A new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that an elephant’s muscles aren’t the only way it stretches its trunk — its folded skin also plays an important role. The combination of muscle and skin gives the animal the versatility to grab fragile vegetation and rip apart tree trunks.

The research, in collaboration with Zoo Atlanta, finds that an elephant’s skin doesn’t uniformly stretch. The top of the trunk is more flexible than the bottom, and the two sections begin to diverge when an elephant reaches more than 10%. When stretching for food or objects, the dorsal section of the trunk slides further forward.  

The findings could improve robotics, which today are typically built for either great strength or flexibility. Unlike an elephant’s trunk, the machines can’t do both.

Read about the study and see video from the experiments

The College of Sciences and College of Engineering are pleased to announce the appointment of Joseph Montoya, professor in the School of Biological Sciences, to the position of director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Ocean Science and Engineering (OSE) at Georgia Tech. The appointment follows a search process and approval by Georgia Tech leadership.

Montoya has previously served as associate chair for Undergraduate Affairs in the School of Biology (Biological Sciences), and has additional leadership experience with the ECOGIG (Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf) Consortium. He is also a founding member of the Georgia Tech Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council, as well as a member of the College of Sciences Faculty Diversity Council.

“The OSE program benefits from a close collaboration between the Schools of Biological Sciences, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Civil and Environmental Engineering,” said David Collard, senior associate dean in the College of Sciences and professor in the School of Chemistry & Biochemistry. “The College of Sciences and College of Engineering continue to support the program and Professor Montoya is well-prepared to advance the program.”

“At the same time, I would also like to express immense gratitude to Professor Emanuele Di Lorenzo for his vision, hard work and leadership in creating the OSE program and serving as its founding director,” Collard added. “He leaves the program in a healthy position, and with great opportunities to expand the instructional and research missions of Georgia Tech in a critical field of study.”

Meet Joseph Montoya

Joseph Montoya is a biological oceanographer with research interests at the interface of biology and geochemistry. His lab specializes in studies of the marine nitrogen cycle, using a combination of direct rate measurements and stable isotope natural abundance methods to explore the role of biological dinitrogen (N2) fixation in structuring the flow of nitrogen and energy through planktonic ecosystems. The metabolic capability to use atmospheric nitrogen to support biological production plays a key role in supporting diverse ecosystems in many offshore and coastal waters.

The Montoya Lab has also been deeply involved in studies of the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on offshore ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico. His group’s research program is highly interdisciplinary, incorporating work in plankton biology, marine chemistry, and isotope biogeochemistry both at sea and in the lab.

Montoya received an A.B. in Biology at the University of California and a Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University. He served on the faculty of the Departments of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard before joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 1998.

Learn more about Montoya’s work:

 

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.

The College of Sciences and College of Engineering are pleased to announce the appointment of Joseph Montoya, professor in the School of Biological Sciences, to the position of director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Ocean Science and Engineering (OSE) at Georgia Tech. The appointment follows a search process and approval by Georgia Tech leadership.

Montoya has previously served as associate chair for Undergraduate Affairs in the School of Biology (Biological Sciences), and has additional leadership experience with the ECOGIG (Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf) Consortium. He is also a founding member of the Georgia Tech Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council, as well as a member of the College of Sciences Faculty Diversity Council.

“The OSE program benefits from a close collaboration between the Schools of Biological Sciences, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Civil and Environmental Engineering,” said David Collard, senior associate dean in the College of Sciences and professor in the School of Chemistry & Biochemistry. “The College of Sciences and College of Engineering continue to support the program and Professor Montoya is well-prepared to advance the program.”

“At the same time, I would also like to express immense gratitude to Professor Emanuele Di Lorenzo for his vision, hard work and leadership in creating the OSE program and serving as its founding director,” Collard added. “He leaves the program in a healthy position, and with great opportunities to expand the instructional and research missions of Georgia Tech in a critical field of study.”

Meet Joseph Montoya

Joseph Montoya is a biological oceanographer with research interests at the interface of biology and geochemistry. His lab specializes in studies of the marine nitrogen cycle, using a combination of direct rate measurements and stable isotope natural abundance methods to explore the role of biological dinitrogen (N2) fixation in structuring the flow of nitrogen and energy through planktonic ecosystems. The metabolic capability to use atmospheric nitrogen to support biological production plays a key role in supporting diverse ecosystems in many offshore and coastal waters.

The Montoya Lab has also been deeply involved in studies of the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on offshore ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico. His group’s research program is highly interdisciplinary, incorporating work in plankton biology, marine chemistry, and isotope biogeochemistry both at sea and in the lab.

