*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************
Aniruddh Sarkar, Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Georgia Institute of Technology
"Spring 2020 NanoFANS (Focusing on Advanced Nanobio- Systems) program will be offered in a weekly webinar format during the month of May. The focus of this event will be “Nanotechnology in Infectious Diseases (Diagnostics/Therapeutics).”
In the current global pandemic situation, infectious diseases are the leading cause of mortality worldwide, with viruses such as, ebola, SARS-Cov, SARS-Cov-2 in particular, making global impact on healthcare and socio-economic development. The rapid development of drug resistance to currently available therapies and associated side effects leads to serious public health concern; hence, devising novel treatment strategies is of paramount importance. The application of nanotechnology in infectious diseases is fast-revolutionizing the biomedical field and the healthcare sector and has a potential to diagnose, treat and prevent diseases."
Abstract: Current worldwide challenges in scaling COVID19 diagnosis underscore the need for developing inexpensive point-of-care diagnostics for infectious diseases. The heterogeneity of the disease – a large number of mild or asymptomatic cases coupled with the rapid degradation in symptoms in some patients – pose a challenge for the healthcare system and emphasize the need for developing predictive biomarkers of disease severity. We are harnessing microscale technology to solve these challenges by developing devices for high-throughput discovery and inexpensive electronic detection of biomarkers. Here, I will present our progress with these approaches – in the context of Tuberculosis and other infectious diseases – and end by outlining our current work in applying them to COVID19 diagnosis and prognostic monitoring.
Bio: Aniruddh Sarkar is an Assistant Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University where he leads the Micro/Nano Bioelectronics Lab. He was earlier a Research Fellow at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard with research affiliations at Harvard Medical School and
at MIT. His research has evolved around the theme of exploiting unique physical phenomena that occur at the micrometer to nanometer length scales to develop devices and systems for solving various technological problems with a special focus on applications in biology and medicine. His earlier work, with Prof. Galit Alter (MGH/HMS) and Prof. Jongyoon Han (MIT), involved the development and application of microfabricated and nanofabricated devices to further the prevention, diagnosis and therapy of infectious diseases such as Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Biology at MIT, developing microfluidic tools for single-cell analysis. He received his bachelors and master’s degrees, both in Electrical Engineering at IIT Bombay.
Registration Link: https://tinyurl.com/nanofanswebinar
Event Address: Webinar link will be sent to all those registered prior to the event