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May 28, 2020 By cs

Georgia Tech researchers receive NIH funds for adjuvant research to boost Coronavirus vaccines

Researchers have received funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to screen and evaluate certain molecules known as adjuvants that may improve the ability of coronavirus vaccines to stimulate the immune system and generate appropriate responses necessary to protect the general population against the virus.

“The adjuvants that we are studying, known as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), are molecules often found in viruses and bacteria, and can efficiently stimulate our immune system,” explained Krishnendu Roy, a professor and Robert A. Milton Chair in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “Most viruses have several of these molecules in them, and we are trying to mimic that multi-adjuvant structure.”

Adjuvants are used with some vaccines to help them create stronger protective immune responses in persons receiving the vaccine. The research team will screen a library of various adjuvant combinations to quickly identify those that may be most useful to enhance the effects of both protein- and RNA-based coronavirus vaccines under development.

“We are trying to understand how adjuvant combinations affect the vaccine response,” Roy said. “We will look at how the immune system shifts and changes with the adjuvant combinations. The ultimate goal is to determine how to generate the most effective, strongest, and most durable immune response against the virus. There are more than a hundred vaccine candidates being developed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, and it is likely that many will generate initial antibody responses. It remains to be seen how long those responses will last and whether they can generate appropriate immunological memory that protects against subsequent virus exposures in the long-term.”

The parent grant to Georgia Tech is part of a program called “Molecular Mechanisms of Combination Adjuvants (MMCA).” For the past four years, the agency has been supporting Roy and his research team to pursue studies to understand how adjuvants work, and this additional funding will allow them to apply their research to potential coronavirus vaccines.

“It has been difficult to develop safe and durable vaccines against respiratory viruses,” explained Roy, who also directs the Center for ImmunoEngineering. “Over the past several years, we have been looking mostly at the basic science and understanding how the immune system integrates signals from multiple adjuvants to create a unified immune response in mammals. This new funding will allow us to pursue more translational aspects related to COVID-19 and provide the scientific community with potentially new tools to fight this devastating pandemic.”

The team has developed a technique that uses micron- and nanometer-scale polymer particles to present both the vaccine antigen and adjuvant compounds to the mammalian immune system. The medical polymer that is the basis for the particles is used for other purposes in the body.

The synthetic particles, which Roy’s team calls pathogen-like particles (PLPs), are designed to mimic real pathogens in terms of how they elicit immune responses – without causing infection. “They have an antigen and multiple synergistic adjuvants on a particle-structure that is very similar to how native pathogens present these molecules to our immune system,” he said.

The PLPs combined with adjuvants encourage the immune system to develop antibodies and T cell responses that can battle the real pathogen if it attacks. Having existing antibodies and the appropriate virus-fighting T cells to the novel coronavirus will enable the body’s immune system to respond quickly to the threat of infection and potentially destroy the virus quickly.

The researchers will first evaluate how the adjuvants affect the interaction of specific immune cells, called dendritic cells and macrophages, with T cells – a key component of generating immune system response – and then follow up with animal studies using the promising combinations. Whether or not a vaccine can be created that will provide long-term protective immunity against the coronavirus is still an open question in the research community, and Roy said the research into adjuvants will help provide new tools to answer that question.

Krishnendu Roy, a professor and Robert A. Milton Chair in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and his research team has received NIH funding to screen and evaluate certain molecules known as adjuvants that may improve the ability of coronavirus vaccines to stimulate the immune system. (Photo: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech)

“Part of the knowledge gap right now is that we don’t know how the immune system is influenced by various adjuvants,” he said. “We need to look at how the vaccine formulations, our particles and the adjuvants affect T cell proliferation and T cell response, and how we can optimize that response to generate durable immunity.”

