Struck by climbing suicide rates, third-year School of Biological Sciences major Collin Spencer organized the first Intercollegiate Mental Health Conference, which kicked off on Feb. 15, 2019. "Mental health is one of the most pressing issues for adolescents in the country right now," Spencer says.
Bulking up to avoid being eaten may have been one reason single-celled organisms joined to form multicellular entities. That’s one of the hypotheses to explain the transition to multicellularity in the early stages of life on Earth. How and why that transition occurred is one of the major questions in the story of how life began and evolved.
Georgia Tech researchers report evidence to support this hypothesis. Watching in real time, they observed how a single-celled alga became a multicellular organism in just 50 weeks after they introduced a predator. The study was published online on Feb. 20, 2019, in Scientific Reports.
“The study showed that small single-celled organisms can evolve to become larger multicellular organisms as a way to avoid being eaten,” says Matt Herron, a senior research scientist in the School of Biological Sciences and the study’s lead author.
“Nearly every living thing has to contend with the possibility of being a meal to others,” Herron says. Complex life forms have evolved various defenses to avoid becoming someone else's dinner – such as camouflage, speed, weapons, and chemical defenses. One way to avoid being eaten is to become too big for the predators. Among microbes, one way to get bigger is to form a group of cells – in other words, to become multicellular.
All multicellular organisms evolved from unicellular ancestors. But because the evolution occurred hundreds of millions of years ago, it’s hard to know how or why it happened. Experimental evolution allows researchers to watch evolutionary change as it occurs in real time in the laboratory.
“We grew some algae with predators and some without predators,” says William Ratcliff, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences and study coauthor. “After 50 weeks, we compared the two cultures. We found that some cultures grown with predators had become multicellular, but cultures grown without predators remained unicellular.”
“This could be a first step toward the kind of complex multicellularity we see in animals, plants, fungi, and seaweeds,” Herron says. “The multicellular algae that evolved in our experiment could be used to explore how they continue to evolve. For example, can these algae evolve a division of labor, with cells becoming specialized to perform different functions?”
Other authors from Georgia Tech are School of Biological Sciences Professor Frank Rosenzweig, postdoctoral researcher Kimberly Chen, technician Joshua Borin, and graduate students Jacob Boswell and Jillian Walker. Other coauthors are Charles Knox and Margarethe Boyd, of the University of Montana, Missoula.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Packard Foundation, and the John Templeton Foundation.
Figure Caption
Depiction of algal life cycles after evolution with (B, C, and D) or without (A) predators for 50 weeks. D shows a fully multicellular life cycle, with multicellular clusters releasing multicellular propagules. (Credit: Scientific Reports)
By Brent Verrill, Communications Manager, Brent Byer Institute for Sustainable Systems
Twenty-three Georgia Tech undergraduate students have been selected for the second class of Sustainable Undergraduate Research Fellows (SURF). Among them are Kathryn McCarthy, School of Biological Sciences; Shivan Mittal, School of Physics; and Gigi Pavur, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
McCarthy and Mittal are among the 20 new fellows. Pavur is among the three who are returning from the previous year of the program.
The fellows represent all six colleges at Georgia Tech and were selected from a highly qualified and competitive field of students.
- William Abdallah, Industrial Engineering
- Joseph Buehler, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Leo Chen (returning), Computer Science
- Anielle Duritza, Environmental Engineering
- Kian Halim (returning), Computational Media
- Kyte Harvey, Mechanical Engineering
- Connor Hawley, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
- Chloe Kiernicki, Architecture
- Elizabeth Krakovski, Public Policy
- Micah Landwermeyer, Materials Science and Engineering
- Matthew Lim, Computer Engineering
- Farouk Marhaba, Computer Science
- Kat Matthews, Business
- Kathryn McCarthy, Biological Sciences
- Shivan Mittal, Physics
- Christi Nakajima, Public Policy
- Gigi Pavur (returning), Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
- Leah Claire Nofsinger, Materials Science and Engineering
- Ashlyn Sasser, Industrial Design
- Alexandra Schultz, Chemical Engineering
- Ranal Apeksha Tudawe, Mechanical Engineering
- Jeniveve Vaia, Material Science and Engineering
- Eliya Olivia Wagner, Environmental Engineering
The research fellows, who are paid, are developing prototypes of interactive building-monitoring systems that convey the unique elements, qualities, and performance of the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design, which is under construction. The systems will also monitor the behaviors that the buiding engenders among its occupants and visitors.
