Joel Kostka will soon receive $3.2 million from the Department of Energy (DOE) to build upon research that has ranged from northern Minnesota peat bogs to coastal Georgia wetlands, all to learn how climate change impacts soils and plants that trap greenhouse gasses — and whether some of those plants could end up as eco-friendly biofuels.

Kostka, a professor and associate chair of research in the School of Biological Sciences with a joint appointment in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, will receive funding as part of a wider $178 million dollar DOE effort to advance sustainable technology breakthroughs that can improve public health, help address climate change, improve food and agricultural production, and create more resilient supply chains. The 37 new projects also include efforts to engineer plants and microbes into bioenergy and improve carbon storage. 

Kostka’s wetlands research will continue in the salt marshes off Georgia’s coast, where his team has already conducted studies on the microbial life that benefits Spartina cordgrass in those areas, helping to strengthen resilience of the plant to sea level rise and catastrophic storms.

The DOE’s funding initiative is split into four groups. Kostka’s studies will focus on the role of microbiomes — all the microorganisms living in a particular environment — in the biogeochemical cycling of carbon in terrestrial soils and wetlands by using genomics-based and systems biology. 

Other research areas involve renewable bioenergy and biomaterials production; quantum-enabled bioimaging and sensing for bioenergy, and research to characterize gene function in bioenergy crop plants.

“Our project seeks to understand the controls of soil organic matter degradation and the release of greenhouse gasses, both of which are largely mediated by microbes” Kostka said. “And then also, as we've been studying for many years now, how climate drivers — principally the warming of ecosystems and carbon dioxide enrichment in the atmosphere — limit greenhouse gas release to the atmosphere. How might changes in plant and microbial communities lead to climate feedbacks, thereby accelerating the release of greenhouse gasses from soil carbon stores?”

That question has driven much of Kostka’s research team in the past as they focused on how soil microbes break down biomasses like woody plants and peat mosses, at an Oak Ridge National Laboratory facility in northern Minnesota called Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments (SPRUCE). Kostka’s team is using genomics to study all the genes that code for microbial enzymes that decompose biomass in soil and how plants, which are also changing with climate, impact microbiomes by providing carbon sources that fuel microbial activities. In particular, the work is focused on lignocellulose or lignin, which gives plants their rigidity or structure and arguably comprises the most abundant renewable carbon source on the planet.

“We're just at the point now where we finally have the tools to unlock the black box of soil microbiology and chemistry,” Kostka said. “Recent advances in sophisticated analytical chemistry methods used to quantify microbial metabolites along with improved metagenome sequencing approaches enable us to better uncover metabolic pathways.”

Kostka will serve as principal investigator of the research team for the grant. That team includes School of Biological Sciences researchers Caitlin Petro, research scientist, and Katherine Duchesneau, a third-year Ph.D. student; co-principal investigator Kostas Konstantinidis, Richard C. Tucker Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Rachel Wilson, research scientist, Florida State University; Malak Tfaily, associate professor, University of Arizona; and Chris Schadt, senior staff scientist, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 

Unlocking the “enzyme latch” hypothesis

As part of his new research, Kostka will revisit what scientists call the “enzyme latch” hypothesis. This could help uncover the mechanisms by which soils and plants capture harmful greenhouse gasses, and what prompts their release into the atmosphere.

The idea behind this hypothesis is that when soils are wet, they lack oxygen, which suppresses a specific class of enzymes, oxidases, that catalyze the beginning steps in the microbial breakdown of organic compounds produced by plants in soil. When oxidases are suppressed, the breakdown products of lignin, phenolic compounds, accumulate and poison the rest of the microbial carbon cycle.  Thus a single class of enzymes may be responsible for keeping greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide and methane captured within the soil.

“The climate linkage here is that it's thought that as the climate warms, we'll get more greenhouse gas production, because simply it'll be warmer, and microbial enzymes work faster at higher temperature. But then also, in wetlands in particular, the hypothesis is that as wetlands warm, they're going to dry out. And so when a wetland dries out, you're going to get more injection of oxygen-rich air into the soil, which would then accelerate the breakdown of organic matter.”

