Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology received a $4.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) BRAIN Initiative to establish a center to make and globally distribute next-generation micro-technologies for neuroscience. The funds will be awarded over a five-year period.

The Center for Advanced Motor BioEngineering and Research will make cutting-edge biosensors that were developed jointly by the two universities, disseminate them to neuroscientists across the country and around the world, and provide training and other resources for how to use the biosensors to explore a range of research questions.

Co-principal investigators for the project are Samuel Sober, Emory associate professor of biology, and Muhannad Bakir, Georgia Tech professor of electrical and computer engineering.

“Our technology allows you to see data that was invisible before — the electrical signals that single neurons in the spinal cord send to muscles all over the body during complex movements,” Sober says. “This information is like the missing link for trying to understand how the brain controls behavior.”

“The potential to develop new microscale technologies — with advances commonly used in semiconductor chip manufacturing — to enable scientific and medical discoveries in neuroscience is incredibly motivating,” Bakir adds. “It’s the inspiration driving this project.”

The NIH Brain Research Through Advancing Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is aimed at revolutionizing understanding of the human brain. The five-year grant awarded to Emory and Georgia Tech is part of the BRAIN Initiative’s U24 Program, which supports projects to broadly disseminate validated tools and resources for neuroscience research.

Joining the power of two universities
 

Sober and Bakir combined the expertise of their labs to develop their breakthrough technology — biosensors that precisely record electrical signals from the nervous system to muscles that control movement.

Sober works at the forefront of describing the computational signals that the brain uses to control muscles. He’s particularly interested in how the brain learns, or relearns, motor skills — for example, in a recovering stroke patient.

Currently, clinicians use electromyography, or EMG, as a tool to diagnose the health of muscles and the motor neurons that control them. EMG typically involves the use of a tiny wire, or electrode, inserted into a muscle to record the electrical activity in the muscles.

Sober wanted a much finer resolution of data and more practical methods for his research on how the brain activates and controls muscles in songbirds as they learn to sing. He needed devices tiny enough to implant in the birds’ vocal cords. The devices also needed flexibility and strength to bend with the movement of a muscle without breaking. And each had to contain an array of gold electrodes to gather high-resolution data.

Enter Bakir, who works at the frontier of flexible electronics.

The unique collaboration between the two researchers allowed them to forge new scientific territory. “We leveraged state-of-the art microfabrication tools to solve a problem deeply rooted in the life sciences,” Bakir says.

A tiny device delivers big-picture insights
 

The researchers’ teams developed flexible electrode arrays that include microscopic 3D contacts for recording muscle activity. Each microarray includes one or more threads, about the width of a human hair. The devices are so tiny that they can be sewn into a muscle like a suture thread or even loaded into a syringe and injected into the muscle, making them minimally invasive. An earlier version of these technologies was developed in the Georgia Tech PhD work of Muneeb Zia, who is currently a Georgia Tech research faculty member.

They dubbed the new devices “Myomatrix arrays,” incorporating the Greek work “myo” for muscle. The high-tech biosensors allow researchers for the first time to record high-resolution data across large groups of muscles simultaneously while subjects perform complex behaviors.

To help test and refine the devices, the researchers have already given them to more than 100 different labs in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia where they have been used to explore neuroscience questions in a variety of species — from the crawling muscles in a caterpillar to the locomotion of a mouse leg and the reaching movements of a monkey’s arm.

Setting the stage for clinical use
 

Comparing data from across species will help speed discoveries of the normal functioning of the neuromuscular system. That sets the stage for the Myomatrix arrays to become a valuable tool in clinical settings.

The researchers recently completed initial experiments with the biosensors in healthy humans, marking another major step forward.

The devices may eventually enable doctors to diagnose a neurogenerative disease earlier so that interventions can start sooner. The sensitivity of the Myomatrix arrays could also potentially measure any improvement a patient may experience after taking a drug or other therapy.

The BRAIN Initiative grant will allow the researchers to disseminate the technology to even more labs to do longer-term studies.

“A lot of times when new scientific technology gets developed it can be jealously guarded by the inventors for years,” notes Sober. “One of the big impacts of this technology is that we’ve already been giving it away as much as possible in an open-science way. And that’s helped us in turn to keep improving the technology because we are getting so much feedback.”

The Georgia Tech team will continue to fabricate and package the Myomatrix arrays using advanced microelectronic technologies in special “cleanrooms” where the air is purified to such extreme levels that the number of dust particles in the environment can be counted.

A global educational component 

The Emory team will continue to work on assembling and testing the devices, in addition to training users from around the world in the use of technology via Zoom meetings and in-person sessions.

“This project is not just about making and disseminating the devices; it’s also a teaching mission with a big educational component,” Sober says. “We believe that this technology is going to have a major impact on the field of motor neuroscience.”

The project members will work with the NIH to ensure that the devices are distributed to a diverse range of users, institutions and research areas, consistent with the BRAIN Initiative’s goal to make the latest neuroscience tools more broadly accessible.