Through SURF, the students will learn about sustainability, systems thinking, and how to apply these principles to the Georgia Tech Living Building. Their work is facilitated by Michael Chang, deputy director of the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems.
As a building coordinator for the School of Biological Sciences, Lyubomir “Lyubo” Lichev takes care of the facility, but more importantly, he takes care of people.
Every workday is different, he said, but each begins at 7 a.m. with a walk through the Cherry Emerson Building to ensure everything is in place from the previous night and ready for the new day.
“Building Coordinator 1 is a very diverse job,” Lichev said. “I handle small things like issuing keys to lab members and putting fuel into the vehicles, to bigger projects like taking inventory of equipment and handling the disposal of old equipment.”
He said he likes helping professors fill their day-to-day needs in the lab, and it’s a rewarding feeling to know that he made someone’s day brighter. He also likes interacting with new people as he does his work.
“The School of Biological Sciences is a big school, so I meet new faces every day,” said Lichev, who is also an industrial and systems engineering Tech student. “It makes an interesting conversation when I meet classmates outside the classroom while working.”
Lichev grew up in Bulgaria and earned a bachelor’s degree in manufacturing engineering from the Technical University of Sofia in 2008. He moved to the United States 10 years ago at age 22, leaving his entire family in Bulgaria. Only three of his classes from Bulgaria were transferable to the U.S., so he effectively had to start college again. In 2017, he earned an associate’s degree in engineering from Georgia State University – Perimeter College. He’s currently a part-time Tech student in his third year.
“The industrial engineering degree I’m pursuing at Tech is a natural follow-up to the manufacturing degree I earned in Bulgaria,” he said. “To me, the industrial engineering degree here shows how a business runs and how we can make it run better. It is very versatile and is the right one for me. I want to see it through.”
Lichev said that after graduating he would like to keep working at Georgia Tech, perhaps as an in-house consultant who examines a unit and identifies ways to help it work more efficiently.
“I know I’m a few years from graduation, and things change,” he said, “but I can see myself retiring from the Institute.”
Lichev said he enjoys being an employee and a student, and he encourages others to do the same through the Tuition Assistance Program.
“I would like to see more of my colleagues take classes,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be at Georgia Tech. As long as the school is in the University System of Georgia, they can access the benefits.”
Away from Work
Lichev’s job, classes, and homework leave him with little time for hobbies.
“When I’m not working or doing schoolwork, the thing I enjoy best is sleep. I know a lot of Tech students can relate to that,” he said. “After graduation, I will develop some hobbies. For now, sleep is my best friend.”
He keeps in touch with his family in Bulgaria through weekly video chats. He said that because of the seven-hour time difference, finding a good time for everyone to talk can be tricky.
His most recent trip to Bulgaria was Christmas 2018. Before then, he hadn’t been there since 2014 when he made a surprise visit on his father’s 50th birthday.
“I’m not going to wait another four years before I go back,” he said. “If I can, I’ll go back this year.”
Promising research toward what could become the first simple and accurate test for the early detection of ovarian cancer could be validated – and expanded – thanks to a significant grant from the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
If validated, the general technique for the work could also have a variety of other applications. “In my dream world, a single blood test could be used to screen for multiple diseases,” said John McDonald, the leader of the research and a professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Ovarian cancer is especially dangerous because women often don’t show symptoms until the disease is in an advanced stage and difficult to treat. In contrast, when caught early “about 94 percent of patients live longer than five years after diagnosis,” according to the American Cancer Society.
The problem is that there is no good test for detecting the disease at an early stage.
About seven years ago McDonald and colleagues decided to see if they could change that by merging the disparate disciplines of biology, analytical chemistry and computer science. “Bringing the computer into it was novel at the time,” said McDonald, who is also director of Georgia Tech’s Integrated Cancer Research Center.
His Georgia Tech collaborators on the initial work were Professor Facundo Fernández, the Vasser Woolley Foundation Chair in Bioanalytical Chemistry, and Alex Gray, an assistant professor of computer science (Gray has since left Georgia Tech to become VP for Artificial Intelligence Science at IBM). They were joined by clinical consultant Dr. Benedict Benigno, a gynecological oncologist and CEO of the Ovarian Cancer Institute in Atlanta.
Promising Results
The researchers initially analyzed blood samples from 49 healthy women and 46 with early-stage ovarian cancer. They specifically focused on metabolites in those samples. Metabolites are molecules like fatty acids that our cells produce through enzymatic reactions.