When that happens, it could also mean different plants having an impact on carbon storage and the breakdown of biomass. “As wetlands dry out, plant communities in northern peatlands where most of Earth’s soil carbon is stored, are expected to shift from a dominance of mosses, which do better when it's wet — to woody plants, shrubs, and trees that do better with less water, when it's drier. That would in turn potentially spark the release of more reactive carbon compounds from plant roots — mosses don’t have roots — which would likely accelerate organic matter decomposition and the production of more greenhouse gas in a feedback loop with climate.”

Kostka’s research may also help to develop new approaches for converting woody biomass into potential alternative energy sources. “To make our society more sustainable, we have to basically recycle everything, or reuse as much as we can. And that includes the biomass from plants that can be grown on more arid lands that are less suitable for food crops,” he said, referring to plant-based materials that can be used to produce biofuels and bioenergy. “And so the DOE is leading research efforts to understand the controls of biomass degradation in plants such as switchgrass and poplar.” 

Kostka and Konstantinidis will develop a database of genes that code for the breakdown of lignocellulose and lignin, compounds that largely make up plant biomass and for which metabolic pathways of degradation have been elusive. Kostka and his colleagues will also have access to the extensive resources of the DOE Genomic Sciences program, including a collaboration with the agency’s Joint Genome Institute.

“We hope that information generated from our project can be used to improve methods for breaking down woody biomass so that it can be used in a sustainable way to produce biofuels,” Kostka said. 

Public abstract of Department of Energy grant DE-SC0023297

About Georgia Tech

The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a top 10 public research university developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its nearly 44,000 students representing 50 states and 149 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.

Note: This story, written by Cory Hopkins, first appeared on the website of the Office Of Undergraduate Education, and has been tailored for our audiences.

Ten Georgia Tech students, including four from the College of Sciences, were selected for the 2022 Millennium Fellowship, a joint leadership program of the Millennium Campus Network (MCN) and the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI).

The fellowship is an ambitious program to help make the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and UNAI principles a reality. The Class of 2022 Millennium Fellows have been selected among a record-breaking 31,397 applicants from over 2,417 campuses across 140 nations.

Millennium Fellows are university undergraduates selected based on their leadership on sustainable development-related projects that advance the SDGs in their communities. As Millennium Fellows, they will participate in a semester-long leadership development program to improve their student organizing, partnership building, and community impact skills.

"Students' ongoing pursuit of the Millennium Fellowships reflects Georgia Tech's larger commitment to pursuing solutions on a global scale. The fellowship supports real-world initiatives in sustainable development, providing leadership training and a community of like-minded recipients," said Shannon Dobranski, director of Pre-Graduate and Pre-Professional Advising in the Georgia Tech Career Center. "Each year, the Millennium Fellowship helps Georgia Tech students invested in sustainability to identify and connect with each other. It also helps them to refine and articulate their own goals related to sustainability and the impact they hope to have on their community now and in the future."

Three School of Biological Sciences students are included in the latest cohort of Millennium Fellows: Shania Khatri, Michelle Seeler, and Mandy Zhu. Biochemistry major Nathan Bowman, also invited to the Fellows program, plans to pursue his project at a later date.

The College of Sciences students join six more Georgia Tech Millennium Fellows:

• Pratul Amenini, Biomedical Engineering
• Eyas Ayesh, Mechanical Engineering
• Haaris Jilani, Biomedical Engineering
• Velin Kojouharov, Mechanical Engineering
• Athena Verghis, Environmental Engineering
• Alix Wagner, Biomedical Engineering

The Millennium Fellowship Class of 2022 includes over 3,000 Millennium Fellows on 200 campuses in 37 nations that are participating in the program this year. The Class of 2022 is on track to engage in projects collectively advancing all 17 Sustainable Development Goals and all 10 UNAI Principles.

