The Energy Policy and Innovation Center (EPIcenter), in partnership with Georgia Tech's Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics program, recently hosted a three-part webinar series, Nuclear Energy: A Public Primer, bringing together experts to discuss the science, economics, policy, and geopolitics shaping the future of nuclear power.

Designed for industry professionals, policymakers, educators, students, community leaders, and members of the public, the lunchtime webinar series provided an accessible introduction to the key issues influencing the nuclear energy sector at a time of growing interest in nuclear power as part of the global energy transition.

The series began on Aug. 20 with The New Nuclear, presented by Steven Biegalski, chair of the Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics program. The session examined the evolution of nuclear reactor technology, from today's operating fleet and the AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle to emerging small modular reactors and advanced reactor designs.

The second webinar, held Sept. 3, focused on the economics and policy landscape of nuclear power. Laura Taylor, director of EPIcenter and professor of economics at Georgia Tech, joined Stephen Comello, executive vice president and executive director of the Nuclear Scaling Initiative at the EFI Foundation, to discuss the economic drivers, policy considerations, and opportunities influencing nuclear energy development in the United States.

The series concluded on Sept. 17 with a discussion of nuclear fuel, security, and geopolitics. Anna Erickson, Woodruff Professor of Nuclear Engineering, and Rachel Whitlark, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, explored global nuclear energy growth, fuel supply chains, and the policies needed to support the safe, secure deployment of nuclear technologies worldwide.

Recordings and presentation materials from all three sessions are available on the webinar series webpage. Those who were unable to attend can watch the presentations and access the accompanying slides to learn more about the technologies, policies, and global trends shaping the future of nuclear energy.

View webinar recordings and presentation slides on the EPIcenter website.

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Amazon and the Georgia Institute of Technology announced today the launch of the Georgia Tech–Amazon Science Hub, reinforcing a shared commitment to advancing cutting-edge research through academic–industry collaboration. The Hub builds on extensive existing collaborations between Georgia Tech and Amazon over the past decade. As part of the collaboration, Amazon will provide funding for joint research projects and community-building initiatives designed to accelerate scientific ambitions. 

"The most meaningful breakthroughs happen when intelligent hardware and thoughtful software come together to genuinely help people,” said Tapas Roy, vice president of Device Software and Services at Amazon. “Georgia Tech's world-class expertise in robotics and engineering, paired with Amazon's work in on-device intelligence and artificial intelligence, will accelerate our understanding of systems that can both respond to prompts and anticipate customer needs. I'm excited to see how this collaboration advances the science of how humans and intelligent machines work together.”
 
The Hub’s initial focus areas will explore challenges in autonomous systems, next-generation logistics infrastructure, and low-Earth-orbit communications, drawing on Georgia Tech’s well-known interdisciplinary research approach.
 
Georgia Tech is also joining the Fauna Robotics' ecosystem, using the Sprout research platform to study how humans and robots can live, work, and play side by side. This collaboration opens new ways to study mobility, perception, manipulation, and human-robot interaction. Leadership and alumni recently celebrated the launch at Lab 126, with guest appearances from Sprout and Buzz, the Georgia Tech mascot.

The Hub will support:
•    Joint research projects between Georgia Tech faculty and Amazon scientists across scientific disciplines 
•    Regular symposia and workshops to foster collaboration between researchers from both institutions and the broader Atlanta tech community
•    Community outreach programs designed to broaden participation from interdisciplinary scholars and innovators

“Georgia Tech and Amazon have worked together for years across research, technology, and student development," said Tim Lieuwen, Georgia Tech executive vice president for Research. "This new hub puts our partnership to work for Georgia. It connects research, education, and industry in ways that will strengthen our state’s innovation economy and create new opportunities for our students.”

About Georgia Tech
Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation’s top public research universities, preparing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute serves more than 56,000 students from all 50 states and over 146 countries and drives innovation and economic growth through research that benefits Georgia, the nation, and the world.

About Amazon in Georgia
Since 2010, Amazon has invested more than $30 billion in Georgia, supporting more than 30,000 full- and part-time jobs. Amazon’s research and technology teams in the Atlanta area work on challenges spanning supply chain optimization, logistics technology, and cloud computing. The establishment of the Georgia Tech–Amazon Science Hub further deepens Amazon’s engagement with one of the nation’s leading research institutions.

About Fauna Robotics 
Fauna Robotics builds Sprout, a development platform designed to put advanced robotics capabilities into the hands of researchers and developers. Sprout gives builders hands-on access to study mobility, perception, motor control, and manipulation with the ambition to deploy robots into human-centric spaces.
 