In the molecular equivalent of finding needles in a haystack, they proceeded to analyze some 40,000 metabolites to see if there were any associated with the cancer patients that differed from those in samples from the healthy women. These could be biomarkers for the disease; molecules to screen for in an annual test.
Through a variety of techniques, the team first pared down the original thousands of metabolites to a collection of 255 candidate biomarkers. They then applied machine learning to that set, asking the computer to find any metabolites that were over- or under-expressed in the cancer samples.
“That’s what machine learning is all about,” McDonald said. “The computer is simply looking for correlations in very large data sets, then it comes back to you with what it has found.”
In 2015 the team reported in the journal Scientific Reports the discovery of 16 metabolites that could distinguish women with ovarian cancer from those without the disease with 100 percent accuracy. “Basically we modeled the face of cancer at the metabolic level,” McDonald said.
Moving Forward
With the new $100,000 grant, the researchers hope to validate their earlier work with samples from some 1,000 women, as compared to the roughly 100 they originally studied. The new study will also include samples from a much more diverse set of women (the original samples were from Caucasian women).
They also aim to expand the work to look for biomarkers associated with different types of ovarian cancer. “We want to be able to distinguish between a Type II cancer with high malignant potential – one that’s highly likely to spread outside the ovary – and a Type I with low malignant potential. A cancer with high malignant potential you’d want to treat right away, while a cancer with low malignant potential might not require immediate surgery,” McDonald said.
In conclusion, McDonald said, “it’s exciting because the initial results look like [our approach] might work.”
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The annual Clough Art Crawl, a juried, multi-media exhibition of student art inspired by the connection between artistic expression and the world of science, opens Thursday, March 14 and features the exhibition of visual art, literary pieces, and performance pieces.
More than 150 works by Georgia Tech graduate and undergraduate students will be on display at Clough Commons starting at 4 pm, and then the evening continues at 6 pm at the Ferst Center for the Arts with performances by student groups including GT Salsa Club, Taal Tadka, Infinite Harmony and more, with a light reception.
As an added bonus, the opening night at the Ferst Center will feature demonstrations by four innovative Georgia Tech student project teams as they prepare to take part in the 2019 ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival in Washington, DC this April.
The visual, digital, structural, and literary art works will be exhibited through July at Clough Commons and feature works of art that are inspired by the connection between artistic expression and the world of science. In addition to the artwork created independently by students, included in this year’s Art Crawl are artworks developed as part of three programmatic initiatives at Tech:
- International Year of the Periodic Table: In conjunction with the Georgia Tech College of Sciences and the year-long celebration of the International Year of the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements, a special section of the CAC will be devoted to art inspired by the periodic table or a chemical element.
- S.A.W.: Science.Art.Wonder is a Georgia Tech student organization that develops art projects based on research currently conducted at Tech and at Emory University. S.A.W. recruits artists (Tech students, faculty, or staff) to create art based on a paired research lab's work.
- Creative Curricular Initiatives: Creative Curricular Initiatives is a program of the Georgia Tech Office of the Arts dedicated to the idea that nurturing students' artistic sensibilities and exposing students to artistic process is essential to developing creativity and innovation. The Art Crawl will include works from three projects that received CCI funding: 1) “Interpretations of Sustainable Business” is a collaborative art project under the direction of Dr. Jennifer Lux, writer and editor for the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business. Created by 23 Georgia Tech faculty, staff, students, and alumni., each piece in the 4’ x 5’ artwork relates to environmental sustainability or social dimensions of sustainability; 2) “Like Picasso and Einstein: lines, forms and dimensions” is a gallery exhibition that takes you to the intersection of art and science through student artwork from the Georgia Tech course CEE 8813. A graduate class developed by Dr. Francesco Fedele, this course introduced students to the geometry of space and manifolds, and how these concepts influenced modern arts and sciences; 3) “Shape Machine” is an exhibition of modular printed mylar pieces created by the students of Shape Grammars, the ARCH 4508 class developed by Dr. Athanassios Economou. Students explored fundamentals of spatial and visual composition through a new interactive software, Shape Machine, developed at the Shape Computation Lab at the School of Architecture.
After review by a jury of faculty and staff, winners will receive prizes in each of the categories of visual, digital, structural, literary and performance art; the College of Sciences will also present awards for the top submissions in the special section on the periodic table. Those who view the exhibit at Clough can also vote on a People’s Choice Award. Winners will be announced on March 25.