Montoya received an A.B. in Biology at the University of California and a Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University. He served on the faculty of the Departments of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard before joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 1998.

Learn more about Montoya’s work:

 

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.

The second class of Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Graduate Fellows has been selected. The BBISS Graduate Fellows Program provides graduate students with enhanced training in sustainability, team science, and leadership in addition to their usual programs of study. Each two-year fellowship is funded by a generous gift from Brook and Shawn Byers and is additionally guided by a Faculty Advisory Board. The students apply their skills and talents, working directly with their peers, faculty, and external partners on long-term, large team, sustainability relevant projects. They are also afforded opportunities to organize and host seminar series, develop their professional networks, publish papers and draft proposals, and develop additional skills critical to their professional success and future careers leading research teams.

The 2022 class of Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems Graduate Fellows are:

  • Oliver Chapman - Ph.D. student, School of Public Policy, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
  • Meaghan Conville - Ph.D. student, School of City and Regional Planning, College of Design
  • Carlos Fernandez - Ph.D. student, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
  • Sarah Roney - Ph.D. student, School of Biological Sciences
  • Olianike Olaomo - Ph.D. student, School of History and Sociology, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
  • Vishal Sharma - Ph.D. student, School of Interactive Computing, College of Computing

The Faculty Advisory Board for the BBISS Graduate Fellows is composed of the faculty who submitted the students' nominations. Nominations for Class III of the BBISS Graduate Fellows program will open in the Spring 2023. It is expected that 6 to 8 scholars will be selected for next year’s group.

The Faculty Advisory Board for the inaugural class are:

Updates and outcomes will be posted to the BBISS website as the project progresses. Additional information is available at https://research.gatech.edu/sustainability/grad-fellows-program.

The second class of Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Graduate Fellows has been selected. The BBISS Graduate Fellows Program provides graduate students with enhanced training in sustainability, team science, and leadership in addition to their usual programs of study. Each two-year fellowship is funded by a generous gift from Brook and Shawn Byers and is additionally guided by a Faculty Advisory Board. The students apply their skills and talents, working directly with their peers, faculty, and external partners on long-term, large team, sustainability relevant projects. They are also afforded opportunities to organize and host seminar series, develop their professional networks, publish papers and draft proposals, and develop additional skills critical to their professional success and future careers leading research teams.

The 2022 class of Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems Graduate Fellows are:

  • Oliver Chapman - Ph.D. student, School of Public Policy, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
  • Meaghan Conville - Ph.D. student, School of City and Regional Planning, College of Design
  • Carlos Fernandez - Ph.D. student, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
  • Sarah Roney - Ph.D. student, School of Biological Sciences
  • Olianike Olaomo - Ph.D. student, School of History and Sociology, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
  • Vishal Sharma - Ph.D. student, School of Interactive Computing, College of Computing

The Faculty Advisory Board for the BBISS Graduate Fellows is composed of the faculty who submitted the students' nominations. Nominations for Class III of the BBISS Graduate Fellows program will open in the Spring 2023. It is expected that 6 to 8 scholars will be selected for next year’s group.

The Faculty Advisory Board for the inaugural class are:

Updates and outcomes will be posted to the BBISS website as the project progresses. Additional information is available at https://research.gatech.edu/sustainability/grad-fellows-program.

About half of the cancer patients who receive chemotherapy are treated with drugs made from platinum-based compounds, or PBCs. That’s because these drugs have demonstrated real success in improving cancer survival rates. 

However, there’s a downside – off-target side effects, neurotoxicity being among the more prevalent and significant. Pain, fatigue, weakness, strange sensations, and difficulty with balance are the common symptoms known collectively as chemotherapy-induced neuropathy, or CIN. For many clinicians, this has been a fair trade-off  – powerful, toxic cancer drugs save lives, but kill neurons. It’s the price of survival.

Georgia Tech postdoctoral researcher Stephen Housley isn’t buying it.

“The basic position has been, ‘we cured your cancer, but you have neurotoxin damage, so let’s manage those symptoms.’ Because when neurons becomes dysfunctional, it is challenging to correct it,” said Housley, a neuroscientist, physiologist, and licensed physical therapist who works with Tim Cope, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and with cancer researcher John McDonald, professor in the School of Biological Sciences.

But what if the nerve cells didn’t have to become dysfunctional? What if you could stop the damage before it even begins? Housley and his colleagues aim to find out with help from a new NIH National Cancer Institute R01 grant, “which will help us really drill down into some of the mechanisms of neurotoxicity experienced by cancer survivors globally,” said Housley, who is leading the research effort.