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Most high school students spend their summer breaks working part-time jobs or traveling with family. For four rising high school seniors from metro Atlanta, summer was spent at Georgia Tech’s Institute for Matter and Systems (IMS), where they gained hands-on experience with advanced microfabrication technologies.

As part of the IMS Summer Internship, the students worked in the IMS Biocleanroom on a special project: creating a microscopic boat in a bottle.

Under the mentorship of Nik Roeske, a process-equipment engineer with IMS, the students experienced every stage of the research process, from design and prototyping to testing.

The students learned two microfabrication techniques to create the project. First, they used an Exaddon CERES metal 3D printer to deposit copper ions and build a 3DBenchy, a model designed to test 3D printers. Then they used a Nanoscribe 3D printer to print a polymer enclosure around the boat. 

“The ability to comprehend 3rd dimensional space at such a small scale is very impressive,” said Roeske. “The high school students were working at the scale of single microns, approximately 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair. This project serves as a gateway to combining two high-resolution 3D printing systems, which could open the door to research in advanced packaging, MEMS, and biomedical engineering.”

“When we were talking about combining the prints into a ship in a bottle, I suggested we replace the ship inside with a benchy,” said Gabby Sutter, Biocleanroom summer intern and senior student at South Paulding High School. “Both the Exxadon and the Nanoscribe are 3D printers, after all!” 

Like many research projects, the work involved multiple rounds of trial and error. Early attempts revealed challenges involving materials, printing alignment, and structural integrity. Rather than seeing the setbacks as failures, the students used each iteration to better understand the manufacturing process, analyze data, identify sources of error, and refine subsequent designs.

“The ship-in-a-bottle model and the Benchy are two separate models that we combined,” said Sutter. “Since they were not designed to be printed at this scale or to fit together, there were several adjustments. We scaled both models down but then realized the Benchy was too tall to fit in the bottle. To solve that problem, we adjusted the scale of the bottle.”

The final boat in a bottle is approximately 200 microns long, making it smaller than grains of table salt. The team has submitted the project for world-record consideration.

Beyond their fabrication project, the interns helped introduce younger students to nanotechnology. Throughout the summer, they led tours of the IMS cleanroom facilities for middle school students in the STEM Gems summer camp. They shared their knowledge and demonstrated how researchers use specialized equipment to address complex science and engineering challenges.

The experience provided technical training while helping students build communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. By participating in research projects and engaging with Georgia Tech researchers, they gained firsthand insight into careers in science, technology, engineering, math, and the research environment.

“Working in the cleanroom has only made me more eager to go to Georgia Tech and work in STEM,” Sutter said. “I want to become an engineer at NASA, so it was really exciting to work in a cleanroom like one I could use at NASA.”

By the end of the summer, the interns left with much more than a microscopic boat in a bottle. They gained technical knowledge, professional experience, and confidence in their ability to solve complex problems. They can carry those skills into college classrooms, research laboratories, and, eventually, the workforce. 

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The Institute for Matter and Systems (IMS) at Georgia Tech, in collaboration with the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), has launched the Georgia Tech Quantum Applications Research Center (GT QuARC), a new interdisciplinary research center designed to bring together Georgia Tech’s quantum research community, expand strategic partnerships, and accelerate the development of quantum technologies and applications.

The center is co-directed by Martin Mourigal, Dunn Family Professor in the School of Physics, and Robert Wyllie, division chief of the Quantum System Division in the Cybersecurity, Information Protection, and Hardware Evaluation Research (CIPHER) lab at GTRI. 

“Quantum technologies are rapidly moving from scientific theory toward practical application,” said Julia Kubanek, vice president of Interdisciplinary Research. “This center builds on Georgia Tech’s expertise to help lead that transition by connecting research with industry, government, and societal needs.” 

Building on Georgia Tech’s strengths in atomic physics, materials science, engineering, computing, photonics, sensing, and advanced manufacturing, GT QuARC will serve as a hub for quantum research and collaboration across Georgia Tech and GTRI. The center will help bridge fundamental discovery and practical application, creating new opportunities in quantum technologies while strengthening Georgia Tech’s leadership in areas such as computing, sensing, communications, and national security.

Quantum technologies use the principles of quantum mechanics to perform tasks that are difficult or impossible with conventional technologies. As federal agencies and industry partners continue to increase investments in quantum research and development, Georgia Tech is positioned to contribute to advances in quantum materials, devices, systems, algorithms, and applications.

