Peter Yunker

Peter Yunker
peter.yunker@gatech.edu

Dr. Yunker joined Georgia Tech’s School of Physics in 2014 after finishing his biophysics postdoc at Harvard University & New England Biolabs in 2014. Before that, he earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 after earning a B.S. in Physics from Texas A&M University in 2005. He has won the Burstein Prize and the Denenstein Award both from UPenn along with the Eric R. Immel Memorial award for Excellence in Teaching at GT. 

Peter’s interests are biophysics, soft matter, and golden retrievers.

Associate Professor
Phone
404-385-8642
Office
Boggs B20
Additional Research
Nonequilibrium systems, densely packed active matter with life and death events, microbial physics, structural mechanics, fracture mechanics, evolution.
IRI and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Physics

Ronghu Wu

Ronghu Wu
ronghu.wu@chemistry.gatech.edu

Research in the Wu lab is mainly focused on mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics. They are developing innovative methods to globally identify and quantify proteins and their post-translational modifications (PTMs), including glycosylation and phosphorylation, and applying them for biomedical research. Protein PTMs plays essential roles in biological systems, and aberrant protein expression and modification are directly related to various human diseases, including cystic fibrosis, cancer and infectious diseases. Novel analytical methods will profoundly advance our understanding of protein function, which will lead to the identification of proteins or modified proteins as effective drug targets and the discovery of biomarkers for early disease detection.

Associate Professor
Phone
404-385-1515
Office
EBB 4011
IRI and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Chemistry & Biochemistry

Levi Wood

Levi Wood
levi.wood@me.gatech.edu

Dr. Wood completed his graduate training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While there he worked under the guidance of Drs. H. Harry Asada and Roger Kamm to develop and use microfluidics to identify mechanisms governing vascular geometry. 

During his postdoc, Dr. Wood worked under Dr. Kevin Haigis (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School) and Dr. Douglas Lauffenburger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to use systems biology to identify novel signaling mechanisms driving neuronal death in Alzheimer's disease and epithelial cell death during intestinal inflammation.

Associate Professor
Phone
404-385-4465
Office
Petit Biotechnology Building, Office 3303
Additional Research
Our research focuses on applying systems analysis approaches and engineering tools to identify novel clinical therapeutic targets for complex diseases. It is challenging to develop new treatments for these diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease(AD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), because they do not have a single genetic cause and they simultaneously present broad physiologic changes. By combining novel engineeredin vitroplatforms, mouse models, and multivariate computational systems analysis, we will be able to 1) capture a holistic systems-level understanding of complex diseases, and 2) isolate specific mechanisms driving disease. The ultimate goal of our laboratory is to use these tools to identify new mechanisms driving disease onset and progression that will translate to effective therapeutic strategies.
IRI and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Engineering > Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

Marvin Whiteley

Marvin Whiteley
marvin.whiteley@biosci.gatech.edu

Dr. Whiteley received his B.S. degree in Zoology in 1995 from the University of Texas at Austin and his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Iowa in 2001. His doctoral research involved quorum sensing and biofilm formation in the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Following a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford University in 2002, Dr. Whiteley accepted a position as an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma/Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. In 2006, Dr. Whiteley moved to the University of Texas at Austin where he was promoted to Professor of Molecular Biosciences and Director of the LaMontagne Center for Infectious Disease. In 2017, he accepted the Bennie H. & Nelson D. Abell Chair and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Georgia Institute of Technology. He also serves as Associate Director of the CF-Air Center at Emory Medical School. Dr. Whiteley has garnered numerous awards for his work including the Merck Irving S. Sigal Memorial Award for national research excellence, the Burroughs Wellcome Investigators in Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease award, recognition as a Kavli fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the Dean’s teaching excellence award from UT-Austin, and election to the American Academy of Microbiology.

Professor
Bennie H. & Nelson D. Abell Chair in Molecular and Cellular Biology
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar
Co-Director, Emory-Children's CF Center (CF@LANTA)
Phone
404-385-5697
Office
Petit Biotechnology Building, Office 1314
Additional Research
In the Whiteley Lab, we are interested in the social lives of bacteria. Currently, we are utilizing new technologies combined with classical genetic techniques to address questions about microbial physiology, ecology, virulence, and evolution. In particular, we are working on tackling the following questions: 1. How do bacteria communicate? 2. How do polymicrobial interactions impact physiology and virulence? 3. What is the role of spatial structure in bacterial infections? 4. How does the host environment impact microbial physiology?
IRI and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Biological Sciences

Eberhard O. Voit

Eberhard O. Voit
eberhard.voit@bme.gatech.edu

Eberhard Voit’s research interests are in the area of complex biomedical systems. Work in his lab focuses on genomic, metabolic, and signaling systems with applications reaching from microbial and plant systems to human diseases. Voit has authored or co-authored about two hundred fifty scientific articles and book chapters as well as several books. Voit is an elected a fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Professor
David D. Flanagan Chair
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Systems Biology
Phone
404-385-5057
Office
EBB 2115B
IRI and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Engineering > Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Denis V. Tsygankov

Denis V. Tsygankov
denis.tsygankov@bme.gatech.edu

Denis Tsygankov, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech School of Engineering and Emory University School of Medicine. 

