Edward Botchwey received a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1993 and both M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in materials science engineering and bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1998 and 2002 respectively. He was recruited to the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2012 from his previous position at the University of Virginia. His current position is associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. Botchwey is former Ph.D. fellow of the National GEM Consortium, a former postdoctoral fellow of the UNCF-Merk Science Initiative, and a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers from the National Institutes of Health. 

Botchwey’s research focuses on the delivery of naturally occurring small molecules and synthetic derivatives for applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. He is particularly interested in how transient control of immune response using bioactive lipids can be exploited to control trafficking of stem cells, enhance tissue vascularization, and resolve inflammation. Botchwey serves on the Board of Directors of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and serves as the secretary to the Biomedical Engineering Decade committee.

Botchwey, his wife Nisha Botchwey (also a GT faculty member) and three children reside in east Atlanta in the Lake Claire neighborhood. Botchwey is also an avid cyclist and enjoys reading YA fantasy, behavioral neuroscience and Christian theology books in his personal time.

Dr. Borodovsky and his group develop machine learning algorithms for computational analysis of biological sequences: DNA, RNA and proteins. Our primary focus is on prediction of protein-coding genes and regulatory sites in genomic DNA. Probabilistic models play an important role in the algorithm framework, given the probabilistic nature of biological sequence evolution.

Shuming Nie is the Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Chair Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, with joint appointments in chemistry, materials science and engineering, and hematology and oncology. He is the Principal Investigator and Director of the Emory-Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology, one of the eight national centers funded by the National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI). His research interest is broadly in biomolecular engineering and nanotechnology, with a focus on bioconjugated nanoparticles for cancer molecular imaging, molecular profiling, pharmacogenomics, and targeted therapy. His research program is currently supported by three large-scale grants from the National Institutes of Health. During the last 10 years, Professor Nie has published nearly 100 scholarly papers, filed 20 patents/inventions, and has delivered more than 350 invited talks and keynote lectures. In recognition of his work, Professor Nie has received many awards and honors including the Merck Award (2007), Elected Fellow of the American Institute of Biological and Medical Engineering (2006), the Cheung Kong Professorship (The Ministry of Education of China, 2006), the Rank Prize in Opto-electronics (London, UK, 2005), the Georgia Distinguished Cancer Scholar Award (Georgia Cancer Coalition, 2002-2007), the Beckman Young Investigator Award, the National Collegiate Inventors Award, and the NSFC Overseas Young Scholar Award. Dr. Nie serves on the scientific advisory/editorial boards of 5 biotech companies and 6 scientific journals. Professor Nie received his BS degree from Nankai University (China) in 1983, earned his MS and PhD degrees from Northwestern University under the direction of Professor Richard P. Van Duyne (1984-1990), and did postdoctoral research at both Georgia Institute of Technology and Stanford University (1990-1994).

Svjetlana Miocinovic is a board-certified neurologist specializing in Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, tremor and other movement disorders. She graduated from medical school in 2009 at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio) where she also obtained a PhD in biomedical engineering. She completed neurology residency and clinical movement disorders fellowship at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas, Texas). Her post-doctoral training and clinical research fellowship were at the University of California San Francisco Movement Disorder and Neuromodulation Center. In 2016, she joined the Department of Neurology at Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia). Her clinical focus is on using deep brain stimulations (DBS) to treat movement disorders. She also directs an NIH-funded human electrophysiology laboratory and is an investigator with Emory's Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence. The research focus of her laboratory is on electrophysiology of human motor and non-motor circuits, and development of new device-based therapies. 

Many people are familiar with “genetics,” the inheritance of visible traits like eye and hair color. Traits are encoded by a molecular alphabet (A,T,C,G) in the well known double helix structure, DNA. Less well known, but quickly gaining attention, is the network of protein particles that interact with DNA to control the folding of chromosomes and the expression of inherited traits. This process is epi-genetics (epi, EH-pee = upon or above). Our research group uses gene and protein engineering to create new epigenetic machinery that regulates DNA at will. One day synthetic epigenetics may allow us to rationally design new biological systems with predictable, reliable behavior and replace “magic bullet medicine” with “smart medicine.”

We assemble interchangeable protein modules to build synthetic transcription factors that regulate gene activity in human cells. Unlike typical synthetic transcription factors that recognize specific DNA sequences, our Polycomb-based transcription factors (“PcTFs”) are engineered to read chromatin modifications. Thus, a single engineered TF could activate a group of silenced, therapeutic genes in cancer cells. Using strong gene activators could enhance cancer treatment and advance epigenetic medicine.

As synthetic biologists, our goal is to make the folded DNA-protein material, or chromatin (KRO-mah-tin = dark colored material in the nucleus of a fixed and stained cell), easier to design and engineer. Groups of genes often reside in the same compartments, and share the same DNA-protein packaging structures. Therefore, a small artificial change in one packaging protein can reprogram the expression of dozens, and even hundreds of genes. Is this outcome messy and useless, or is it a powerful mode of signal amplification that changes cells in useful ways? To answer this question, our group couples synthetic biology with bioinformatics by interrogating the expression of thousands of genes after we introduce artificial chromatin proteins into cells.

Dr. Rafael Davalos' research interests are in microfluidics for personalized medicine and developing technologies for cancer therapy. He is most recognized for co-inventing Irreversible Electroporation (IRE), a minimally invasive non-thermal surgical technique to treat unresectable tumors near critical structures such as major blood vessels and nerves. The technology has been used to help thousands of patients worldwide with a second-generation version in clinical trials. Davalos has authored 150 peer-reviewed articles and has 47 issued patents (72 h-index, >18,000 citations) and has secured over $37M in research funding with $10M his share. His patents have been licensed to 7 companies. He has been a plenary speaker for several prestigious venues including the International Symposium of the Bioelectrochemistry Society, the World Congress on Electroporation, and the Society of Cryobiology Annual Meeting. 

The Panitch lab research has focused on the extracellular matrix (ECM) and how matrix signals affect tissue regeneration, including nerve regeneration, wound healing and angiogenesis, cartilage and vascular. More recently, the lab has focused on the proteoglycan component of the ECM. Proteoglycans are critical components of tissue function. They influence matrix organization, the viscoelastic properties of the matrix, access of enzymes to the matrix and serve as a protective barrier as in the case of the glycocalyx. Proteoglycans are difficult to synthesize because of the complex post translational modifications and the complexity of carbohydrate chemistry. The Panitch laboratory has demonstrated that proteoglycan function can largely be recapitulated by conjugating short, bioactive peptide sequences to GAGs. The peptide sequences direct the GAG to its target and ensure that it is held in place, similarly to how native proteoglycans function. The lab has used proteoglycan mimetic strategies to develop therapeutics to treat osteoarthritis, improve wound healing, and treat diseased blood vessels.