Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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InVenture

The next generation of biomedical engineering innovators

Congratulations to the winners of the InVenture innovation competition at Georgia Tech. The competition aired Wednesday night on Georgia Public Broadcasting. The winners get cash prizes, a free patent filing and commercialization service through Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Transfer.

Several of the teams have Emory connections, through the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory, and the Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute.

Emergency medical professionals know that intubation can be rough. The second place ($10,000) MAID team created a “magnetic assisted intubation device” that helps them place a breathing tube into the trachea in a smoother way. The MAID was designed by Alex Cooper, Shawna Hagen, William Thompson and Elizabeth Flanagan, all biomedical engineering majors. Their clinical advisor was Brian Morse, MD, previously a trauma fellow and now an Emory School of Medicine surgical critical care resident at Grady Memorial Hospital.

“When I first saw the device that the students had developed, I was blown away,” Morse told the Technique newspaper. “It’s probably going to change the way we look at intubation in the next five to 10 years.”

The AutoRhexis team, which won the People’s Choice award ($5,000), invented a device to perform the most difficult step during cataract removal surgery. It was designed by a team of biomedical and mechanical engineering majors: Chris Giardina, Rebeca Bowden, Jorge Baro, Kanitha Kim, Khaled Kashlan and Shane Saunders. They were advised by Tim Johnson, MD, who was an Emory medical student and is now a resident at Columbus Regional Medical Center.

The finalist Proximer team, advised by Emory surgeon Albert Losken, MD, developed a way to detect plastics in the body, which can help breast cancer survivors undergoing reconstruction.

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Quinn Eastman in Uncategorized Leave a comment