Cope, principal investigator on the $2.5 million grant, added, “building on our recent discoveries, we’re taking a new direction that has the promising potential to identify novel targets for treating neurotoxic damage to the neurons that are responsible for movement disorders.”

The grant will support a growing area of research for Cope’s team, which published a paper on its discoveries earlier this year. Housley was the lead author of “Neural circuit mechanisms of sensorimotor disability in cancer treatment”, which appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Cope and Housley work in the pre-clinical phase of cancer treatment, developing and studying animal models to mimic the human condition, so they can study the effects of chemotherapy on the individual neurons and circuits that human behaviors and perceptions emerge from. Previous studies from other labs have determined that these drugs are causing the nerve damage by themselves, but the Georgia Tech team discovered a more nuanced set of circumstances.

“Biology is more complex than that – the cancer interacts with the chemotherapy, changing the underlying causes and worsening the nerve dysfunction long-term,” Housley asserted, explaining that the majority of previous studies have focused only on the effects due to chemotherapy.

“If you are diagnosed with cancer and are treated with these drugs, in the great scenario, you go into remission and stop the drugs," he added. "The problem is, the side effects don’t stop. They actually evolve and convert into something a bit different than what was happening early on. And they persist for a long time, in many cases over a decade.”

Damage from the Start

Housley and Cope have focused on the chronic phase of cancer and discovered that there is a likely a link between what happens in the earliest stages of treatment and the long-term probability of developing neurologic disorders.

“While a patient is in the chair getting chemotherapy, they will not only have sensory problems, but an increased stimulation, often perceived as being painful or hypersensitivity to cold,” Housley said. “And you will see people with muscle spasms, and twitching, really visceral responses. The speed at which these drugs can impact the nervous system is stark. The motor system that helps us move is being affected in the course of minutes or hours.”

This muscle hyperactivity is due to an increase in the excitability of the nervous system across both the sensory and motor systems, and that spiking behavior – the currency of the nervous system– can last for days after the treatment. And then, the nervous system goes haywire.

In response to the infusion of these PBC drugs, the system overcompensates. The hyper excitability goes in an opposite direction. So now, instead of an electrical jolt, the system slows down: when reaching for and grabbing a cup of coffee, the collaboration between your motor and sensory systems gets fuzzy. Is your sensory system correctly anticipating the weight of the cup while your motor system grabs and lifts? Will the cup slip and spill hot coffee on your lap?

Housley, Cope and their multidisciplinary team, including McDonald, want to stop the initial hyper excitability from happening in the first place. Through a process called in vivo electrophysiology, they use glass electrodes to study the behavior of single cells as they respond to stimulation, such as that caused by the reaction of cancer to a platinum-based drug. With these approaches they are testing new pharmacologic and gene therapy approaches to prevent hyper excitability.

“It’s a challenging but powerful approach,” said Housley. The ultimate goal is to block the neurotoxic effects of the drugs, so that they can beat the cancer and not harm the patient’s long term health and quality of life. “Through these experiments, we want to knock out the various drivers of what we suspect is causing this serious problem, and ultimately prevent the long-term consequences of these neurological disorders.”

About half of the cancer patients who receive chemotherapy are treated with drugs made from platinum-based compounds, or PBCs. That’s because these drugs have demonstrated real success in improving cancer survival rates. 

However, there’s a downside – off-target side effects, neurotoxicity being among the more prevalent and significant. Pain, fatigue, weakness, strange sensations, and difficulty with balance are the common symptoms known collectively as chemotherapy-induced neuropathy, or CIN. For many clinicians, this has been a fair trade-off  – powerful, toxic cancer drugs save lives, but kill neurons. It’s the price of survival.

Georgia Tech postdoctoral researcher Stephen Housley isn’t buying it.

“The basic position has been, ‘we cured your cancer, but you have neurotoxin damage, so let’s manage those symptoms.’ Because when neurons becomes dysfunctional, it is challenging to correct it,” said Housley, a neuroscientist, physiologist, and licensed physical therapist who works with Tim Cope, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and with cancer researcher John McDonald, professor in the School of Biological Sciences.

But what if the nerve cells didn’t have to become dysfunctional? What if you could stop the damage before it even begins? Housley and his colleagues aim to find out with help from a new NIH National Cancer Institute R01 grant, “which will help us really drill down into some of the mechanisms of neurotoxicity experienced by cancer survivors globally,” said Housley, who is leading the research effort.