Georgia Tech's fellowship recipients will take part in a semester-long development program divided into three parts:

1. CONVENE

• Georgia Tech Millennium Fellows will convene on-campus to learn from and challenge each other. Millennium Fellows convene at least 8 times during the program.

2. CHALLENGE

• Students will develop a plan of action for their sessions together, meet to exchange best practices, and think bigger.

3. CELEBRATE

• When the cohort meets their goals and completes the Fellowship graduation requirements, they will earn a certificate of recognition from United Nations Academic Impact and Millennium Campus Network.

Learn more about the Millennium Fellowship here.

How to Apply for This Fellowship and More

Promoting and supporting the Millennium Fellowship is a team effort each year. Pre-Graduate and Pre-Professional Advising works with fellowship administrators to host information sessions and Serve-Learn-Sustain reaches out to the SLS community to spread the word. Students interested in the Millennium Fellowship, or any nationally or internationally competitive award, should follow up by scheduling an appointment with Prestigious Fellowships Advisor, Karen Mura, on AdvisorLink.

Pre-Graduate and Pre-Professional Advising is part of the Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE). Learn more about OUE by following @gtoue on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

As a Georgia Tech graduate, Andrew Kokabi, D.M.D. knows the Institute’s motto, Progress and Service, well — and also incorporates that ethos in life and work at his Atlanta dental practice, Brookhaven Family Dentistry.

Kokabi, who graduated with a B.S. in Biology in 2000, credits his time on campus and in the College of Sciences for preparing him to advance in his dentistry career. “The habits I developed during my undergraduate studies enabled me to thrive in dental school,” he said. “I specifically remember thinking biochemistry in dental school was a breeze compared to biochem classes at Tech.” Georgia Tech’s pre-health classes can better prepare medical students for advanced studies at a specialized medical school, he added.

Kokabi and his business partner, Joon Koh, D.M.D., a fellow Georgia Tech graduate with a B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, also enjoy working together on campaigns to help local schools and charities.

The College of Sciences recently talked with Kokabi about his time at Georgia Tech, the ethos of the Institute, generosity and business values, and advice for pre-health students and those interested in a career in health and medical fields.

What was your experience at Tech like? How did it prepare you for your career as a dentist?

My academic experience was top-notch. It was hard and demanding, but looking back at it, that is exactly what my 18-year-old self needed at the time. It was a great introduction into what the real world expects of professionals. Socially, it was wonderful as well. I met people from all around the country. I became friends with people of various backgrounds, and everyone got along. It was right after the Olympics so it was an exciting time.

My time at Georgia Tech also gave me great time management skills. The academic workload of dental school was a breeze compared to Georgia Tech. Meeting people from around the world enabled me to carry on a conversation with just about anyone — this is an important trait that still serves me well today. I meet lots of patients at my dental practice from all over, and I can usually carry on a conversation about their place of origin relatively easily. This helps them feel more comfortable with me, and strengthens the doctor-patient relationship. 

What made you want to be a dentist?  

My parents are from Iran. As I'm sure most Persian and Asian children will tell you, from birth your parents are pressuring you to be a doctor. I did not want to be around sick people all day and did not want to be on call weekends. So dentistry offers the perfect balance of being a doctor, but having a more normal schedule and not having to treat serious life-threatening illnesses. I am very happy with my decision and cannot think of myself doing anything else. 

Georgia Tech's motto, “Progress and Service” — what did that mean to you as a student, and what does it mean as an alumnus?

It meant and still means a great deal. I think people have to start at a young age thinking about how they can serve others. That is where true fulfillment comes from.  One reason we have so much depression in our country is our self-absorbed "me, me, me" culture. There is a lot of happiness and joy that comes from helping and serving others. 

It's also great for business as well. People want to buy from companies that are doing more than just selling goods and services. They want companies that care about making a difference in the world. Of course, we do quality dentistry, and care about our patients' oral health. But we take it a step further and have a community mission. We strive to be active members of our community and help our local schools and charities.  Our Brookhaven community has given us so much, the least we can do is give back.

Tell me about the "Brighten Your Smile, Better the World" campaign and how effective it has been so far.  