The annual Art Crawl now runs in the Spring and Fall semesters. Each Art Crawl will have a new theme to inspire student artists and to shape the exhibition. The next Art Crawl will be open for submissions in early fall 2019.
The Clough Art Crawl is coordinated by the Georgia Tech Office of the Arts in partnership with the Georgia Tech Library. For more information please contact info@arts.gatech.edu.
The American Academy of Microbiology (AAM) has elected 109 new fellows in 2019. Among them are Joel Kostka and Joshua Weitz.
Kostka is a professor in the Schools of Biological Sciences and of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Weitz is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences. Both are members of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.
AAM is an honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). Fellows of the AAM are elected annually through a selective, peer-review process, based on records of scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced microbiology.
The election of Kostka as AAM fellow comes shortly after another high recognition of his contributions to microbiology. In 2018, he was named Distinguished Lecturer by ASM. In this capacity, Kostka speaks at ASM branch meetings throughout the U.S. His visits provide opportunities for students and early-career research microbiologists to interact with prominent scientists.
Kostka is well-known for his research in environmental microbiology. His lab characterizes the role of microorganisms in the functioning of ecosystems, especially in the context of bioremediation and climate change. He is co-principal investigator of C-IMAGE-III. This consortium is funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to study the environmental consequences of the release of petroleum hydrocarbons on living marine resources and ecosystem health.
Weitz holds courtesy appointments in the Schools of Physics and of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is also the founding director of Georgia Tech’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences, a Simons Foundation Investigator in Ocean Processes and Ecology, and author of an award-winning book on quantitative viral ecology.
"I'm grateful for the recognition and excited to continue our ongoing, collaborative efforts to understand the role of ecology and evolution in shaping microbial and viral life," Weitz says.
Weitz’s research focuses on the interactions between viruses and their microbial hosts, that is, the viral infections of microbial life. Weitz is motivated by seemingly simple questions: What happens to a microbe when it is infected by a virus? How do infections of single cells translate into population- and system-wide consequences?
AAM fellows represent all subspecialties of the microbial sciences and are involved in basic and applied research, teaching, public health, industry, or government service. They hail from all around the globe. Kostka and Weitz join fellows from France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Israel, Korea, Taiwan, and China.
By Laura Mast, Contributing Writer
A unique treat awaits fans at the Yellow Jackets’ Jan. 22 men’s basketball home game. The Georgia Tech team will battle Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish for the hoops amid element cards, games, and prizes to celebrate 2019, the International Year of the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements.
Born 150 years ago, the periodic table is one of the most important and recognizable tools of science. To celebrate the table’s staying power, the United Nations proclaimed 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements.
At Georgia Tech, the College of Sciences is leading an all-year-round celebration, #IYPT2019GT. It has partnered with other units to engage students, faculty, and staff in reconnecting with the periodic table, through athletics, art, and academics.
Kicking off the celebration is “The Periodic Table at Georgia Tech vs Notre Dame” men’s basketball match on Jan. 22. Partnering with Georgia Tech Athletics, the College of Sciences will bring #IYPT2019GT to McCamish Pavilion. Fans will have a chance to play games with the periodic table and element cards featuring the Yellow Jackets basketball team and Georgia Tech researchers. Prizes await lucky winners.
"This kick-off event for Georgia Tech's year-long celebration of the periodic table is a great opportunity to bring chemistry to the public's attention and to illustrate its relevance to all of us – scientists, sports fans, and athletes," says David Collard, the College of Sciences' interim dean.
“Georgia Tech Athletics is proud to partner with the College of Sciences to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the periodic table of elements,” Director Todd Stansbury says. “Such a collaboration is uniquely ‘Georgia Tech,’ as we offer our student-athletes the opportunity to compete at the highest level of collegiate athletics, while they receive an education at one of the nation’s leading research universities. We celebrate this combination, as it has proven to produce young people who change the world.”
Brief History of the Periodic Table
Using a set of notecards à la classic card game solitaire, Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev sorted and resorted the cards, each representing one element, trying to find a pattern using the elements’ weights and properties. He cracked the code after several sleepless days.
For decades before Mendeleev, scientists had been searching for patterns in the elements. Many other arrangements had been proposed, including one cylindrical design. Mendeleev succeeded where others failed – his table correctly placed more elements than any other.
