For his work creating new kinds of drug delivery techniques and bringing those technologies to patients, Mark Prausnitz is one of the new members of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).

The Academy announced his election Oct. 21 alongside 99 others. Membership in NAM is considered one of the highest recognitions in health and medicine, reserved for those who’ve made major contributions to healthcare, medical sciences, and public health. The roster is small: only 2,400 or so individuals have been honored.

“It’s an honor to be elected to the National Academy of Medicine and have the work of our team at Georgia Tech recognized in this way,” said Prausnitz, Regents’ Professor and J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

The Academy cited Prausnitz for innovating microneedle and other advanced drug delivery technologies. He also was honored for translating those methods and devices into clinical trials and products and founding companies to bring the advances to patients. NAM praised Prausnitz for “inspiring students to be creative and impactful engineers.”

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

It was a full house in Georgia Tech’s Marcus Nanotechnology Building for the Oliver Brand Memorial Lectureship on Electronics and Nanotechnology on October 15, 2024. The lecture was presented by Michael Strano, Carbon C. Dubs professor of chemical engineering at MIT, on nanoelectronics grafted onto and within colloids for colloidal state machines and micro-robots.

“We have gathered today to remember a remarkable individual, Professor Oliver Brand, and his contributions to Georgia Tech and to the field of electronics and nanotechnology,” said Michael Filler, Institute for Matter and Systems deputy director. 

“Beyond his academic success, Oliver was a mentor, a colleague, and a friend,” Filler added. “He was known for his sharp mind, his gentle style, and his unwavering support for those around him. His ability to foster collaboration has left an indelible mark on the community, near and far.”

Strano’s talk was the second annual lecture in honor of Brand who served as executive director of the Georgia Tech Institute of Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN) from 2014 - 2023.

While he never worked directly with Brand, Strano emphasized Brand’s impact in the field of electronics and nanotechnology as well as his impact during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I can’t say anything better than what Oliver’s colleagues have already said,” said Strano. “They said he was a pioneer and described him as trans-disciplinary and had an enormous impact. Few can match the magnitude of his influence on campus and during the pandemic.”

Strano highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary work, which is necessary to create anything on the nanoscale, with emphasis on his team’s work creating nanoelectronics for micro-robotics. Strano, a chemical engineer, mentioned multiple times that his work — creating nanoscale electronics — would not exist without collaborating with electrical engineers. 

Brand, who died in 2023, as a legacy that lives on through interdisciplinary research at Georgia Tech. He spent more than 20 years as a member of the Institute’s faculty. In addition to leading IEN, he was a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, director of the Coordinating Office for the NSF-funded National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), and director of the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor, one of the 16 NNCI sites.

Brand united researchers in the fields of electronics and nanotechnology, fostering collaboration and expanding IEN to include more than 200 faculty members. In addition to his respected work in the field of microelectromechanical systems, he is remembered for his kindness, dedication, and unwavering support for all who knew him.

If you’ve ever watched a large flock of birds on the wing, moving across the sky like a cloud with various shapes and directional changes appearing from seeming chaos, or the maneuvers of an ant colony forming bridges and rafts to escape floods, you’ve been observing what scientists call self-organization. What may not be as obvious is that self-organization occurs throughout the natural world, including bacterial colonies, protein complexes, and hybrid materials. Understanding and predicting self-organization, especially in systems that are out of equilibrium, like living things, is an enduring goal of statistical physics.

This goal is the motivation behind a recently introduced principle of physics called rattling, which posits that systems with sufficiently “messy” dynamics organize into what researchers refer to as low rattling states. Although the principle has proved accurate for systems of robot swarms, it has been too vague to be more broadly tested, and it has been unclear exactly why it works and to what other systems it should apply.

Dana Randall, a professor in the School of Computer Science, and Jacob Calvert, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Data Engineering and Science, have formulated a theory of rattling that answers these fundamental questions. Their paper, “A Local-Global Principle for Nonequilibrium Steady States,” published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, characterizes how rattling is related to the amount of time that a system spends in a state. Their theory further identifies the classes of systems for which rattling explains self-organization.