The "Brighten Your Smile, Better the World'' campaign is one of our two main initiatives.  Each month we partner with a different school or charity.  Any patient of ours that makes a donation to that month's chosen partner gets a set of custom teeth whitening trays for free. It's a win-win for all parties involved. 

In its first year, we have been able to raise more than $15,000 for numerous schools and organizations. Featured partners have included Ashford Park Elementary School, Huntley Hills Elementary School,  Montgomery Elementary School, Chamblee Middle School, the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, Giving Grace, and The Kyle Pease Foundation. 

You said you talk to many pre-dental students. What advice do you give them about whether or not they should get a degree at Georgia Tech before heading off to dental school?

A science degree from Georgia Tech is extremely valuable. It sets you apart from other candidates applying for the same spot in a specialty program. The healthcare school knows that if someone was able to get a Tech degree, they will be able to handle the academic workload of dental or medical school. 

Also, know what you are getting into. Being a healthcare professional means a lifelong pursuit of learning. It is not just a job, but a career. It takes a lot of effort and time even after you have left work for the day (being on call, continuing education, representing your profession in the community, etc).

You should also know that it's worth it. There are not too many jobs that allow you to make as big of an impact in people's lives as being a healthcare professional. I feel truly blessed and honored that I am in my field of work. 

It used to be that people had to worry about not getting enough water during the course of their day. But this All Things Considered segment on National Public Radio busts some dehydration myths to include the risks of drinking too much water, which could throw your water-sodium balance out of whack. Mindy Millard-Stafford, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and director of the Exercise Physiology Laboratory at Georgia Tech, comments on the effects of mild dehydration on higher-level mental functions.

Link to story

It used to be that people had to worry about not getting enough water during the course of their day. But this All Things Considered segment on National Public Radio busts some dehydration myths to include the risks of drinking too much water, which could throw your water-sodium balance out of whack. Mindy Millard-Stafford, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and director of the Exercise Physiology Laboratory at Georgia Tech, comments on the effects of mild dehydration on higher-level mental functions.

Link to story

This story, written by Bryant Wine, originally appeared on the College of Computing website.

Georgia Tech scientists, including a researcher from the School of Biological Sciences, have formed the core of an interdisciplinary, inter-organizational team which seeks to prevent disease outbreaks by integrating the study of human behavior with computational data-driven models. 

Calling themselves BEHIVE (BEHavioral Interaction and Viral Evolution), the group recently received a $1 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant toward multidisciplinary team formation and novel outbreak prevention research.

“Our goal is to bring together all these terrific researchers from different disciplines to help bring a paradigm shift in the science of pandemic prediction and prevention,” said B. Aditya Prakash, associate professor with Georgia Tech’s School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE). 

“While epidemic forecasting is compared to weather forecasting, there is an important difference. Unlike weather, our actions and behavior can change the course of an epidemic.”

Prakash is the principal investigator of the $1 million NSF grant. Fellow BEHIVE members include:

• Pinar Keskinocak, William W. George Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech
• Thomas Kingsley, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics at Mayo Clinic
• Shinobu Kitayama, Robert B. Zajonc Collegiate Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan
• Ramesh Raskar, Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab
• Liliana Salvador, Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia’s Department of Infectious Diseases
• Joshua Weitz, Professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the School of Biological Sciences and Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences (QBioS) at Georgia Tech

Prakash emphasized BEHIVE’s primary goal to use its interdisciplinary organization to bridge research methodologies between hard and soft sciences. 

He explained that human behavior was underutilized in epidemic science before Covid-19, largely due to data scarcity and underdeveloped computational technologies. Behavioral dynamics encountered during the pandemic, such as social distancing, mask wearing, and vaccine hesitancy, has provided new research and data that now can be considered in models and simulations.

Here, BEHIVE will develop high fidelity computational models by designing new artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques that bridge human behavior knowledge and traditional epidemiological theory and models.