The adjuvant Alum has been used since the 1930s to boost the action of the immune system as it responds to antigens in vaccines that elicit protection against many pathogens. However, for those pathogens that require alternative adjuvants, only a few other adjuvants are currently used in commercial vaccines. Research on modern adjuvants aims to understand the way they specifically activate our immune systems and can be designed to protect against infections. Another approach is to find out if combinations of adjuvants are safe and more effective than a single adjuvant providing highly effective and long-lasting protective immunity.

Roy and his team will be evaluating existing adjuvants in combination, along with potential protein and RNA-based antigens currently under evaluation. The goal is to develop novel combinations of current adjuvants, including adjuvants approved for use and others that are still in development. “In this work, the strategy is to take existing platforms and see how we can pivot them to understand how to make the COVID vaccines better, and do it rapidly.”

As with other research into potential coronavirus vaccines, the work is being accelerated with the goal of creating a safe and effective vaccine against the pandemic virus as soon as possible.

“There are multiple efforts that the NIH and others are funding to really accelerate the pace of the work to see how many different approaches we can come up with and to evaluate the differences,” Roy said. “The goal is to determine what data we can generate very quickly to move toward a successful vaccine that is safe, durable, affordable, scalable, and effective. Evaluating different approaches will help increase the likelihood that we’ll find one or more that meet these criteria.”

Source: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2020/05/20/researchers-receive-nih-funds-adjuvant-research-boost-coronavirus-vaccines

This research is supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under supplemental funding to award number U01AI124270. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

For more coverage of Georgia Tech’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, please visit our Responding to COVID-19 page.

May 14, 2020 By cs

Why restarting the global economy won’t be easy

As the world contemplates ending a massive lockdown implemented in response to COVID-19, Vinod Singhal is considering what will happen when we hit the play button and the engines that drive industry and trade squeal back to life again.

The U.S. gets close to a trillion dollars of products annually from Asian countries, and most are shipped by sea, which requires a four-to-six-week lead time. Here, containers are stacked at a Georgia Ports Authority facility in Savannah. (GPA Photo: Stephen B. Morton)

Singhal, who studies operations strategy and supply chain management at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has a few ideas on how to ease the transition to the new reality. But this pandemic makes it hard to predict what that reality will be.

“We know pandemics can disrupt supply chains, because we’ve had the SARS experience, but this is something very different,” said Singhal, the Charles W. Brady Chair Professor of Operations Management at the Scheller College of Business, recalling the SARS viral pandemic of 2002 to 2003. But that event did not have nearly the deadly, worldwide reach of COVID-19.

“There is really nothing to compare this pandemic to,” he said. “And predicting or estimating stock prices is simply impossible, unlike supply chain disruptions caused by a company’s own fault, or a natural disaster, like the earthquake in Japan.”

The earthquake that shook northeastern Japan in March 2011 unleashed a devastating and deadly tsunami that caused a meltdown at a nuclear power plant, and also rocked the world economy. It was called the most significant disruption ever of global supply chains. Singhal co-authored a study on the aftereffects, “Stock Market Reaction to Supply Chain Disruptions from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake,” published online in August 2019 in the journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.

But COVID-19 represents a new kind of mystery when it comes to something as complex and critical to the world’s economy as the global supply chain, for a number of reasons that Singhal highlighted:

The global spread of the virus and duration of the pandemic. “We have no idea when it will be under control and whether it will resurface,” Singhal said. “With a natural disaster you can kind of predict that if we put in some effort, within a few months we can get back to normal. But here there is a lot of uncertainty.”
Both the demand and supply side of the global supply chain are disrupted. “We’re not only seeing a lot of factories shutting down, which affects the supply side, but there are restrictions on demand, too, because you can’t just go out and shop like you used to, at least for the time being,” he said. “And all this is taking place in an environment where supply chains are fairly complex – intricate, interconnected, interdependent, and global.”
Longer lead times. “We get close to a trillion dollars of products annually from Asian countries, about $500 billion from China,” Singhal said. “Most are shipped by sea which requires a four-to-six-week lead time. The fact that logistics and distribution has been disrupted and needs to ramp up again will increase lead time. So, it will take time to fill up the pipeline, and that is going to be an issue.”
Supply chains have little slack, and little spare inventory. While manufacturing giants such as Apple, Boeing, and General Motors have more financial slack to carry them through a massive economic belt tightening, their suppliers, spread out across the globe, come in different sizes, different tiers, “and these smaller companies don’t have much financial slack,” said Singhal, pointing to a report of small and medium sized companies in China, “which have less than three months of cash. They’ve already been shut down for two months, and cash tends to go away quickly.