“Quantum breakthroughs happen at the intersection of disciplines,” said Wyllie. “By connecting the researchers and resources across Georgia Tech and GTRI, we’re building a stronger foundation for quantum innovation.”

GT QuARC will strengthen these efforts by providing a unified identity for Georgia Tech’s quantum community and creating new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, students, industry partners, government agencies, and national laboratories.

“One goal for the center is to identify meaningful applications for emerging quantum technologies,” said Mourigal. “Another is to build connections among researchers, industry, and government. Those conversations are essential to discovering where quantum technologies can have the greatest impact. For that to happen, we must coordinate and optimize efforts across campus.”

“A core part of IMS’s mission is creating opportunities that enable breakthrough discoveries and accelerate emerging areas of research," said Eric Vogel, executive director of IMS. “GT QuARC, provides a framework for bringing together Georgia Tech’s quantum expertise and building the partnerships needed to advance both scientific discovery and real-world impact.”

The center will initially focus on three research thrusts: 

Quantum Building Blocks and Enabling Technologies will advance the materials, devices, fabrication methods, control technologies, and characterization capabilities needed to create and manipulate quantum states.

Quantum Systems and Manufacturing Testbeds will integrate the building blocks into scalable quantum sensing, computing, communication, and simulation platforms, supported by shared research infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities.

Quantum Computing, Algorithms, and Applications will develop quantum and hybrid quantum-classical approaches to challenges in scientific discovery, industry, national security, and other areas of societal importance.

These efforts will help move quantum technologies from the laboratory toward practical use while creating new opportunities for collaboration across disciplines.

In addition to advancing research, GT QuARC will support education and workforce development by expanding hands-on learning opportunities, strengthening industry engagement, and connecting students with emerging careers in quantum science and engineering.

The center will also help Georgia Tech pursue strategic investments in quantum infrastructure, including advanced characterization capabilities, micro- and nanofabrication resources, sensing platforms, and access to leading quantum computing systems.

By bringing together expertise from across Georgia Tech’s colleges, research centers, and GTRI, GT QuARC will help position the Institute as a leader in translating quantum discoveries into technologies that address national priorities and societal challenges.

To learn more about Georgia Tech’s quantum ecosystem, visit quantum.gatech.edu. 

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To mitigate climate change, direct air capture of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere has emerged as an increasingly attractive option for limiting global warming. But scaling up systems to remove and safely store enough CO₂ faces major obstacles, according to researchers at the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE).

They cite climate models estimating that limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius could require removing approximately 10 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually by 2050, increasing to 20 billion tons per year by 2100. Current DAC systems remove only thousands of tons of CO₂ annually.

One challenge is improving the solid sorbents that capture CO₂ from ambient air. In collaboration with CarbonCapture Inc., researchers in ChBE have shown that a simple, one-step modification can upgrade a commercial amine resin into a more efficient and durable sorbent for CO₂ capture. They published their findings in Science Advances.

“Achieving economically viable DAC demands major improvements in solid sorbent design and performance,” said study author Professor Christopher W. Jones of ChBE, who noted that the benefits of DAC include its potential scalability, modest land-use requirements, flexibility in plant locations, and access to extensive geological reservoirs for long-term CO₂ storage.

Improving a Commercial Sorbent

Jones and his collaborators found a way to improve the performance of Lewatit VP OC 1065, a commercially available resin already considered a benchmark in the DAC field. The material works for DAC because it’s studded with amine groups, which are chemical sites that grab CO₂ molecules as air passes through the resin.

Rather than design a new sorbent, the researchers built on previous Georgia Tech studies with PPI (poly(propyleneimine)), a polymer that has shown advantages in both CO₂ capture and durability. They developed a simple grafting process that grows PPI directly from amine sites already present on the commercial resin, increasing its ability to capture CO₂.

The process involved soaking the resin in a small, inexpensive molecule called azetidine along with a small amount of acid, and then heating the mixture for two days.

The researchers found the upgraded resin captured about 75 percent more CO₂ than the untreated version under dry conditions that mimic open air, where CO₂ makes up only about 400 parts per million of the surrounding gas.

The material also performed well under simulated industrial flue-gas conditions, where CO₂ is far more concentrated, capturing more than 50 percent more than the untreated resin. 

The team also tested the resin across temperatures ranging from 25 degrees Celsius down to -20 degrees Celsius and across a wide range of humidity levels. In humid air, the modified resin outperformed the original at every temperature tested, though its advantage disappeared in very cold, dry conditions.