When we first heard about rattling from physicists, it was very hard to believe it could be true. Our work grew out of a desire to understand it ourselves. We found that the idea at its core is surprisingly simple and holds even more broadly than the physicists guessed.

Dana Randall  Professor, School of Computer Science & Adjunct Professor, School of Mathematics 
Georgia Institute of Technology 

Beyond its basic scientific importance, the work can be put to immediate use to analyze models of phenomena across scientific domains. Additionally, experimentalists seeking organization within a nonequilibrium system may be able to induce low rattling states to achieve their desired goal. The duo thinks the work will be valuable in designing microparticles, robotic swarms, and new materials. It may also provide new ways to analyze and predict collective behaviors in biological systems at the micro and nanoscale.

The preceding material is based on work supported by the Army Research Office under award ARO MURI Award W911NF-19-1-0233 and by the National Science Foundation under grant CCF-2106687. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsoring agencies.

Jacob Calvert and Dana Randall. A local-global principle for nonequilibrium steady states. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(42):e2411731121, 2024.

A newly designed soil-powered fuel cell that could provide a sustainable alternative to batteries was recognized as an honorable mention in the annual Fast Company Innovation by Design Awards.

Terracell is roughly the size of a paperback book and uses microbes found in soil to generate energy for low-power applications. 

Previous designs for soil microbial fuel cells required water submergence or saturated soil. Terracell can function in soil with a volumetric water content of 42%

Terracell placed in Fast Company’s list of the best sustainability-focused designs of 2024.

Researchers at Northwestern University lead the multi-institution research team that designed Terracell.

Josiah Hester, an associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing who previously worked at Northwestern, directs the Ka Moamoa Lab, where the project was conceived. 

The team includes researchers from Northwestern, Georgia Tech, Stanford, the University of California-San Diego, and the University of California-Santa Cruz.

Their research was published in January in the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technologies. The researchers will also present this work at the ACM international joint conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp), Oct. 5-9.

According to the Fast Company website, the Innovation by Design Awards recognize “designers and businesses solving the most crucial problems of today and anticipating the pressing issues of tomorrow.” Winners are published in Fast Company Magazine and are honored at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in the fall.

“Terracell could reduce e-waste and extend the useful lifetime of electronics deployed for agriculture, environmental monitoring, and smart cities,” Hester said. “We were honored to be recognized for the design innovation award. It is a testament to the promise of sustainable computing and our hope for a more sustainable world.”

For more information about Terracell, see the story featured on Northwestern Now, or visit the project’s website.

Whether it’s developing new products, reducing costs, or increasing accessibility, innovations in manufacturing stand to improve the lives of companies and consumers alike. Georgia Tech recently took another step toward ensuring those innovations make it from lab to market with the launch of a Modular Pilot Scale Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing Facility. 

“As researchers develop new materials, one of the key aspects we’re missing is how to make them at scale. This is a major oversight because if we can’t make them at scale, we can’t transition from basic research to commercialization,” said Tequila Harris, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. “With this new facility, we can prove our discoveries beyond lab-scale studies — and can go from materials innovation to product development at scale.”

Led by Harris, the new facility is the result of a partnership between the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute(GTMI), the Strategic Energy Institute, and the Woodruff School. As a pilot facility, it will serve as a testbed for scaling up manufacturing research open for Georgia Tech researchers as well as academic, government, and industry partners around the world.

“The larger vision I see at Georgia Tech involves innovation in manufacturing for large-scale industries,” said Georgia Tech’s Interim Executive Vice President for Research Tim Lieuwen at the facility’s unveiling event on Sept. 19. “It’s crucial that we’re innovating in basic science and technology, but we also need to be innovating in large-scale manufacturing.”

Roll-to-roll (R2R) manufacturing transforms flexible rolls of substrate materials, such as paper, metal foils, and plastics, into more complex, transportable rolls upon coating the surface with one or more fluids, such as inks, suspensions, and solutions, which are subsequently dried or cured on the base substrate. Its high yield and efficiency make R2R an ideal method for the sustainable, large-scale production of components for solar cells, batteries, flexible electronics, and separations — all industries that have expanded in Georgia in recent years.