“Many of these companies may go bankrupt,” he added. “So we need to figure out how to reduce the number of bankruptcies. Government is going to play an important role in this, and the stimulus package the U.S. has approved will be helpful.”

Trying to get a handle on how stock markets are responding to all that has happened is like trying to take aim at a moving target during a stiff wind. Volatility has increased significantly since February 13, when the Dow Jones index reached an all-time high of about 29,500.

“That’s because we did not expect the pandemic to spread and disruptions initially were low because of pipeline inventory,” Singhal said, noting that since then the Index dropped sharply, to 18,500 on March 23 (a decline of nearly 38 percent), it picked up and was back to 22,000 by March 30. “The same is true of other stock markets. The Chinese stock market was down 13 percent, but they seem to have the pandemic under control.”

While COVID-19 is making it difficult to predict what the market will look like, Singhal has some ideas of which industries will be most affected.

“Travel, tourism, entertainment, restaurants – businesses that rely on people going out—will take a long time to recover, in terms of profitability and stock price, even once the pandemic is contained,” he said. “People are going to be hesitant to travel after all this. Tourism will take a hit.”

Essentials like groceries are surging as people stock up in reaction to being shut in, but this isn’t a long-term trend. Singhal doesn’t expect this trend to continue as shopping habits and store shelves eventually normalize.

Companies that sell basics, with a strong online presence, will do well, “but industries like automobiles and electronics, which have global supply chains and have a hard time replacing specialized, high-tech components will be affected,” said Singhal, who also has suggestions on the most important issues to address and how to help speed up the recovery and bring supply chains back to normal (or whatever normal looks like after this):

The ability to bring capacity online, especially for small and medium-sized companies. “Facilities and equipment may need some time to restart,” he said. “Staffing is a big issue. How quickly can you get people back to work? Also, can you get the raw materials and build up the inventory to support production? That may be tough when pent up demand is being released and everybody is competing for limited supplies.”
Distribution. Lead times already are long, he notes, and a sudden increase in demand for logistics and distribution services as everybody ramps up again could extend lead times.
Prevent bankruptcies. Government programs need to be established (like the U.S. stimulus package) to keep small- and medium-sized firms in business. This concern extends to second- and third-tier suppliers, and large firms like Apple or Boeing or GM, should do the same for their most critical suppliers.
Build slack. “Preserve cash, get new lines of credit or draw down lines of credit, maybe cut dividends or stock repurchases,” Singhal said. “And build inventories of critical components.”

Singhal also stresses the need for transparency, up and down the supply chain: “What that means is, companies need to have a good understanding of what is happening to their customers and suppliers, but not just their immediate, first tier customers and suppliers, but also their customers and suppliers, and so on up and down the line.”

It will be very important going forward for the next several months to monitor the health of the supply chain from both the customer perspective and a supplier perspective, because this is a new world, says Singhal, who adds an optimistic postscript, “It’s a crisis situation now, but I think we can put it back together.”

Source: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2020/05/10/why-restarting-global-economy-wont-be-easy

For more coverage of Georgia Tech’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, please visit our Responding to COVID-19 page.

