News & Press Coverage
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October 25, 2019
Hyoungjun Sim and Henry Zhao win PURA Salary Awards
Congratulations to Jun and Henry for winning a President’s Undergraduate Research Awards (PURA) for Spring 2020! PURA fund student salaries to conduct undergraduate research with Georgia Tech faculty and offset travel expenses for undergraduates to present their research at professional conferences. Between two hundred and three hundred competitive awards are offered on campus each year. […] -
October 17, 2019
Kevin Tao and Fang-Yi Su selected for the Petit Scholars Program 2020
Kevin has been selected as a Petit Undergraduate Scholar for 2018 with Ida serving as his Petit Mentor. Congratulations! From the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, “The Petit Undergraduate Research Scholars program is a competitive scholarship program that serves to develop the next generation of leading bioengineering and bioscience researchers by providing a comprehensive […] -
October 3, 2019
Ian presents at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Seattle
Grad student Ian Miller presented his work on thermal control of CAR T cells at the Fred Hutch Immuno-Oncology Graduate Student Symposium hosted by Fred Hutch’s Immunotherapy Integrated Research Center (IIRC). Participants were able to meet faculty, learn about the breadth of research done in immuno-oncology, visit research laboratories and shared resource facilities, and tour […] -
September 23, 2019
Noina Phuengkham joins LSI as a post-doctoral fellow
Hathaichanok “Noina” Phuengkham joins LSI as a new post-doc. Noina originally hails from Thailand and completed her Ph.D. studies at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea where she developed biomaterials to alter immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments with Dr. Yong Taik Lim. Read more about Noina here. -
September 18, 2019
Dr. Kwong delivers invited lecture at Transplant Immunosuppression 2019
Dr. Kwong was invited to speak at the Transplant Immunosuppression 2019 Conference in Minneapolis, MN. The course focused on current options for immunosuppression (and what’s in the pipeline), with particular attention to individualization of immunosuppression based on clinical and/or laboratory parameters; prevention, diagnosis and treatment of antibody-mediated rejection; improving long-term transplant outcomes; and major issues […] -
September 13, 2019
LSI welcomes graduate student Ali Zamat
Ali was raised in San Diego, CA before moving to São Paulo, Brazil for three years. He attended UCSD where he graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Bioengineering. As an undergraduate, he developed a STEM immersion program for a local high school. In the lab, Ali investigated new drug delivery techniques to reduce […] -
September 3, 2019
New study with the Qiu Group published in PloS Computational Biology
Our work with the Qiu group is now online in PLoS Computational Biology! The activity of enzymatic proteins, which are called proteases, drives numerous important processes in health and disease: including cancer, immunity, and infectious disease. Many labs have developed useful diagnostics by designing sensors that measure the activity of these proteases. However, if we […] -
August 22, 2019
LSI awarded talks at BMES 2019
Multiple students were awarded podium talks at the 2019 BMES Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. They are: Brandon Holt – “Synthetic biological circuits for treating prodrug-resistant bacteria” Brandon Holt – “Proteases as biological bits for programmable medicine” Ian Miller – “Remote Control of CAR T Cells Using Thermal Cues” Shreyas Dahotre – “Ultrasensitive Detection of […] -
July 30, 2019
Dr. Kwong part of NCI Think Tank discussing early cancer detection
Dr. Kwong was invited to participate in the Synthetic Biomarkers for Detection of Cancers at Incipient and Early Stages (SYNDICATE) Think Tank Meeting hosted by the Division of Cancer Prevention (DCP) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and co-chaired by Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dr. Sam Gambhir, Stanford University. The think tank […] -
July 16, 2019
Adrian Harris joins LSI as Research Technician
Adrian was born in Dover, Delaware but spent half of his life in Dahlonega, GA. He graduated cum laude from the University of Georgia, where he received a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. During his undergraduate years, he worked in Dr. Amy Medlock’s laboratory, investigating the regulatory roles of Peroxiredoxin 5 and Progesterone Receptor […] -
July 11, 2019
LSI awarded NSF grant to develop cell sorting technologies
LSI awarded $500,000 from the NSF Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET) for "Ultra-fast transient cell adhesion and its application for high-throughput microfluidic cell sorting". Our co-PI's are Dr. Alexander Alexeev (associate professor, The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering) and Todd Sulchek (professor, The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical […] -
July 2, 2019
LSI wins seed grant from the Petit Institute