Cope, principal investigator on the $2.5 million grant, added, “building on our recent discoveries, we’re taking a new direction that has the promising potential to identify novel targets for treating neurotoxic damage to the neurons that are responsible for movement disorders.”

The grant will support a growing area of research for Cope’s team, which published a paper on its discoveries earlier this year. Housley was the lead author of “Neural circuit mechanisms of sensorimotor disability in cancer treatment”, which appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Cope and Housley work in the pre-clinical phase of cancer treatment, developing and studying animal models to mimic the human condition, so they can study the effects of chemotherapy on the individual neurons and circuits that human behaviors and perceptions emerge from. Previous studies from other labs have determined that these drugs are causing the nerve damage by themselves, but the Georgia Tech team discovered a more nuanced set of circumstances.

“Biology is more complex than that – the cancer interacts with the chemotherapy, changing the underlying causes and worsening the nerve dysfunction long-term,” Housley asserted, explaining that the majority of previous studies have focused only on the effects due to chemotherapy.

“If you are diagnosed with cancer and are treated with these drugs, in the great scenario, you go into remission and stop the drugs," he added. "The problem is, the side effects don’t stop. They actually evolve and convert into something a bit different than what was happening early on. And they persist for a long time, in many cases over a decade.”

Damage from the Start

Housley and Cope have focused on the chronic phase of cancer and discovered that there is a likely a link between what happens in the earliest stages of treatment and the long-term probability of developing neurologic disorders.

“While a patient is in the chair getting chemotherapy, they will not only have sensory problems, but an increased stimulation, often perceived as being painful or hypersensitivity to cold,” Housley said. “And you will see people with muscle spasms, and twitching, really visceral responses. The speed at which these drugs can impact the nervous system is stark. The motor system that helps us move is being affected in the course of minutes or hours.”

This muscle hyperactivity is due to an increase in the excitability of the nervous system across both the sensory and motor systems, and that spiking behavior – the currency of the nervous system– can last for days after the treatment. And then, the nervous system goes haywire.

In response to the infusion of these PBC drugs, the system overcompensates. The hyper excitability goes in an opposite direction. So now, instead of an electrical jolt, the system slows down: when reaching for and grabbing a cup of coffee, the collaboration between your motor and sensory systems gets fuzzy. Is your sensory system correctly anticipating the weight of the cup while your motor system grabs and lifts? Will the cup slip and spill hot coffee on your lap?

Housley, Cope and their multidisciplinary team, including McDonald, want to stop the initial hyper excitability from happening in the first place. Through a process called in vivo electrophysiology, they use glass electrodes to study the behavior of single cells as they respond to stimulation, such as that caused by the reaction of cancer to a platinum-based drug. With these approaches they are testing new pharmacologic and gene therapy approaches to prevent hyper excitability.

“It’s a challenging but powerful approach,” said Housley. The ultimate goal is to block the neurotoxic effects of the drugs, so that they can beat the cancer and not harm the patient’s long term health and quality of life. “Through these experiments, we want to knock out the various drivers of what we suspect is causing this serious problem, and ultimately prevent the long-term consequences of these neurological disorders.”

Since 2017, the annual Quantitative Biosciences Hands-On Modeling Workshop has aimed to introduce students and faculty of all skill levels and backgrounds to the use of computational modeling in studying biological systems. For the past two years, these workshops have been held virtually, reaching over 150 attendees from around the world with the apt theme of modeling epidemics.

This summer, organizers welcomed 45 attendees for an in-person workshop for the first time since 2019.

“While virtual workshops have some benefits — for example being able to reach a larger audience — being in-person is so much more conducive to forming connections with people,” shared J.C. Gumbart, associate professor in the School of Physics and associate director of the Quantitative Biosciences Ph.D. program at Georgia Tech. “One of my favorite parts of workshops is just sitting and chatting with participants one-on-one about their research background and interests, something that’s very hard to do over Zoom.”

Organized by the first-year Quantitative Biosciences (QBioS) and the NIH T32 Integrative and Quantitative Biosciences Accelerated Training Environment (InQuBATE) cohorts, this year’s two-day workshop highlighted how computational modeling can be applied to better understand gene expression. As no prior modeling or even programming experience was necessary to attend, the in-person workshop was open to graduate students, scientists, and faculty members from any field of research.

The workshop opened with a lecture on the event’s theme, stochastic gene expression, delivered by Adriana Lucia-Sanz, postdoctoral researcher in the Weitz Group at Georgia Tech, which is led by Joshua Weitz, professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair of Biological Sciences and founding director of the Quantitative Biosciences program. The attendees then broke into smaller groups led by organizers to work through hands-on modeling tutorials in various programming languages. 