“As a state institution, we’re ultimately here to serve our state,” said Lieuwen, who is also Regents’ Professor and David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. “We’re seeing Georgia emerge as the national leader in terms of recruiting corporate investments in this space and in industries that will be served by this facility.”

Roll-to-Roll Innovations

The R2R process is similar to the production of newspapers, where a large roll of blank paper goes through a series of rollers printing text and photos. “The roll-to-roll aspect is the process of using a specialized tool to force fluid onto a moving surface,” says Harris. It’s one of the fastest-growing methods for producing thin film materials — photovoltaics used in solar cells, transistors in flexible electronics, and micro-batteries, for example — at a large scale. 

Harris’s group works to develop novel manufacturing tools, with a particular focus on understanding and improving the dynamics of thin film manufacturing to increase efficiency and minimize waste. Her group is particularly interested in slot die coating, an R2R technique where a liquid material is precisely deposited onto a substrate through a narrow slot. With the new pilot facility, researchers like Harris will be able to take their work to the next level.

“Slot die coating on a roll-to-roll can handle the broadest viscosity range of most coating methods. Therefore, you can process a lot of different materials very quickly and easily,” says Harris. “It’s one of the fastest-growing technologies in the U.S. — and currently, this is the most advanced modular pilot scale facility at an academic university in the United States.”

“Georgia Tech is way ahead of the curve in terms of our facilities,” says GTMI Executive Director and Regents’ Professor Thomas Kurfess. “This will grow our capability in the battery area, membranes, flexible electronics, and more to allow us to support the development of new technologies.”

“As technologies around cleantech continue to advance at an unprecedented pace, pilot manufacturing facilities provide a critical bridge between innovative benchtop research and commercial-scale production and manufacturing,” says Christine Conwell, interim executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute. “We are excited about the opportunities this R2R facility will provide to the Georgia Tech energy community and our industry partners.”

The Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM) launched a new initiatives program, starting with several winning proposals, with corresponding initiative leads that will broaden the scope of IRIM’s research beyond its traditional core strengths. A major goal is to stimulate collaboration across areas not typically considered as technical robotics, such as policy, education, and the humanities, as well as open new inter-university and inter-agency collaboration routes. In addition to guiding their specific initiatives, these leads will serve as an informal internal advisory body for IRIM. Initiative leads will be announced annually, with existing initiative leaders considered for renewal based on their progress in achieving community building and research goals. We hope that initiative leads will act as the “faculty face” of IRIM and communicate IRIM’s vision and activities to audiences both within and outside of Georgia Tech.

Meet 2024 IRIM Initiative Leads

Stephen Balakirsky; Regents' Researcher, Georgia Tech Research Institute & Panagiotis Tsiotras; David & Andrew Lewis Endowed Chair, Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering | Proximity Operations for Autonomous Servicing

Why It Matters: Proximity operations in space refer to the intricate and precise maneuvers and activities that spacecraft or satellites perform when they are in close proximity to each other, such as docking, rendezvous, or station-keeping. These operations are essential for a variety of space missions, including crewed spaceflights, satellite servicing, space exploration, and maintaining satellite constellations. While this is a very broad field, this initiative will concentrate on robotic servicing and associated challenges. In this context, robotic servicing is composed of proximity operations that are used for servicing and repairing satellites in space. In robotic servicing, robotic arms and tools perform maintenance tasks such as refueling, replacing components, or providing operation enhancements to extend a satellite's operational life or increase a satellite’s capabilities.

Our Approach: By forming an initiative in this important area, IRIM will open opportunities within the rapidly evolving space community. This will allow us to create proposals for organizations ranging from NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force. This will also position us to become national leaders in this area. While several universities have a robust robotics program and quite a few have a strong space engineering program, there are only a handful of academic units with the breadth of expertise to tackle this problem. Also, even fewer universities have the benefit of an experienced applied research partner, such as the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), to undertake large-scale demonstrations. Georgia Tech, having world-renowned programs in aerospace engineering and robotics, is uniquely positioned to be a leader in this field. In addition, creating a workshop in proximity operations for autonomous servicing will allow the GTRI and Georgia Tech space robotics communities to come together and better understand strengths and opportunities for improvement in our abilities.