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech has established a webpage where all contract-related developments related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are summarized. Find the page at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/coronavirus-information-for-contracting-officers-and-contractors/

May 11, 2020 By cs

Georgia Tech among Atlanta institutions taking lead role in fast-tracking COVID-19 diagnostic tests

A trio of Atlanta health care and research institutions will play a leading role in helping to evaluate potential COVID-19 tests as part of a new federal initiative designed to rapidly transform promising technology into widely accessible diagnostic tools to detect the virus.

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the Emory University School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics and the Georgia Institute of Technology are teaming up through the Atlanta Center for Microsystems Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies (ACME POCT) .

The Atlanta center was selected by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to evaluate COVID-19 detection tests utilizing a portion of a $1.5 billion investment from federal stimulus funding under a newly launched Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative. This initiative will infuse funding into early, innovative technologies to speed development of rapid and widely accessible COVID-19 testing with a mandate that tests be deployed to Americans this fall.

“The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) is urging all scientists and inventors with a rapid testing technology to compete in a national COVID-19 testing challenge for a share of up to $500 million over all phases of development that will assist the public’s safe return to normal activities,” said Wilbur Lam, M.D., Ph.D., pediatric hematologist and oncologist at Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s and principal investigator of ACME POCT.

As one of only five NIH-funded point-of-care technology centers in the nation within the Point-of-Care Technologies Research Network (POCTRN), ACME POCT will receive a $10 million to $20 million supplement to work closely with relevant technology developers and the medical diagnostics industry across the country to meet the deadline. The technologies will be put through a highly competitive, rapid three-phase selection process to identify the best candidates for at-home or point-of-care tests for COVID-19. The goal is to make millions of accurate and easy-to-use tests per week available to all Americans by the end of summer 2020 and in time for the flu season.

The Center will operate on the frontlines assessing, validating and conducting clinical trials as well as advising in manufacturing and scale-up of relevant COVID-19 tests. They expect hundreds of technology developers and companies to apply for the RADx program and will be involved in clinical validation and shepherding successful projects to meet this national need, making Children’s, Emory and Georgia Tech frontline warriors in this effort.

ACME POCT fosters the development and commercialization of microsystems (microchip-enabled, biosensor-based, microfluidic) diagnostic tests that can be used outside the traditional hospital setting, in places such as the home, community or doctor’s office. Lam and his team will evaluate the tests for the NIBIB as they urgently solicit proposals.

Lam is the principal investigator of ACME POCT and also serves as associate professor of the Emory University School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. Greg Martin, M.D., is co-principal investigator along with Oliver Brand, Ph.D., executive director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology and a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Together the team makes up the only point-of-care center in the nation dedicated to developing microsystems with sensors, smart phones and wearable technologies. Dr. Martin is also a professor with the Emory University School of Medicine and Chair of Critical Care for Grady Health System.

About Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta: As the only freestanding pediatric healthcare system in Georgia, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is the trusted leader in caring for kids. The not-for-profit organization’s mission is to make kids better today and healthier tomorrow through more than 60 pediatric specialties and programs, top healthcare professionals, and leading research and technology. Children’s is one of the largest pediatric clinical care providers in the country, managing more than one million patient visits annually at three hospitals, Marcus Autism Center, the Center for Advanced Pediatrics and 20 neighborhood locations. Consistently ranked among the top children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has impacted the lives of kids in Georgia, across the United States and around the world for more than 100 years thanks to generous support from the community. Visit www.choa.org for more information.

About Emory University School of Medicine: Emory University School of Medicine is a leading institution with the highest standards in education, biomedical research and patient care, with a commitment to recruiting and developing a diverse group of students and innovative leaders. Emory School of Medicine has more than 2,800 full- and part-time faculty, 556 medical students, 530 allied health students, 1,311 residents and fellows in 106 accredited programs, and 93 MD/PhD students in one of 48 NIH-sponsored Medical Scientist Training Programs. Medical school faculty received $456.3 million in external research funding in fiscal year 2018. The school is best known for its research and treatment in infectious disease, neurosciences, heart disease, cancer, transplantation, orthopaedics, pediatrics, renal disease, ophthalmology and geriatrics.