Enhancing Durability

Sorbents used in DAC need to survive repeated use, cycling between capturing CO₂ and being heated to release it. Amine-based materials are known to degrade over time when exposed to oxygen. But the branched bPPI chains added by the researchers to the sorbent reduced oxidative degradation by about half.

In tests that simulated 150 rounds of capture and release from industrial exhaust, the modified resin held up significantly better than the original material, the researchers found.

“These commercial resins are already leading candidates for large-scale carbon capture deployment,” said Arkaprabha Giri, a former postdoctoral researcher in Jones’ lab who is the study’s lead author. “If we can meaningfully boost their performance with a process this simple, that’s a real opportunity to speed up deployment without waiting on an entirely new generation of materials.”

Study co-author Omid Ghaffari Nik, Ph.D., vice president of materials science and process at CarbonCapture Inc., said that bringing down the steep cost of DAC is a crucial goal.

“The U.S. Department of Energy has set a target of atmospheric CO₂ capture and storage at less than $100 per net metric ton, emphasizing the need for innovation in sorbent-based DAC systems,” Nik said.

The use of an existing commercial resin and readily available chemicals could offer advantages in eventually scaling up the process, the researchers said. They successfully applied the same method to a second commercial resin, Purolite A110, suggesting the approach isn't limited to one product.

The team has filed a provisional patent and is now working to extend the technique to other amine-based materials, with the aim of scaling the process from lab quantities to the industrial scale.

CITATION: Arkaprabha Giri, UnJin Ryu, Jiaqi Zhang, Opeyemi Ojelade, Wenyang Zhao, Jacob Hoffman, Mark Robertson, Jordi Espín, Madison Nichols, Surya Parker, Omid Ghaffari Nik, and Christopher W. Jones, "In situ azetidine polymerization elevates the performance of commercial polymer resin sorbents in carbon dioxide capture," Science Advances, 2026

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When Anna Raymaker began her Ph.D. at Georgia Tech, she hadn't yet decided which area of cybersecurity she wanted to pursue. That changed when she began working on a boat test bed and talking with mariners about the cybersecurity challenges they face at sea.

Those conversations led Raymaker to focus her research on maritime security, including vulnerabilities in the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which ships use to broadcast their location, speed, and course.

This summer, Raymaker brought this research to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory, where she built a test bed to study AIS security in a controlled environment. The experience has also led to new research questions, from the security of shipboard Starlink connections to autonomous vessels and other maritime technologies.

We spoke with Raymaker about her research, her experience at Lincoln Laboratory, and what she hopes to investigate next.

What will you be working on at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory next?

After submitting our paper based on this summer’s work to a cybersecurity conference, we are continuing our collaboration and starting a new project to identify critical infrastructure that uses unique protocols. The project is still in the early stages of planning and design, but I’m excited to continue working with the team.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while building and testing the AIS security testbed, and how did you work through it?

The biggest challenge was getting equipment designed to be installed and operated on a boat to function properly in a lab setting. That meant using a Faraday cage so that our AIS transmissions and security experiments wouldn’t accidentally broadcast to nearby ships or interfere with real maritime traffic. I also had to simulate GPS signals and set up additional hardware to trick the AIS transponders into thinking they were operating on a real vessel. Putting all those pieces together into a safe, realistic test bed was challenging, but it ultimately let us study the equipment in a controlled environment.

You mentioned the collaborative culture at Lincoln Laboratory. Can you share a specific interaction or experience with a researcher there that had an impact on you or your work?

Working with Hamed Okhravi, a senior staff member at Lincoln Laboratory, was an amazing experience. He was my mentor and consistently went out of his way to connect me with people who could help me find datasets, access equipment, or get the lab space I needed for my work. For example, when I realized I needed a Faraday cage for my experiments, he connected me with the Mobile Device Lab and helped me get access very quickly. The lab manager was also immediately willing to let me use the space and equipment. That experience really reflected the culture I saw throughout Lincoln Laboratory. Everyone genuinely wanted to help each other get what they needed to move their research forward.

How did Georgia Tech prepare you for the work at Lincoln Laboratory, and did the internship change how you think about your research or future career?

My experience at Georgia Tech was instrumental in preparing me for my work at Lincoln Laboratory. The way I was taught to think through difficult research problems and work independently toward solutions translated well to a large research lab. I was able to hit the ground running and take ownership of a project because Georgia Tech had prepared me to lead research independently. The internship also gave me valuable experience in a research environment outside academia, which broadened my perspective on how I could pursue research in the future.

You’ve said you want to work through the cybersecurity problems mariners have shared with you “one by one.” Which problem do you most want to tackle next, and why?