Matthew Gombolay; Assistant Professor, Interactive Computing | Human-Robot Society in 2125: IRIM Leading the Way

Why It Matters: The coming robot “apocalypse” and foundation models captured the zeitgeist in 2023 with “ChatGPT” becoming a topic at the dinner table and the probability occurrence of various scenarios of AI driven technological doom being a hotly debated topic on social media. Futuristic visions of ubiquitous embodied Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics have become tangible. The proliferation and effectiveness of first-person view drones in the Russo-Ukrainian War, autonomous taxi services along with their failures, and inexpensive robots (e.g., Tesla’s Optimus and Unitree’s G1) have made it seem like children alive today may have robots embedded in their everyday lives. Yet, there is a lack of trust in the public leadership bringing us into this future to ensure that robots are developed and deployed with beneficence.

Our Approach: This proposal seeks to assemble a team of bright, savvy operators across academia, government, media, nonprofits, industry, and community stakeholders to develop a roadmap for how we can be the most trusted voice to guide the public in the next 100 years of innovation in robotics here at the IRIM. We propose to carry out specific activities that include conducting the activities necessary to develop a roadmap about Robots in 2125: Altruistic and Integrated Human-Robot Society. We also aim to build partnerships to promulgate these outcomes across Georgia Tech’s campus and internationally.

Gregory Sawicki; Joseph Anderer Faculty Fellow, School of Mechanical Engineering & Aaron Young; Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering | Wearable Robotic Augmentation for Human Resilience 

Why It Matters: The field of robotics continues to evolve beyond rigid, precision-controlled machines for amplifying production on manufacturing assembly lines toward soft, wearable systems that can mediate the interface between human users and their natural and built environments. Recent advances in materials science have made it possible to construct flexible garments with embedded sensors and actuators (e.g., exosuits). In parallel, computers continue to get smaller and more powerful, and state-of-the art machine learning algorithms can extract useful information from more extensive volumes of input data in real time. Now is the time to embed lean, powerful, sensorimotor elements alongside high-speed and efficient data processing systems in a continuous wearable device.

Our Approach: The mission of the Wearable Robotic Augmentation for Human Resilience (WeRoAHR) initiative is to merge modern advances in sensing, actuation, and computing technology to imagine and create adaptive, wearable augmentation technology that can improve human resilience and longevity across the physiological spectrum — from behavioral to cellular scales. The near-term effort (~2-3 years) will draw on Georgia Tech’s existing ecosystem of basic scientists and engineers to develop WeRoAHR systems that will focus on key targets of opportunity to increase human resilience (e.g., improved balance, dexterity, and stamina). These initial efforts will establish seeds for growth intended to help launch larger-scale, center-level efforts (>5 years).

Panagiotis Tsiotras; David & Andrew Lewis Endowed Chair, Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering & Sam Coogan; Demetrius T. Paris Junior Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering | Initiative on Reliable, Safe, and Secure Autonomous Robotics 

Why It Matters: The design and operation of reliable systems is primarily an integration issue that involves not only each component (software, hardware) being safe and reliable but also the whole system being reliable (including the human operator). The necessity for reliable autonomous systems (including AI agents) is more pronounced for “safety-critical” applications, where the result of a wrong decision can be catastrophic. This is quite a different landscape from many other autonomous decision systems (e.g., recommender systems) where a wrong or imprecise decision is inconsequential.

Our Approach: This new initiative will investigate the development of protocols, techniques, methodologies, theories, and practices for designing, building, and operating safe and reliable AI and autonomous engineering systems and contribute toward promoting a culture of safety and accountability grounded in rigorous objective metrics and methodologies for AI/autonomous and intelligent machines designers and operators, to allow the widespread adoption of such systems in safety-critical areas with confidence. The proposed new initiative aims to establish Tech as the leader in the design of autonomous, reliable engineering robotic systems and investigate the opportunity for a federally funded or industry-funded research center (National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Centers/Engineering Research Centers) in this area.