About the Georgia Institute of Technology: The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation’s leading research universities — a university that embraces change while continually Creating the Next. The next generation of leaders. The next breakthrough startup company. The next lifesaving medical treatment. Georgia Tech provides a focused, technologically based education to more than 36,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The Institute has many nationally recognized programs, all top-ranked by peers and publications alike, and is ranked among the nation’s top five public universities by U.S. News & World Report. It offers degrees through the Colleges of Computing, Design, Engineering, Sciences, the Scheller College of Business, and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech has more than 100 centers focused on interdisciplinary research that consistently contribute vital research and innovation to American government, industry, and business.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

Source: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2020/04/30/atlanta-institutions-take-lead-role-fast-tracking-covid-19-diagnostic-tests

April 30, 2020 By cs

Open-AirVentGT emergency ventilator provides patient monitoring, feedback control

A research team at the Georgia Institute of Technology has created a prototype for a low-cost, portable emergency ventilator that uses electronic sensors and computer control to manage key clinical parameters such as respiration rate, tidal volume (the amount of air moved into and out of the lungs during each cycle), inspiration and expiration ratio, and pressure on the lungs.

The Open-AirVentGT was designed to address acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a common complication for COVID-19 patients which causes their lungs to stiffen, requiring their breathing to be assisted by ventilators. Unlike many other emergency ventilators, the new Georgia Tech device endeavors to make breathing more natural by allowing patients to trigger their own breaths instead of relying on a respiration rate pre-set in the device.

The ventilator works by pneumatically compressing a BVM (Bag Valve Mask) assembly of the kind used in hospitals and carried in ambulances as resuscitation devices. The ventilator is envisioned for use outside the United States in countries that do not have significant medical infrastructure in place, and is designed to be produced for around $300.

Focus on Safety and Functionality

“Our primary goal is to give the clinicians control over key parameters to ensure patient safety and improve ventilator functionality,” said Devesh Ranjan, a professor and associate chair in Georgia Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. “Once the system is initialized, a small on-board computer operates to maintain the setpoints governing respiration in an unattended way. The sensors and computer provide more control and real-time monitoring for doctors and other medical staff.”

A projected shortage of ventilators prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to development of makeshift ventilators, many of them based on differing mechanical strategies to compress BVM devices. Ranjan and his research team evaluated what others had done and sought input on clinician needs from critical care specialists at two Atlanta hospitals during the design of the Open-AirVentGT.

“Based on what they told us, we realized we needed more control over the system to help those who were treating the patients,” he said. “The clinicians needed to be able to see what is happening with patient’s respiration, and the ventilator needed to be able to respond to changing conditions.”

The team used two sensors and a Raspberry Pi computer to control the operation of a pneumatic piston that compresses the resuscitator bag. Using a standard computer monitor, the device’s computer provides information about the breathing rate, volume of air provided and pressure applied to the patients’ lungs. The system is designed to allow for warnings if conditions fall outside the range set.

Components Readily Available

The Open-AirVentGT was designed to be fabricated from components available worldwide. The pneumatic piston, which could be replaced by a different mechanical actuator, can be driven from a hospital compressed air supply, a portable compressor, or even a bottle of compressed air. The Raspberry Pi computer can be replaced with other computing sources, and the device is designed to adapt to different bag sizes.

“We wanted to have easily sourced materials and use components that can be substituted where necessary,” said Gokul Pathikonda, a postdoctoral fellow in Ranjan’s lab who led the engineering development of the device. “Supply chains are different in different parts of the world, so we wanted the design to be modular and with easily interchangeable parts.”

Ranjan and his team have consulted the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI) regarding steps necessary to seek FDA Emergency Use Authorization for the ventilator design. The team has already been approached by Georgia Tech alumni in Ghana and India to set up manufacturing lines in their countries. The team is reviewing how best to release the design for others to mass produce these devices to meet the global needs.