“It is still an open question of how we can best incorporate human behavior knowledge into the study of pandemics. That is the challenge,” Prakash said. “Our main idea is to better integrate knowledge from psychology and the humanities into pandemic science using novel computational methods.”

BEHIVE originated when team members met through various workshops held in 2020 and 2021. Prakash was an invited organizer of the National Symposium on Predicting Emergence of Virulent Entities by Novel Technologies (PREVENT). 

PREVENT reported that interdisciplinary collaboration was an obstacle in predicting and preventing pandemics. For example, some vocabularies often don’t mean the same thing across disciplines, so a consistent methodology to establish a common language must be developed.

BEHIVE is custom built to solve these challenges PREVENT revealed. Along with a wealth of knowledge learned through past epidemics, each BEHIVE researcher brings to the group experience working across interdisciplinary lines. 

Among the Georgia Tech researchers alone, Keskinocak interfaced with policymakers and the public on measures to slow Covid-19's spread. 

Prakash’s lab led several high-profile Covid-19 forecasting initiatives, including collaboration with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Weitz teamed with fellow Georgia Tech researchers in the College of Sciences, College of Computing, and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering to create a predoctoral training program that integrates computational modeling and data analytics into bioscience.

Keskinocak, Prakash, and Weitz together are also faculty in the Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS), one of Georgia Tech’s ten interdisciplinary research institutes. IDEaS connects research centers and efforts in foundational areas such as machine learning, high-performance computing, and algorithms.

BEHIVE’s $1 million grant is funded through NSF’s Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention (PIPP) initiative. This program supports high-risk, high-payoff convergent research that aims to identify, model, predict, track, and mitigate the effects of future pandemics.

According to Prakash, the PREVENT symposium’s summary report also helped highlight the need for an initiative like PIPP.

PIPP is a two-phased initiative in which NSF selects to fund 25 to 30 project teams, including BEHIVE, for eighteen months through phase one. However, this does not necessarily limit PIPP’s influence to chosen project teams within academia.

BEHIVE intends to partner with industry, governmental, and non-profit organizations to expand its interdisciplinary, interorganizational network. 

BEHIVE’s nucleus of Georgia Tech researchers connects the group with the CDC, Georgia Department of Public Health, and numerous hospitals across the state. BEHIVE’s other researchers also serve in leading roles at non-profits, such as the Pathcheck Foundation, and top hospitals like the Mayo Clinic.

Along with developing interdisciplinary methodologies, new disease prevention models, and partnering with external organizations, BEHIVE hopes to develop educational training programs. This would ensure their effort last generations to bring about the necessary paradigm change to prevent future pandemics.

“Our initial projects and research the next eighteen months will help us get a sense of research gaps and enlarge our perspective” Prakash said. “We’re approaching PIPP as a science, and we want to lay the foundation of the science by bringing in many people from different fields for the future.”

When he was 14 years old, Brian Hammer learned the hard way about the dangers of bacteria, and the wonders of penicillin, thanks to a wrestling bout with a sibling.

“My older brother thought it would be fun to wrestle me holding my dad’s fishing knife,” said Hammer, an associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences. What wasn’t fun: accidentally ending up with a stab wound in his leg.

The next day he couldn’t walk and had a high fever, thanks to a blood infection caused by Staphylococcus bacteria on his skin ending up in his wound. “Those bacteria can grow very quickly in your blood. And they should never be there,” Hammer said. Doctors gave him penicillin intravenously, and Hammer remained in a hospital for nearly a month before recovering.

Now, this November, Hammer — who performed in high school and college musicals and choruses — will get to sing the praises of Alexander Fleming, the Scottish scientist who indirectly healed him by discovering the antibacterial qualities of penicillin.

Hammer will be in the chorus at the Science Gallery at Pullman Yards Nov. 1-6, 2022 when the musical “The Mold That Changed The World” comes to Atlanta during its U.S. tour. It will be the second stop for the show, which has its stateside premiere in Washington, D.C.