Colin Usher; Robotics Systems and Technology Branch Head, GTRI | Opportunities for Agricultural Robotics and New Collaborations

Why It Matters: The concepts for how robotics might be incorporated more broadly in agriculture vary widely, ranging from large-scale systems to teams of small systems operating in farms, enabling new possibilities. In addition, there are several application areas in agriculture, ranging from planting, weeding, crop scouting, and general growing through harvesting. Georgia Tech is not a land-grant university, making our ability to capture some of the opportunities in agricultural research more challenging. By partnering with a land-grant university such as the University of Georgia (UGA), we can leverage this relationship to go after these opportunities that, historically, were not available.

Our Approach: We plan to build collaborations first by leveraging relationships we have already formed within GTRI, Georgia Tech, and UGA. We will achieve this through a significant level of networking, supported by workshops and/or seminars with which to recruit faculty and form a roadmap for research within the respective universities. Our goal is to identify and pursue multiple opportunities for robotics-related research in both row-crop and animal-based agriculture. We believe that we have a strong opportunity, starting with formalizing a program with the partners we have worked with before, with the potential to improve and grow the research area by incorporating new faculty and staff with a unified vision of ubiquitous robotics systems in agriculture. We plan to achieve this through scheduled visits with interested faculty, attendance at relevant conferences, and ultimately hosting a workshop to formalize and define a research roadmap.

Ye Zhao; Assistant Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering | Safe, Social, & Scalable Human-Robot Teaming: Interaction, Synergy, & Augmentation

Why It Matters: Collaborative robots in unstructured environments such as construction and warehouse sites show great promise in working with humans on repetitive and dangerous tasks to improve efficiency and productivity. However, pre-programmed and nonflexible interaction behaviors of existing robots lower the naturalness and flexibility of the collaboration process. Therefore, it is crucial to improve physical interaction behaviors of the collaborative human-robot teaming.

Our Approach: This proposal will advance the understanding of the bi-directional influence and interaction of human-robot teaming for complex physical activities in dynamic environments by developing new methods to predict worker intention via multi-modal wearable sensing, reasoning about complex human-robot-workspace interaction, and adaptively planning the robot’s motion considering both human teaming dynamics and physiological and cognitive states. More importantly, our team plans to prioritize efforts to (i) broaden the scope of IRIM’s autonomy research by incorporating psychology, cognitive, and manufacturing research not typically considered as technical robotics research areas; (ii) initiate new IRIM education, training, and outreach programs through collaboration with team members from various Georgia Tech educational and outreach programs (including Project ENGAGES, VIP, and CEISMC) as well as the AUCC (World’s largest consortia of African American private institutions of higher education) which comprises Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, & Spelman College; and (iii) aim for large governmental grants such as DOD MURI, NSF NRT, and NSF Future of Work programs.

-Christa M. Ernst

Scheller Business Insights is a dynamic video series that highlights the innovative thought leadership of the esteemed faculty at the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business. At Scheller, we are committed to exploring ideas that educate and inform others about the profound impact of business on our lives and the world.

In this episode, Beril Toktay, Regents' Professor and faculty director of the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business, defines net zero and discusses some ways to alleviate climate change by reducing carbon emissions to the point of net zero emissions.

Globally, most major polluters, such as China, the U.S., India, and the EU, are among over 140 nations with net-zero goals, which encompasses roughly 88 percent of global emissions. Meeting the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C climate threshold requires 45 percent emissions cut by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050 (United Nations Climate Action).

Toktay describes ways this can be accomplished in different business sectors. For example, in the energy sectors, this means moving from fossil fuels to renewable technologies, and in the transportation sector, moving to electrification and innovative battery technologies as well as developing the infrastructure to support these initiatives. These efforts help move businesses towards achieving net zero as well as providing cleaner air and water, and better health outcomes to the global population.

Listen as Toktay discusses what net zero means, the importance of getting to net zero, and how businesses can help reduce carbon emissions. 

A multi-institutional research team led by Georgia Tech’s Hailong Chen has developed a new, low-cost cathode that could radically improve lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) — potentially transforming the electric vehicle (EV) market and large-scale energy storage systems. 

