ciechanover, the co-recipient of the 2004

Nobel Prize in Chemistry, posed in his October 4th talk entitled “Drug

Development in the 21st Century: Are We

Going to Cure All Diseases?”

Given a life expectancy of 50 years in

the early 1900s, the 30 years added since seem like a great boon. However, the

extension of life expectancy has hidden

caveats. Whereas the people of a hundred

years ago died of infectious disease, the

people of today die of cancer,

neurodegenerative disease, and heart disease, which come into effect in the sixth

decade of life or later. Due to the lifespan

required to develop these diseases, they

have been defined relatively recently, and their research has only begun in earnest in

the last hundred years. These illnesses of

today are Ciechanover’s primary concern.

About half of all illnesses in developed

countries are lifestyle diseases which could have been avoided with preventive care.

Before we cure all diseases, we have to

learn to avoid preventable diseases. Right

now, medicine is not structured to support

preventive care, but in the future, Ciechanover predicts that preventive

medicine will be consistently applied and it

will be considered as important as curative

medicine. Given current technology, how

can such preventative powers be created?

Modern medicine as we know it began in the 1930s. This was an era of incidental

discoveries, bringing forth aspirin and

penicillin. The 1970s brought about a new

era of brute force testing and experimentation, which brought about the

awareness of heart disease and the

creation of statins. The third era of

medicine, today, is the most interesting; it

will be the era of designed and fitted medicine. Medicine in this era will become

personalized, predictive, preventive and

participatory. With the development of

new, more powerful, tools, such as the

interpretation of the human genome, we will be able to better diagnose patients and

suit treatments to their particular case.

The example Ciechanover gives to

demonstrate this personalization is of

breast cancer. A breast cancer patient with

a particular type of mutated estrogen receptors can be treated much more

successfully than a patient without it, but

we currently do not differentiate between

the two patients and their two cancers. In

fact, the procedure of diagnosis renders us unable to distinguish between the two

patients because we start diagnosis with

screening. This is not a fitted method of

medicine. In the future, an improved first

step will start from the patient’s genome and use that to predict and detect diseases

they may develop. This method will alter

everything about medicine and diseases,

including their very definitions. Today,

diseases are defined as a set of symptoms. In the era of fitted medicine, disease will be

quantitative; it will be expressed in

probabil it ies, susceptibil i t ies, and

capabilities.

In the end, will we cure all diseases? We cannot be sure given current

knowledge, but with the dawn of truly

personal and preventive medicine, we may.

Nobel laureate, Aaron Ciechanover speaks to students, faculty.

(Photo: William Sessions)

Will we cure all diseases?

Rachel Stewart is an undergraduate student

in the Coulter Department

2012 ANNUAL MEETING

October 24-27

Hosted by Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University

At the Georgia World Congress Center

Fostering Collaborative Academic, Clinical, and Industrial Research in Biomedical Engineering

Page 11

Engineering Reimagined in the BME An Open Community of Innovation and Invention

E veryone has had a “million-dollar idea,”

but ideas are a dime a dozen. Marty C. Jacobson and Mark P. McJunkin, design

instructors, along with Franklin Bost,

Director of Design in the Wallace H.

Coulter Department of Biomedical

Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, specialize in turning these ideas

into true innovation. While many people

imagine innovation occurring at desks and

in meetings, innovation in the BME

Workshop is an iterative process, in which getting one’s hands dirty, is inevitable.

However, the BME Workshop is about a

lot more than just building things; it is a

complex learning environment that is

founded on the belief that one can only

learn engineering through one’s own fingertips. Most importantly, it is a

col laborative environment where

knowledge and experience are shared and

developed.

In an increasingly digitized world, losing

sight of the value of the intuition gained through hands-on work is easy. Brent

Foster, a BME undergraduate student who

is a regular in the workshop, stressed the

value of this intuition. “What kind of

tolerance is needed for a snug fit around a heart valve? What lathe tools should we

use? These are just two of many questions

we had to learn, that isn't taught in our

classes. I can easily say [my work in the

BME Workshop] was the first time I really felt like an engineer.” While the BME

Workshop sometimes functions as an

impromptu classroom, it also functions as a

design studio where students collaborate

on design and invention, working on

anything from medical devices like heart valves and novel surgical tools to machining

projects like the ‘Do - Nothing Machine,’

the final test for Guild chapters at the

workshop.

As the BME Workshop grew in

popularity, it quickly started to become a community. Seeing the untapped potential

of students teaching students, McJunkin and

Jacobson founded the BME Guild. The BME

Guild enables students to receive training

and experience in the BME Workshop through not only McJunkin and Jacobson,

but also their fellow students. Students can

start Guild Chapters, which after a series of

training sessions get untethered access to

the BME Workshop to continue to develop their skills as designers and engineers.

These Guild Chapters can then begin to

teach and instruct other students during

regular shop hours.