Dr. Tsygankov is interested in developing and applying computational methods, including mathematical modeling, simulations, and computer vision approaches to understand complex multi-scale physiological processes including vasculogenesis, morphogenesis, and cancer. 

He is a member of the Cell and Molecular Biology Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute.

Associate Professor
Phone
404-385-4747
Office
UAW 1212
IRI and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Engineering > Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Matthew Torres

Matthew Torres
matthew.torres@biology.gatech.edu

Matt is a former Tar Heel from UNC Chapel Hill. His training is in mass spectrometry-based proteomics and G protein signaling. He has been investigating PTMs since 2001. He is also a co-director of the Systems Mass Spectrometry Core (SYMS-C) facility at Georgia Tech.

Associate Professor
Phone
404-385-0401
Office
EBB 4009
Additional Research
Bioinformatics. My lab integrates mass spectrometry and experimental cell biology using the yeast model system to understand how networks of coordinated PTMs modulate biological function. Now well into the era of genomics and proteomics, it is widely appreciated that understanding individual genes or proteins, although necessary, is often not sufficient to explain the complex behavior observed in living organisms. Indeed, placing context on the dynamic network of relationships that exist between multiple proteins is now one of the greatest challenges in Biology. Post-translational modifications (PTMs, e.g. phosphorylation, ubiquitination and over 200 others), which can be readily quantified by mass spectrometry (MS), often mediate these dynamic relationships through enhancement or disruption of binding and/or catalytic properties that can result in changes in protein specificity, stability, or cellular localization. We use a combination of tools including quantitative mass spectrometry, yeast genetics, dose-response assays, in vitro biochemistry, and microscopy to explore testable systems-level hypotheses. My current research interests can be grouped into four main categories:(1)coordinated PTM-based regulation of dynamic signaling complexes, (2) cross-pathway coordination by PTMs, (3) PTM networks in stress adaptation, and (4) technology development for rapid PTM network detection.
IRI and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Data Engineering and Science > Affiliated Faculty
Data Engineering and Science
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Biological Sciences

Shuichi Takayama

Shuichi Takayama
takayama@gatech.edu

Shu Takayama earned his BS and MS in Agricultural Chemistry at the University of Tokyo. He earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California studying bio-organic synthesis with Dr. Chi‐Huey Wong. He then worked as a postdoc with Dr. George Whitesides at Harvard University where he focused on applying microfluidics to studying cell and molecular biology.

Takayama began his career at the University of Michigan, where led his lab in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Macromolecular Science & Engineering for over 17 years. In 2017, the lab moved to Georgia Tech where Shu became the Georgia Research Alliance Price Gilbert Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Takayama’s research interests are diverse and motivated by clinical and biotechnology needs. He is always interested in hearing from stakeholders in these areas who are seeking engineering collaboration.

Professor, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
GRA Eminent Scholar, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Price Gilbert, Jr. Chair in Regenerative Engineering andMedicine
Phone
404.385.5722
Office
EBB 4018
Additional Research

Use of micro/nanofluidics for cell analysis; diagnostics; and chromatin analysis; High throughput 3D cell cultures; Organs-on-a-chip construction and design; Role of rhythm in cell signaling; Self-switching fluidic circuits; Fracture fabrication

IRI and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Matter and Systems > Affiliated Faculty
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Engineering > Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Research Areas
Matter and Systems
  • Human-Centric Technologies

Mark Styczynski

Mark Styczynski
mark.styczynski@chbe.gatech.edu

Mark Styczynski is an Associate Professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), doing research at the interface of synthetic and systems biology as applied to metabolic systems. His synthetic biology work focuses on the development of low-cost, minimal-equipment biosensors for the diagnosis of nutritional deficiencies in the developing world. His systems biology work uses computational and experimental methods to characterize metabolic dynamics and regulation using metabolomics data. He has received young investigator awards from the NSF, DARPA, and ORAU. He has won multiple department-and institute-level teaching awards at Georgia Tech. He founded and was the first president of the Metabolomics Association of North America (MANA), and is a Council Member in the Engineering BiologyResearch Consortium.

Professor
Phone
404-894-2825
Office
EBB 4013
Additional Research
Modelling and controlling metabolic dynamics and regulation (metabolic engineering). Biofuels. Systems biology-based experimental and bioinformatics analysis of metabolism Synthetic biology for the development of biosensors and diagnostics The main focus of theStyczynski groupis the experimental and computational study of the dynamics and regulation of metabolism, with ultIMaTe applications in metabolic engineering, biotechnology, and biosensors/diagnostics.
IRI and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Energy > Research Community
Bioengineering and Bioscience
Energy
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Engineering > School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Terry Snell

Terry Snell
terry.snell@biosci.gatech.edu

Terry Snell, an Emeritus Professor in the School of Biological Sciences, is a member of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.

Professor Emeritus
Phone
404-385-4498
Office
Cherry Emerson 201
Additional Research
Chemical ecology of zooplankton; mate recognition; evolutionary ecology; aquatic toxicology; gene expression in response to environmental stress; aquaculture. 
IRI and Role
Bioengineering and Bioscience > Faculty
Bioengineering and Bioscience
University, College, and School/Department
Georgia Institute of Technology > College of Sciences > School of Biological Sciences