Congratualtions to Dr. Leidong Mao for being elected into National Academy of Inventors
Three professors elected into National Academy of Inventors
(L to R) Leidong Mao, Christine Szymanski and Hitesh Handa
Christine Szymanski, Hitesh Handa and Leidong Mao were selected for their proven ability to invent and innovate
The National Academy of Inventors has selected three University of Georgia faculty as 2023 NAI Senior Members. NAI Senior Members are faculty, scientists and administrators selected for their proven ability to invent and innovate.
The UGA representatives of the 2023 class are Christine Szymanski, Hitesh Handa and Leidong Mao. With their selections, UGA now has 11 Senior Members overall.
“University of Georgia’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem is propelled forward by exactly the kinds of research performed in the labs of our three newest National Academy of Inventors Senior Members,” said Karen Burg, vice president for research. “We are proud of Drs. Handa, Mao and Szymanski not only for their benchwork but also for the efforts they’ve made to apply that work in addressing real-world problems. I congratulate them all on being selected as NAI Senior Members.”
Christine Szymanski
Szymanski is a professor, associate head of the Franklin College of Arts & Sciences Department of Microbiology and member of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center. She is a leading researcher in the areas of Campylobacter pathogenesis and microbial glycobiology. Her trailblazing efforts have laid the foundation for researchers in this field and are critical for the development of vaccines and therapeutics for animal and human health.
In addition to her research, Szymanski has been named inventor on six U.S.-issued patents, along with many issued foreign patents and numerous pending patents. Her patents have been licensed to seven companies for the development of interventions against bacterial infections. GlycoVaxyn, a specialist vaccine pharmaceutical company, was founded to leverage discoveries she made during her postdoctoral studies. The company was later purchased by GSK (formerly GlaxoSmithKline) for nearly $200 million. In 2013, Szymanski co-founded VaxAlta to develop glycoconjugate vaccines for human and animal health.
Leidong Mao
Mao is a professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering. He is a leading researcher in the field of nanoscale engineering, specifically in nanoscale magnetism and its application in biomedical devices.
In 2012, Mao received an NSF CAREER Award and in 2013 the Young Scientist Award from the 13th International Conference of Magnetic Fluids. He has 20 invention disclosures and has been named inventor on five U.S.-issued patents with multiple pending applications. Three of Mao’s patents are licensed to biomedical companies for the development of diagnostic and therapeutic devices. He has also founded his own startup company, FCS Technology, to commercialize his patented discoveries.
Hitesh Handa
Handa is an associate professor in the College of Engineering. His innovative translational research in biocompatible coatings for medical devices led to the development of materials that can decrease the morbidity, mortality and hospitalization costs associated with current medical devices, such as indwelling catheters, by reducing thrombosis and infection.
Handa has generated 28 invention disclosures, leading to six issued U.S. patents with 25 pending applications in the U.S. and elsewhere. Many of these inventions are licensed to his startup company, Nytricx, and are in preclinical development while seeking additional funding.
NAI Senior Members will be formally inducted at the NAI annual meeting on June 25-27 in Washington, D.C. A full list of NAI Senior members is available on the website.
It’s intended to strengthen public health response to infectious disease threats and support workforce development
The University of Georgia and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) in partnership with the Georgia Department of Public Health, have received a five-year, $17 million cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish a Pathogen Genomics Center of Excellence.
The center is intended to strengthen public health response to infectious disease threats and support public health workforce development.
The award is part of a $90 million investment by the CDC to build a network of centers in five states. Each Pathogen Genomics Center of Excellence (PGCoE) consists of a health department and one or more academic institutions.
The Georgia Department of Public Health will provide overall leadership and prioritization of center efforts. UGA will be leading the effort to translate new discoveries into usable data and interventions. GTRI will be leading the operations and implementation arm of the Georgia-based center.
Collectively, this work will be focused on transitioning innovations out of academia and into use at public health departments across the United States.
“We really are trying to learn about outbreak epidemiology, those population-scale processes that are impacting disease spread. Patterns of transmission that are really hard to observe,” said Justin Bahl, an associate professor with joint appointments in UGA’s College of Public Health and College of Veterinary Medicine. Bahl will be leading the project at UGA.
More data, better targeting
Molecular epidemiology uses genomic data to learn how pathogens like the SARS-CoV-2 virus move and infect people within populations. This work is what allows scientists to trace the origins of a virus strain and track its spread as it moves from place to place.
Bahl says that adding pathogen genomic data to traditional epidemiological surveillance could dramatically strengthen the public health workforce’s ability to prevent and mitigate local outbreaks.
“We’re going to be able to work closely with these departments of public health, connect the genetic data from the pathogens to the actual population characteristics. That provides information for those public health practitioners to direct their interventions,” he said.
Researchers from GTRI will support the data management, data analytics and information security needs of the center toward a goal of providing disease information in real-time to public health organizations at the local and state levels.
“We want to support public health departments in getting out ahead of pathogen trends,” said Rebecca Hutchins, chief engineer in GTRI’s Advanced Concepts Laboratory. “With COVID-19, we had to stand up new genomic sequencing and data analytics capabilities. In future infectious disease outbreaks, this center will allow us to pivot from a reactive mode – responding to what the virus is doing – to a more proactive mode aimed at quickly taking preventive measures.”
By facilitating ongoing collaborations, the network will help ensure that academic researchers, public health agencies and others involved in a pandemic response will have systems in place to share crucial information and apply consistent data-gathering techniques. Sampling and sequencing innovations developed at the center will be shared with other centers and public health agencies nationwide.
“The true measure of success for the Georgia-based Pathogen Genomics Center of Excellence will be the increased capabilities of public health departments across the United States to prevent and respond to infectious disease outbreaks,” said Hutchins.
Building on a deep foundation
“We have a very strong infectious disease research community here at UGA, especially with pathogen transmission modeling, and a lot of experience with integrating different types of data,” said Bahl. “There are probably not many other places that have the amount of expertise that’s here.”
This work will build on the innovative tools generated from UGA’s interdisciplinary infectious disease research centers, including the Center for Vaccines and Immunology, Center for Influenza Disease Emergence Research, and the Center for Ecology of Infectious Diseases.
“And now we have this center that is focused on taking all this wealth of information that we’ve generated and these new approaches and methodologies, and apply them at the population level, to inform public health response,” said Bahl.
This project, which will establish the Center for Applied Pathogen Epidemiology and Outbreak Response, is the fourth major funding investment the university has received in the past five years.
Bahl is optimistic that this investment in pathogen genomics will create more pathways for data sharing among scientists and practitioners and enhance genomic surveillance nationwide.
“We’re active, and we’re trying to learn more, translate more to the public health labs and be better prepared collectively to respond to these new threats,” said Bahl. “This investment is about trying to strengthen partnerships with public health. We’re part of that effort, building up public health across the board.”
The team
Team members include Tonia Parrott at the Georgia Department of Public Health and Amy Winter, Erin Lipp, Travis Glenn, Magdy Alabady, Liang Liu, Pej Rohani, Susan Sanchez, Mandev Gill and John Drake from UGA. They will be joined by Rebecca Hutchins and True Merrill at GTRI. The network across Georgia also includes researchers from Emory University, Georgia State University and Augusta University Medical College of Georgia.