Hammer, who is also a faculty member of Georgia Tech’s Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection (CMDI), is getting a chance to dust off singing skills because the musical is giving local professionals in science and health-related industries a chance to join the chorus when the show comes to their city. Colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control, which is co-sponsoring the musical’s 2022 U.S. tour, have also successfully auditioned to sing in the Atlanta performances, as have other area scientists and researchers, along with an emergency medical technician and a veterinarian.

For Hammer, there are strong similarities in singing about science, and teaching it at Georgia Tech. “There's a lot of entertainment in teaching, a lot of showmanship. It’s the way I got interested in microbiology, when the teacher was pretty charismatic and dynamic. So I've always wanted to be that kind of teacher.”

Singing for science education

“The Mold That Changed The World” doesn’t just focus on Fleming’s discovery. It also shows how Fleming overcame social obstacles to finding life-saving qualities in a “nasty mold,” as Hammer put it, and conveys in singing and music the dangers of relying too much on antibacterial drugs — an ongoing worry that has Hammer and several other CMDI researchers looking for new treatments.

“Fleming won the Nobel Prize for discovering the first antibiotic, penicillin, and even in his Nobel Prize speech, he predicted the dangers of the emergence of resistant microbes,” Hammer said. “He said then that he can imagine a scenario in the future where if someone doesn't take their antibiotics correctly, you could end up with resistant ‘superbugs’ that get transferred to another person. And then you don't have a treatment. He said that in 1945.”

Warning children about antimicrobial resistance (AMR) was the chief reason the Charades Theater Company in the United Kingdom staged “The Mold That Changed the World,” which was first performed for primary grades. The company thought it would be a fun and effective way to teach children ages 9-12 about the proper use of antibiotics. It was that educational aspect that attracted Hammer. 

“It's one way of communicating science,” he said. “We scientists, we have to do a better job of communicating science, in all ways. That may mean different media, different settings. It's just got to be part of what we do now. This is one unusual example of how to do that. But why not, right?”

The musical did prove effective. A 2020 UK study showed that students answered more questions about AMR correctly and retained more of the science information after seeing the musical.

Researching cholera, and challenging stereotypes

As a teenager, Hammer sang in high school musical productions like “Godspell.” He then went to Boston College, where he joined the university chorale and got to sing for Pope John Paul II at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

But Hammer was also busy earning his B.S. in biology. He went on to receive his M.S. in conservation biology and a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the University of Michigan. He said his desire to sing was overcome by his desire to learn everything about microbes and how they impact ecosystems and biodiversity — and then what they can do to humans. 

In the Hammer Lab at Georgia Tech, he and his team study microbial interactions at scales that span genes and genomes, regulatory networks, cells, populations, and communities. His longtime focus has been on Vibrio cholerae, the waterborne pathogen that causes cholera. 

“It’s this combination of thinking about pathogens and their ecological environment,” Hammer explained. “It's still fascinating to me how microbes can do all they need to do to live out there somewhere else, and then they can adapt to life in our bodies and wreak havoc. That single cells can do this still blows my mind, and how they do it, and what the consequences are. And cholera was the first 'bug' that I worked on that had this kind of dual lifestyle.”

Hammer was preparing for the Fall 2022 semester when his wife, Tracy, a fifth-grade teacher, said she would be taking her students to a children’s version of “The Mold That Changed The World” when the musical’s cast came to Atlanta. “She found out about it because some of the parents in her school work at the CDC,” he said. “She knew that I had done this (sung in musicals).” A visit to the musical’s website led him to audition for the special chorus.

Hammer said that his chance to perform on stage again isn’t just about educating audiences. It’s also about showing humanity in science, he added. 

“I think part of this is also to remind people that we scientists are just normal people too. I think there's this misperception that scientists are elitists who don't know how to interact with other people, or choose not to, or can’t. We're not elitist, we just have an area that we think about a lot – just like everyone else has subjects that they think about, and have strong opinions about and expertise in. So we're no different.”

“The Mold That Changed the World” runs Nov. 1-6 at Science Gallery@Pullman Yards,  225 Rogers St. NE, Atlanta, GA 30317.  Tickets go on sale soon and can be purchased here.