The BME Guild is founded on the belief

that the ability to design and the ability to build are not two unrelated skills. “You

can’t design something and get it built if

you’ve never built anything.” Jacobson,

when discussing this concept, also stated

that “It’s more than just building things that somebody else came up with. It’s not a

build shop; it’s an innovation shop.” The

ability to build what you design also

provides students with first-hand

experience in manufacturability, something many students would otherwise graduate

with no knowledge of.

While mentorship and collaboration are

key principles to the BME Workshop, it is

all founded on a firm belief in safety. McJunkin, while explaining the structure of

the BME Guild, explained that safety is a

crucial element to cooperation and

learning. Starting with a strict no late night

hours rule, he continues to state that “Safety is based on community and

responsibility for people that are in the

shop. That’s why we have a two-person

rule in the shop at all times…You create a

safe work environment by making sure

everyone has adequate training and being sure they have the maturity to know what

they don’t know and be comfortable with

asking questions.”

Knowledge, experience, and creativity

are all things that students develop over their tenure at Georgia Tech, but in the

BME Workshop it is something that is

shared and crafted into tangible innovation.

At the end of the day, students do not

leave the BME Workshop with a grade, instead they leave with inventions that have

the potential to improve lives and redesign

medicine.

By Alex Cooper

The BME workshop,

located in the basement of

Whitaker, houses

machinery for the students’

project needs.

(Photo: Virginia Lin)

Alex Cooper is an undergraduate student

in the Coulter Department.

Page 12

Designing for Good Georgia Tech Case Competition 2011 By Cathy Heo

T he warm light of the Klaus Advanced Computing atrium

welcomed attendees on Sunday evening, October 1st as it filled with excited students, professionals and coordinators for the

closing ceremony of the “Designing for Good” competition. The

past week, students from all over Georgia gathered at Georgia

Tech to come up with unique and innovative ideas to improve

United Nations (UN) refugee camps. On this final day, all were eager for the announcement of the winners whose designs will

ultimately improve millions of refugees’ lives.

This Georgia Tech Case Competition was established and

hosted through the partnership of Siemens, Engineers Without

Borders – Atlanta, Engineers Without Borders – Georgia Tech, Peacebuilding Solutions, and Georgia Tech Research Institute. The

competition involved 24 teams of two to five students from

multidisciplinary backgrounds. Together, they worked to innovate

a solution to current UN refugee camp problems over the course

of one week. Problems were divided into three categories: water,

shelter and sanitation. The top three winners for best design in each category were awarded a total of $15,000 in prize money and

will be given the opportunity to work with each other to simulate

a combination of their designs. Eventually, these simulations will be

presented to the UN for potential implementation.

Hundreds of refugee camps around the globe provide protection, shelter, and sustenance to individuals who have been

forced to flee in wake of civil unrest, political persecution or

natural disasters. These camps, however, are often rapidly

constructed. “The reason why we started a competition [was]

because we were looking for improved design[s] for refugee camps. Most of the refugee camps last maybe about 6 months, and

[the] problem with that is that the average amount of time the

refugees need to stay in these camps is about a year,” said Andrew

Parks, Vice President of Engineers Without Borders in Atlanta

(EWB-ATL). The design groups all focused on developing revisions for an aspect of these camps.

For the competition, students were responsible for addressing

the issue of providing transportable, reusable, robust and

modularized refugee camps that can be constructed during a crisis

and disassembled, relocated and reconstructed if required. “Viable Design” won first place for their solution in the shelter

category. Inspired by the SuperAdobe method, developed by the

Aga Khan Award winner, Nader Khalili, the shelters utilize a basic

sandbag design and fuse them with various other innovative

technologies that allow for both modular designs and creative

expression. The framework of the house is made up of polypropylene bags, barbed wire and a steel wire mesh to ensure

solidity. The roofing is a salt box design and it is made up of

corrugated zinc aluminum-coated galvanized steel for heat

reflection, sturdiness and natural ventilation. The flooring utilizes

more polypropylene sand bags laid out on polyethene sheets that keep the interior moisture-free. The interior space can be

customized by each family to suit their needs; the placement of

extra poles, polyethene sheets, and wire mesh creates walls within

the shelter. Provisions for heating and cooling relative to the

ambient temperature are provided within the house. The high windows and the corrugated roof act as passive cooling agents.

Conversely, a rocket stove acts as a heating source for the

interiors of the shelter, and a solar cooker reduces dependency

upon precious firewood. A simple gooseneck-shaped metal

chimney extends down from the roof to the rocket stove, thus providing the shelter with an efficient exhaust system. All the

doors, windows and exhaust openings are covered with fiber-glass

screens to keep the insides hygienic and bug-free. Finally, a “liter of

light” setup is implemented on the roof to provide cost-effective

interior lighting solutions. The total cost for the design came out to be about $850 for each unit.

On winning first place in the shelter category, Catherine

Wong, 3rd year undergraduate in the Georgia Tech College of

Architecture and the Georgia Tech School of Civil Engineering, and

Continued on Page 5

Left: Winning design for the shelter component. (Photo: Engineers Without Borders Atlanta)

Right: Viable Design won 1st place and a prize of $4000 for their shelter design. (Photo: Peace Building Solutions)