“The impact of this could be significant if other parts of the world are hit by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ranjan said. “Having equipment that can be made quickly where it is needed and with the kind of control system doctors need could really help address the worldwide impact of this virus.”

The Research Team

In addition to Ranjan and Pathikonda, the multidisciplinary research team includes Stephen Johnston, Dan Fries, Cameron Ahmad, Benjamin Musci, Chang Hyeon Lim and Prasoon Suchandra, graduate students in the School of Mechanical Engineering; Kyle Azevedo, a research engineer with the Georgia Tech Research Institute; Prithayan Barua, a graduate student in the College of Computing working with Prof. Vivek Sarkar; Chris Ballance, a research engineer in the School of Aerospace Engineering; and Richard Bedell, Manager of Equipment Engineering and Support Services in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. They are also being assisted by Kyle French and Biye Wang at the Electronics Shop in the School of Mechanical Engineering.

“I cannot thank our team enough for transforming an idea into reality in just 3 weeks,” Ranjan said. “This project has been made possible by the dedication and long hours of hard work shown by students and staff at Georgia Tech while still maintaining social distancing,”

April 14, 2020 By cs

Expert tips for succeeding as a remote learner

Remote and distance learning have been a part of higher education for decades. What began as courses delivered on videotape and satellite feed has evolved into expertly produced online degree programs that offer both superior learning outcomes and flexibility.

**Listen to tips for a successful transition into the remote learning environment in the video clip above.**

That combination, alongside an industry-relevant credential, is often well-suited for professionals balancing their education with work and family.

With COVID-19 forcing massive disruption in the workplace as millions of professionals transition to remote work, amidst the added pressures of homeschooling and childcare, adaptability is more essential than ever.

The recent pandemic has also uprooted residential education programs across the country, and university campuses are now looking to remote delivery as the essential path forward for the remainder of the spring semester.

The ability to make a transition of this scale at such a rapid pace is a testament to the advances and success in innovative educational delivery. However, the breakneck speed and unprecedented nature of the circumstances has forced a reset of expectations around online delivery, as well as an opportunity to discover creative solutions.

“None of us has experienced anything like this before,” says Yakut Gazi, associate dean of learning systems for Georgia Tech Professional Education. “We’re trying to transition what we’ve learned into the realities of today.”

As experts in the field of learning design, Gazi and her team of instructional designers have discovered a lot about how learning works best in an online environment. The current reality dictates an assessment of your approach for any learner – whether new or experienced in this setting. Here are their top five suggestions to consider:

Make a plan for studying.
Whether it is digital or paper-based, create a written plan that delineates how you plan to accomplish your weekly work and upcoming assessments or assignments over the course or semester.
Identify a time and place to work.
Once you have your plan in place, identify where you can establish the concentrated time you need for your learning and create a calendar. This can be especially challenging in the current environment, but work as much as you can protect the time and space you need.
Recognize that you need support for your learning.
Proactively look for creative resources that can help complement your usual support system, like study or homework groups. Even when done digitally, make a commitment to stay connected and use them often and wisely.
Become comfortable seeking help.
Everyone will encounter difficulties or have questions, yourself included. You will be well served by reaching out to educators, fellow students, and support staff for assistance or clarification. Seek out additional services as needed if you run into larger problems.
Be kind to yourself.
It is essential to make mental health a priority and take care of yourself as much as possible. Remember that your peers are experiencing the same challenges, and look for opportunities to provide reassurance and grace to others and yourself.

Set Yourself Up for Success

While the present circumstances can often feel overwhelming, don’t be discouraged. It takes a tremendous amount of dedication and hard work to pursue online education, and even more during these difficult and unsettling circumstances.

“These are challenging times and it’s OK to be confused,” reminds Gazi. “You’re in charge of your learning and you have what it takes to persevere.”

Source: https://pe.gatech.edu/blog/working-learning/remote-learning-tips