The labs of Gabe Kwong (assistant professor, Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering) and M.G. Finn (professor, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry) were awarded a grant for “Activity biosensors that implement Boolean logic as precision diagnostics for immunotherapy.” The researchers reason that disease detection and evaluation of treatment responses in vivo depend on the ability to extract clinically […] -
June 28, 2019
LSI part of multi-institute effort to develop new treatments for influenza infection
The Laboratory for Synthetic Immunity is part of a $21.9 million award from DARPA to develop gene therapies to enable protection against a wide range of influenza strains and improve immune responses and efficacy of current influenza vaccines. The work, led by Phil Santangelo at Georgia Tech, is being performed by researchers at GT, Duke, […] -
June 6, 2019
Anna Romanov named Astronaut Scholar
Congratulations to Anna for winning an Astronaut Scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF). In 2019, ASF awarded 52 scholarships to students from 38 different universities across the nation. Astronaut Scholarships are awarded to students in their junior and senior year of college studying science, technology, engineering, or mathematics with the intent to pursue research […] -
May 5, 2019
Lena Gamboa presents work at Synthims 2019
Lena traveled to Ascona, Switzerland to present her talk “Heat-triggered CRISPR-dCas9 for the remote control of therapeutic T cells” at Synthims 2019. The conference covered insights in therapeutic protein engineering, rational vaccine design and delivery; advances in single-cell sequencing and microfluidics as related to the adaptive immune system; adoptive immune cell transfer therapies; and cancer […] -
April 30, 2019
Lee-Kai Sun wins Barry Goldwater Scholarship
Congratulations to Lee-Kai Sun for receiving a 2019 Barry Goldwater Scholarship! The Goldwater Scholarship is the preeminent undergraduate award for outstanding students pursuing careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 92 Rhodes Scholarships, 137 Marshall Awards, 159 Churchill Scholarships, 104 Hertz Fellowships, and numerous other distinguished awards […] -
April 3, 2019
LSI awarded R01 to develop activity sensors to monitor immunotherapy efficacy
LSI has received a $1.8 million grant from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health to develop activity sensors to monitor responses to cancer immunotherapy! This work will expand our sensor platform, which has already been used to detect thrombosis, liver fibrosis, cancer, and organ transplant rejection. Read more about this work […] -
March 29, 2019
Isabel Curro wins PURA Award
Congratulations to Mimi for winning a PURA Award! President's Undergraduate Research Awards fund student salaries to conduct undergraduate research with Georgia Tech faculty and offset travel expenses for undergraduates to present their research at professional conferences. -
March 6, 2019
Nanosensors for transplant rejection highlighted in Nature Reviews Nephrology
Our recently published paper in Nature Biomedical Engineering was highlighted in Nature Reviews Nephrology! -
February 18, 2019
Early detection of organ transplant rejection using urine tests published in Nature Biomedical Engineering
Our work on activity sensors for early and noninvasive detection of acute transplant rejection was just published in Nature Biomedical Engineering! Congrats to Quoc and the team! Summary | The current diagnostic “gold” standard to monitor transplant patients for signs of organ rejection is the tissue biopsy. However, this procedure is invasive and lacks the ability to […] -
February 11, 2019
Glympse Bio selected as ‘Fierce 15’ for 2018
FierceMedTech has named Glympse Bio, co-founded by LSI director Dr. Gabe Kwong, as one of its Fierce 15 for 2018. Each year FierceMedTech spotlights 15 of the most innovative and promising startups in the medtech industry. Read more about what makes Glympse fierce here and here. -
January 26, 2019
Brandon Holt presents at Gordon Research Seminar
Brandon gave a podium talk titled "Biological Bits for Computing Classical and Quantum-Inspired Algorithms" at the Complex Active and Adaptive Material Systems Gordon Research Seminar in Ventura, CA. This conference was focused on formulating new ways to inscribe the vital functions found in biological systems into synthetic materials and complex structures. Congrats Brandon and great to […] -
January 24, 2019
Dr. Kwong highlights work on protease sensors for NASH at Keystone Symposium
The global prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has risen precipitously over the past two decades in parallel with the worldwide obesity epidemic, and these diseases are associated with progressive fibrosis and an increased risk of liver cancer. The field lacks an integrated understanding of risk prediction, pathogenesis and validated […] -
January 18, 2019
Detecting antigen-specific T cells with DNA barcoded tetramers published in Analytical Chemistry
Our work on synthesizing DNA-barcoded pMHC tetramers to detect single antigen-specific T cells by ddPCR was published in Analytical Chemistry! Congrats to Shreyas and the team!Read the full manuscript here.