“For a long time, people have been looking for a lower-cost, more sustainable alternative to existing cathode materials. I think we’ve got one,” said Chen, an associate professor with appointments in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering.

The revolutionary material, iron chloride (FeCl3), costs a mere 1-2% of typical cathode materials and canstore the same amount of electricity. Cathode materials affect capacity, energy, and efficiency, playing a major role in a battery’s performance, lifespan, and affordability.

“Our cathode can be a game-changer,” said Chen, whose team describes its work in Nature Sustainability. “It would greatly improve the EV market — and the whole lithium-ion battery market.”

First commercialized by Sony in the early 1990s, LIBs sparked an explosion in personal electronics, like smartphones and tablets. The technology eventually advanced to fuel electric vehicles, providing a reliable, rechargeable, high-density energy source. But unlike personal electronics, large-scale energy users like EVs are especially sensitive to the cost of LIBs. 

Batteries are currently responsible for about 50% of an EV’s total cost, which makes these clean-energy cars more expensive than their internal combustion, greenhouse-gas-spewing cousins. The Chen team’s invention could change that.

Building a Better Battery

Compared to old-fashioned alkaline and lead-acid batteries, LIBs store more energy in a smaller package and power a device longer between charges. But LIBs contain expensive metals, including semiprecious elements like cobalt and nickel, and they have a high manufacturing cost. 

So far, only four types of cathodes have been successfully commercialized for LIBs. Chen’s would be the fifth, and it would represent a big step forward in battery technology: the development of an all-solid-state LIB.

Conventional LIBs use liquid electrolytes to transport lithium ions for storing and releasing energy. They have hard limits on how much energy can be stored, and they can leak and catch fire. But all-solid-state LIBs use solid electrolytes, dramatically boosting a battery’s efficiency and reliability and making it safer and capable of holding more energy. These batteries, still in the development and testing phase, would be a considerable improvement. 

As researchers and manufacturers across the planet race to make all-solid-state technology practical, Chen and his collaborators have developed an affordable and sustainable solution. With the FeCl3 cathode, a solid electrolyte, and a lithium metal anode, the cost of their whole battery system is 30-40% of current LIBs. 

“This could not only make EVs much cheaper than internal combustion cars, but it provides a new and promising form of large-scale energy storage, enhancing the resilience of the electrical grid,” Chen said. “In addition, our cathode would greatly improve the sustainability and supply chain stability of the EV market.”

Solid Start to New Discovery

Chen’s interest in FeCl3 as a cathode material originated with his lab’s research into solid electrolyte materials. Starting in 2019, his lab tried to make solid-state batteries using chloride-based solid electrolyteswith traditional commercial oxide-based cathodes. It didn’t go well — the cathode and electrolyte materials didn’t get along. 

The researchers thought a chloride-based cathode could provide a better pairing with the chloride electrolyte to offer better battery performance.

“We found a candidate (FeCl3) worth trying, as its crystal structure is potentially suitable for storing and transporting Li ions, and fortunately, it functioned as we expected,” said Chen.

Currently, the most popularly used cathodes in EVs are oxides and require a gigantic amount of costly nickel and cobalt, heavy elements that can be toxic and pose an environmental challenge. In contrast, the Chen team’s cathode contains only iron (Fe) and chlorine (Cl)—abundant, affordable, widely used elements found in steel and table salt.

In their initial tests, FeCl3 was found to perform as well as or better than the other, much more expensive cathodes. For example, it has a higher operational voltage than the popularly used cathode LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate, or LFP), which is the electrical force a battery provides when connected to a device, similar to water pressure from a garden hose. 

This technology may be less than five years from commercial viability in EVs. For now, the team will continue investigating FeCl3 and related materials, according to Chen. The work was led by Chen and postdoc Zhantao Liu (the lead author of the study). Collaborators included researchers from Georgia Tech’s Woodruff School (Ting Zhu) and the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (Yuanzhi Tang), as well as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Jue Liu) and the University of Houston (Shuo Chen).

“We want to make the materials as perfect as possible in the lab and understand the underlying functioning mechanisms,” Chen said. “But we are open to opportunities to scale up the technology and push it toward commercial applications.”