“We’ll be serving scientific communities that historically have not had access to such technologies or manufacturing capabilities,” Bakir says. “Emory and Georgia Tech are opening the doors to our facilities and to our expertise so that anyone who works in motor neuroscience can access and leverage these new devices, which require hundreds of millions of dollars to build and equip. This democratization of the technology will help to advance motor neuroscience at a more rapid pace.”

This story was originally published by Emory University. Check out their article here.

Photo Caption
Co-principal investigators for the project are (left) Samuel Sober, Emory associate professor of biology, and Muhannad Bakir, Georgia Tech professor of electrical and computer engineering. They combined the expertise of their labs to develop their breakthrough technology.

— Ann Watson, Emory Photo/Video

The Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN) at Georgia Tech has announced the Spring 2023 Core Facility Seed Grant winners. The primary purpose of this program is to give first- and second-year graduate students in diverse disciplines working on original and unfunded research in micro- and nanoscale projects the opportunity to access the most advanced academic cleanroom space in the Southeast. In addition to accessing the labs' high-level fabrication, lithography, and characterization tools, the awardees will have the opportunity to gain proficiency in cleanroom and tool methodology and access the consultation services provided by research staff members in IEN. Seed Grant awardees are also provided travel support to present their research at a scientific conference.

In addition to student research skill development, this biannual grant program gives faculty with novel research topics the ability to develop preliminary data to pursue follow-up funding sources. The Core Facility Seed Grant program is supported by the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor (SENIC), a member of the National Science Foundation’s National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI).

Since the start of the grant program in 2014, 86 projects from ten different schools in Georgia Tech’s Colleges of Engineering and Science, as well as the Georgia Tech Research Institute and three other universities, have been seeded.

The four winning projects in this round were awarded IEN cleanroom and lab access time to be used over the next year. In keeping with the interdisciplinary mission of IEN, the projects that will be enabled by the grants include research in biomedical devices, nuclear engineering, phase change materials, and environmental engineering.

The Spring 2023 IEN Core Facility Seed Grant Award winners are:

Direct Lithography Micro-Optic 3D Lightfield Endoscope Module
PI: Shu Jia
Student: Corey Zheng
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Organic Copolymer Semiconductor for Direct Detection of Ionizing Radiation
PI: Anna Erickson
Student: Shae Cole
George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering (Nuclear and Radiological Engineering Program)

Investigating Phase Transformations in 2D Materials via in situ TEM Biasing Experiments
PI: Josh Kacher
Student: Alex Butler
School of Materials Science and Engineering

Development of Interdigitated Electrodes-Based Antimicrobial Surfaces to Prevent Biofilms
PI: Xing Xie
Student: Feifei Liu
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

The Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor, a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, is funded by NSF Grant ECCS-2025462.

Effective immediately, Michael Filler will serve as interim executive director of the Georgia Tech Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN). Filler is a professor and the Traylor Faculty Fellow in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and he has served as IEN’s associate director for research programs since January 2022.

“As a leader in the field of scalable electronics manufacturing, and having served as associate director of IEN, Professor Filler is in an excellent position to take on this new role,” said Julia Kubanek, professor and vice president for interdisciplinary research at Georgia Tech. “He will lead IEN in continuing to support Georgia Tech faculty pursuing microelectronics and nanotechnology-sponsored research programs and collaborations. This is especially important right now given current CHIPS Act-related funding and workforce development opportunities.”

As associate director of research programs, Filler nurtured research opportunities aligned with Georgia Tech’s Strategic Plan and the Research Next missions and goals; catalyzed new interdisciplinary research communities in the area of electronics and nanotechnology; managed the portfolio of interdisciplinary research centers and programs associated with IEN; and developed strategies for industry engagement with IEN and its centers and programs.

Filler succeeds Oliver Brand who tragically passed away in April 2023 after serving as IEN’s executive director for more than a decade. During Brand’s tenure as executive director, IEN expanded its core facilities and research programs and grew to include more than 200 faculty members at Georgia Tech from multiple colleges and schools. Brand was also instrumental in securing the coordinating office for the NSF-supported National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure at Georgia Tech.

“I’m humbled and honored to take the helm of IEN at this critical time,” said Filler. “I step into this role with profound respect for the talent, dedication, and excellence of the IEN staff, faculty, and students. I am not only committed to furthering Oliver’s legacy but also capitalizing on the opportunities brought by the CHIPS Act to support the campus community and shape the future of electronics and nanotechnology."

Filler’s research focuses on the synthesis, understanding, and manufacturing of semiconductor nanowire materials and devices to enable “hyper-scalable” electronic systems. Prior to joining the IEN leadership team, Filler co-directed the Community for Research on Active Surfaces and Interfaces (CRASI) as well as the Computational Skins for Multifunctional Objects and Systems (COSMOS) research programs.

Filler earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Cornell University and Stanford University, respectively, prior to completing postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology. He has been recognized for his research and teaching with the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award, CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, and as a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Environmental Chemistry Mentor.