“The thing that I enjoyed the most was the group cultures that formed among the workshop groups,” shared Chris Zhang, a first-year Ph.D. student in Quantitative Biosciences and one of the workshop’s organizers. “I was incredibly happy at the quantity and quality of new relationships and connections that were made during this workshop.”

For first-year student Siya Xie, “the best memory was definitely the experience of our first-year cohort working together.”

The event closed with a plenary lecture on how randomness affects the biology and behavior of living cells by Ido Golding, professor of biological physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The annual gathering “has been quite revealing,” shared Hameed Sanusi, an attendee and Georgia State University bioinformatics graduate student. “I was glad to be part of this workshop — and more glad to have worked with budding scientists and professionals from the Atlanta area.”

“Hopefully,” added Zhang, “the participants learned a lot about how to think about biology from a quantitative perspective.”

Since 2017, the annual Quantitative Biosciences Hands-On Modeling Workshop has aimed to introduce students and faculty of all skill levels and backgrounds to the use of computational modeling in studying biological systems. For the past two years, these workshops have been held virtually, reaching over 150 attendees from around the world with the apt theme of modeling epidemics.

This summer, organizers welcomed 45 attendees for an in-person workshop for the first time since 2019.

“While virtual workshops have some benefits — for example being able to reach a larger audience — being in-person is so much more conducive to forming connections with people,” shared J.C. Gumbart, associate professor in the School of Physics and associate director of the Quantitative Biosciences Ph.D. program at Georgia Tech. “One of my favorite parts of workshops is just sitting and chatting with participants one-on-one about their research background and interests, something that’s very hard to do over Zoom.”

Organized by the first-year Quantitative Biosciences (QBioS) and the NIH T32 Integrative and Quantitative Biosciences Accelerated Training Environment (InQuBATE) cohorts, this year’s two-day workshop highlighted how computational modeling can be applied to better understand gene expression. As no prior modeling or even programming experience was necessary to attend, the in-person workshop was open to graduate students, scientists, and faculty members from any field of research.

The workshop opened with a lecture on the event’s theme, stochastic gene expression, delivered by Adriana Lucia-Sanz, postdoctoral researcher in the Weitz Group at Georgia Tech, which is led by Joshua Weitz, professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair of Biological Sciences and founding director of the Quantitative Biosciences program. The attendees then broke into smaller groups led by organizers to work through hands-on modeling tutorials in various programming languages. 

“The thing that I enjoyed the most was the group cultures that formed among the workshop groups,” shared Chris Zhang, a first-year Ph.D. student in Quantitative Biosciences and one of the workshop’s organizers. “I was incredibly happy at the quantity and quality of new relationships and connections that were made during this workshop.”

For first-year student Siya Xie, “the best memory was definitely the experience of our first-year cohort working together.”

The event closed with a plenary lecture on how randomness affects the biology and behavior of living cells by Ido Golding, professor of biological physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The annual gathering “has been quite revealing,” shared Hameed Sanusi, an attendee and Georgia State University bioinformatics graduate student. “I was glad to be part of this workshop — and more glad to have worked with budding scientists and professionals from the Atlanta area.”

“Hopefully,” added Zhang, “the participants learned a lot about how to think about biology from a quantitative perspective.”

Andrew Rassweiler, Ph.D.
Department of Biological Sciences
Florida State University
 
 
SPEAKER BIO
Dr. Andrew Rassweiler is a marine ecologist who combines field experiments, data analysis and mathematical modeling to address both basic and applied questions, mainly in temperate reef ecosystems. He has used this mix of tools to understand community dynamics, particularly the mechanisms that lead to abrupt shifts from one species assemblage to another. Currently, his main focus is on synthesizing and analyzing long-term monitoring data from the National Park Service’s Kelp Forest Monitoring Program, the U.S. Geological Survey’s San Nicolas Island baseline monitoring and the Santa Barbara Coastal LTER’s kelp forest community monitoring. Dr. Rassweiler also works on fishery management and Marine Conservation questions, using spatially explicit models to explore optimal fisheries management strategies and tradeoffs between achieving fishery and conservation goals.  His models have been used in practical contexts as well, most notably in guiding the placement of marine protected areas as part of California’s Marine Life Protection Act process. Although his expertise is in community ecology, to better understand the many abiotic factors influencing ecological dynamics, he works closely with oceanographers, geographers and economists.
 
Host: Dr. Mark Hay

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