CITATION: Zhantao Liu, Jue Liu, Simin Zhao, Sangni Xun, Paul Byaruhanga, Shuo Chen, Yuanzhi Tang, Ting Zhu, Hailong Chen. “Low-cost iron trichloride cathode for all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries.” Nature Sustainability.

FUNDING: National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 1706723 and 2108688)

A new algorithm tested on NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars may lead to better forecasting of hurricanes, wildfires, and other extreme weather events that impact millions globally.

Georgia Tech Ph.D. student Austin P. Wright is first author of a paper that introduces Nested Fusion. The new algorithm improves scientists’ ability to search for past signs of life on the Martian surface. 

In addition to supporting NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, scientists from other fields working with large, overlapping datasets can use Nested Fusion’s methods toward their studies.

Wright presented Nested Fusion at the 2024 International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD 2024) where it was a runner-up for the best paper award. KDD is widely considered the world's most prestigious conference for knowledge discovery and data mining research.

“Nested Fusion is really useful for researchers in many different domains, not just NASA scientists,” said Wright. “The method visualizes complex datasets that can be difficult to get an overall view of during the initial exploratory stages of analysis.”

Nested Fusion combines datasets with different resolutions to produce a single, high-resolution visual distribution. Using this method, NASA scientists can more easily analyze multiple datasets from various sources at the same time. This can lead to faster studies of Mars’ surface composition to find clues of previous life.

The algorithm demonstrates how data science impacts traditional scientific fields like chemistry, biology, and geology.

Even further, Wright is developing Nested Fusion applications to model shifting climate patterns, plant and animal life, and other concepts in the earth sciences. The same method can combine overlapping datasets from satellite imagery, biomarkers, and climate data.

“Users have extended Nested Fusion and similar algorithms toward earth science contexts, which we have received very positive feedback,” said Wright, who studies machine learning (ML) at Georgia Tech.

“Cross-correlational analysis takes a long time to do and is not done in the initial stages of research when patterns appear and form new hypotheses. Nested Fusion enables people to discover these patterns much earlier.”

Wright is the data science and ML lead for PIXLISE, the software that NASA JPL scientists use to study data from the Mars Perseverance Rover.

Perseverance uses its Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) to collect data on mineral composition of Mars’ surface. PIXL’s two main tools that accomplish this are its X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) Spectrometer and Multi-Context Camera (MCC).

When PIXL scans a target area, it creates two co-aligned datasets from the components. XRF collects a sample's fine-scale elemental composition. MCC produces images of a sample to gather visual and physical details like size and shape. 

A single XRF spectrum corresponds to approximately 100 MCC imaging pixels for every scan point. Each tool’s unique resolution makes mapping between overlapping data layers challenging. However, Wright and his collaborators designed Nested Fusion to overcome this hurdle.

In addition to progressing data science, Nested Fusion improves NASA scientists' workflow. Using the method, a single scientist can form an initial estimate of a sample’s mineral composition in a matter of hours. Before Nested Fusion, the same task required days of collaboration between teams of experts on each different instrument.

“I think one of the biggest lessons I have taken from this work is that it is valuable to always ground my ML and data science problems in actual, concrete use cases of our collaborators,” Wright said. 

“I learn from collaborators what parts of data analysis are important to them and the challenges they face. By understanding these issues, we can discover new ways of formalizing and framing problems in data science.”

Wright presented Nested Fusion at KDD 2024, held Aug. 25-29 in Barcelona, Spain. KDD is an official special interest group of the Association for Computing Machinery. The conference is one of the world’s leading forums for knowledge discovery and data mining research.

Nested Fusion won runner-up for the best paper in the applied data science track, which comprised of over 150 papers. Hundreds of other papers were presented at the conference’s research track, workshops, and tutorials. 

Wright’s mentors, Scott Davidoff and Polo Chau, co-authored the Nested Fusion paper. Davidoff is a principal research scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Chau is a professor at the Georgia Tech School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE).

“I was extremely happy that this work was recognized with the best paper runner-up award,” Wright said. “This kind of applied work can sometimes be hard to find the right academic home, so finding communities that appreciate this work is very encouraging.”