Critically, too, Mendeleev’s table left gaps for elements yet to be discovered. His table included just over 50 elements, and it wasn’t imminently clear: Were there more elements? How many?
As we now know, many more elements came to light. Thanks to those empty spaces, Mendeleev’s powerful theoretical tool predicted newcomers with startling success. His spot-on predictions of hypothetical elements’ basic properties – atomic mass, atomic number, and reactivity – guided researchers into discovering new elements.
Major changes to Mendeleev’s design occurred as more elements were discovered. For example, the discovery of the noble gases in the 1890s led to the addition of an entirely new column (also called a group). The lanthanides and actinides, those two rows (or periods) at the bottom, were placed below the existing table to retain its basic shape. The periodic table is still being updated to this day: elements 113, 115, 117, and 118 were added in November 2016.
#IYPT2019GT Activities and Events
Every week, the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry will highlight two elements in social media through videos and haikus. And every month, a student, faculty, or staff will expound on a favorite element in a short video.
The periodic table and chemical elements will be a topic in Georgia Tech’s GT 1000 and various Writing & Communication courses. Classes in the School of Music and the School of Industrial Design will use the periodic table as inspiration for projects. The 2019 Clough Art Crawl will have a special section and prizes for submissions inspired by the periodic table or chemical elements.
In February, the Frontiers in Science Lecture Series on the periodic table will commence. Lectures will explore topics from the origin of the chemical elements to the economic, societal, and geopolitical consequences of elements yet undiscovered or in scarce supply. Among the lecturers is bestselling author Sam Kean. His book “The Disappearing Spoon” reveals the periodic table as a treasure trove of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession.
Here is a partial list of events. Full information is available at periodictable.gatech.edu.
- January 22 The Periodic Table at Georgia Tech vs Notre Dame. Go Yellow Jackets!
- February
- Frontiers in Science: How the Universe Made the Elements
- Water, in Three Movements, Georgia Tech Laptop Orchestra, School of Music
- March
- Frontiers in Science: Celebrating Silicon: Its Success, Hidden History, and Next Act
- Periodic Table and the Chemical Elements in Clough Art Crawl
- Periodic Table and the Chemical Elements in Atlanta Science Festival Expo
- April
- Frontiers in Science: Mathematical Mysteries of the Periodic Table
- Frontiers in Science: The Periodic Table: A Treasure Trove of Passion, Adventure, Betrayal, and Obsession
- June
- Halloween in June: Periodic Table Costume Party and Variety Show
- August
- Chemical Element Scavenger Hunt
- September
- Frontiers in Science: The Elusive End of the Periodic Table: Why Chase It?
- October
- Frontiers in Science: Turning Sour, Bloated, and Out of Breath: Ocean Chemistry under Global Warming
- November
- Frontiers in Science, The Geopolitics of the Rare and Not-So-Rare Elements
- Periodic Table Celebration Exhibit
- December
- Periodic Table Celebration Exhibit
Keep up with #IYPT2019GT by checking periodictable.gatech.edu periodically. Follow the College of Sciences on Facebook and Twitter. We look forward to celebrating #IYPT2019GT with you!
Born 150 years ago, the periodic table is one of the most important and recognizable tools of science. To celebrate the table’s staying power, the United Nations proclaimed 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements — and Georgia Tech is joining the celebration.
Events will take place every month, beginning Tuesday, Jan. 22, at McCamish Pavilion during the men's basketball game against Notre Dame. Fans will have a chance to play games with the periodic table and element cards, win prizes, and enjoy nitrogen-frozen ice cream.
A few upcoming events are listed below — follow along for more at periodictable.gatech.edu.
Led by the College of Sciences, Georgia Tech launched its year-long celebration of 2019, the International Year of the Periodic Table (#IYPT2019), at the Jan. 22 men's basketball game against Notre Dame. The Yellow Jackets prevailed over the Fighting Irish, 63-61.
College of Sciences students, faculty, and staff distributed element cards and guided fans through the periodic table dart game. Scores of fans won periodic table mug beakers and T-shirts, as well as ScienceMatters card holders and sticky note pads. ScienceMatters is the College of Sciences' podcast. It's second season returns in the spring 2019 semester.
Also featured in the Jan. 22 game was biochemistry major and track star Jeanine Williams. At half-time, a video of Williams talking about her favorite element was broadcast on the McCamish jumbotron.
Get visual highlights from the #IYPT2019 kick-off from the video on the right.
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