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $7.5 million to Ankur Singh, Carl Ring Family Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering (ME) and professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory, for his pioneering research in creating functional models of the human immune system in the lab.

The funding, sourced from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, supports two projects aimed at developing human immune organoids, which are sophisticated models engineered to replicate and study the natural human immune responses. The research could revolutionize vaccine development and immune system research, particularly for aging populations.

"Little advancement has been made in this area due to the complex nature of the immune system and the challenges of making a functional human immune tissue outside the body,” said Singh, who is also director of the Center for Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech. “I am grateful to the NIH for supporting our work, which will enable us to develop an advanced technology that can help solve the problems of emerging infections and enhance our timely response to them.”

Building Next-Generation Human Immune Organoids

The goal of Singh’s first project is to replicate the complex environment of germinal centers (GCs) — the sites within lymph nodes where B cells are trained to produce the antibodies crucial for fighting infections. While animal models and current engineered systems have offered insights, they fall short in recreating the intricate processes that occur in human GCs, which limits their utility in vaccine development and understanding immune responses.

Singh’s method involves using a hydrated polymer-based gel material to create a structure that mimics the environment of lymphoid tissue in the body. By adding human immune cells (like B cells, T cells, and support cells) into this gel, the project tries to recreate how B cells mature into specialized immune cells that are important for a strong and lasting immune response. This advancement will allow scientists to grow and study these cells in the lab and use them for better vaccine testing, therapeutic development including cell-based therapies, and to deepen our understanding of the immune system.

The second project addresses a pressing issue in public health: the decline in immune function with age. As people age, their ability to mount effective immune responses against new infections diminishes, leading to higher mortality rates from diseases such as influenza and Covid-19. However, the underlying mechanisms — whether due to defects in aged B cells, impaired T cells, or changes in the lymphoid tissue environment — remain poorly understood.

Singh’s research proposes the development of an “aged B cell follicle” organoid, a novel platform that replicates the lymphoid microenvironment of older individuals. This system will allow researchers to dissect the factors driving age-related declines in immune function, offering a new tool for studying how aged B cells respond to antigens and identifying molecular targets to rejuvenate immune responses.

A Pioneering Step Forward in Immunology Research

The broader impact of Singh’s organoid research is wide-ranging. By enabling the study of human immune responses in a controlled, reproducible environment, the organoids could dramatically accelerate the development of vaccines and immunotherapies. The models could also provide new insights into whether a particular vaccine will be effective for a given individual, potentially reducing the time and cost of clinical trials.

Singh’s aged immune organoid platform could serve as a rapid screening tool for identifying older individuals who are likely to respond poorly to vaccines, enabling more personalized and effective vaccination strategies for that population. The models could be particularly useful in the context of pandemics or seasonal flu outbreaks, where timely and effective immunization is critical.

“By securing this substantial NIH funding, Singh’s work is poised to make a significant impact on both the scientific community and public health,” said Andrés García, executive director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, Regents' Professor in ME, the Petit Director's Chair in Bioengineering and Bioscience, and a collaborator on Singh’s first project. “This innovative immunoengineering research not only promises to advance our understanding of immune system function and aging, but also holds the potential to transform vaccine development, offering new hope for more effective disease prevention strategies across the lifespan.”

The NIH’s investment in Singh’s research underscores a growing recognition of the need for innovative approaches to studying human immunity. The Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act 2.0, for example, promotes the use of organs-on-chip technologies in the service of drug development. As organoid technologies continue to evolve, they could come to represent the future of immunological research, providing powerful new tools to combat infectious diseases and improve health outcomes globally.

Key collaborators on the first project include Andrés García; Ahmet Coskun, the Bernie-Marcus Early-Career Professor in BME; and Dr. Ignacio Sanz, Mason I. Lowance Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and chief of the chief of the Division of Rheumatology at Emory School of Medicine. 

Key collaborators on the second project include Coskun; Jeremy Boss, professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Emory School of Medicine; and Ranjan Sen, senior investigator in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Immunology at NIH’s National Institute on Aging.