Next, I’d love to look at Starlink connectivity for ships or for autonomous shipping. Mariners we’ve spoken with have raised concerns about both. With Starlink and increasingly autonomous vessels, they worry that greater remote connectivity could give attackers new ways to access onboard systems and disrupt ship operations. I think those concerns are worth investigating.

We recently had a paper accepted at CCS that examines exposed solar distributed energy resources, and I think applying a similar perspective to exposed maritime equipment could be very interesting. That paper is available here.

We also recently had a paper on measuring GPS spoofing of ships accepted at IEEE S&P. The full paper isn’t online yet, but the project was directly motivated by mariners telling us that they were struggling with GPS spoofing. That made me want to find a way to systematically measure where spoofing was occurring. 

Ultimately, the goal is to turn that kind of research into something useful for mariners, such as warning them when they are entering an area experiencing spoofing or when their own vessel may be affected and they should no longer trust their GPS. That is the kind of research I’d like to continue doing: listening to the problems mariners are actually experiencing and finding ways to investigate and address them.

Photos by Kevin Beasley and Terence Rushin/College of Computing

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Let’s say you ask ChatGPT a question that stumps it, or a Waymo vehicle encounters something unusual in the road, or an autonomous factory faces an unexpected disruption.

Most people would recognize that something unexpected has happened and adjust accordingly.  

For machines, it’s not always that simple.  

Researchers at Georgia Tech’s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) are addressing this very challenge: how can autonomous systems recognize when something unexpected has happened, determine whether it matters, and decide how to respond?

In a recent paper published in the INFORMS Journal on Data Science, the research team introduced a new framework called Mutual Information Surprise, designed to help machines identify meaningful surprises in complex environments. The work could help lay the foundation for AI agents, robots, and autonomous systems that can better navigate unexpected situations, avoid costly mistakes, and make more informed decisions when faced with situations they weren’t designed or trained to handle.  

"Traditional automation systems are designed to follow instructions. They do not have a sense of surprise. Machines follow a predetermined recipe and produce the expected result," said Yu Ding, the Anderson-Interface Chair and professor in ISyE, who is leading this project. " Intelligent agents, however, must do more than simply follow instructions. They need to recognize when their current understanding or reasoning process has become inadequate. Humans routinely use surprise for this purpose. An autonomous machine needs an analogous computational capability."

This research concept was jointly worked out by Xiao Liu, the David M. McKenney Family Associate Professor, as well as a former postdoctoral fellow in ISyE, Yinsong Wang, and Ph.D. student Quan Zeng.

While several methods already exist to measure surprise in machines, such as the "Shannon Surprise" and "Bayesian Surprise," the ISyE team saw limitations in both approaches.  

Shannon Surprise tends to focus on the rarity of an event, while Bayesian Surprise focuses on how much a new observation changes a system's beliefs.

To illustrate the limitations of existing surprise measures, Ding pointed to the examples of someone noticing a specific type of car parked nearby or a student who consistently earns top grades but suddenly performs poorly on an exam.

Existing surprise measures don't always flag the right kinds of moments to be surprised, Ding said. To the examples given, the Shannon Surprise would flag the specific car parked nearby, although people typically wouldn’t be surprised by that event. Conversely, people would be surprised by the student performing poorly, but the Bayesian Surprise would not flag it.    

"We introduce this new surprise definition because it measures the gain of knowledge and epistemic progression, thus capturing the right moments when a system should be surprised and ignoring the moments when it shouldn't," Ding added.  

The framework could eventually help systems determine when to continue as planned or when to stop and reassess, whether that's an AI assistant struggling to answer a question, a robot encountering a situation it has never seen before, or an autonomous factory detecting a disruption that could affect production and require human intervention.

Looking ahead, the ISyE research team is exploring potential applications in engineering autonomous systems and is developing a proposal for federally funded programs.  

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From vaccines to gene therapies, mRNA medicines often rely on tiny fat-based particles called lipid nanoparticles, or LNPs, to carry treatments where they need to go. But researchers still face a fundamental challenge: getting those therapies to the organs where they are needed most while limiting side effects elsewhere in the body.

Now, researchers at Georgia Tech and Emory University have discovered that delivering LNP medicines directly to various areas of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract — from the cheeks to the stomach to the rectum — could alter where the therapies travel in the body after being absorbed. This enables more precise targeting and opens new possibilities for mRNA therapies and vaccines.

Several technologies are currently in development that enable oral and GI nucleic acid delivery, including pills, patches, and endoscopic injections. 

"Here we show that oral delivery of mRNA wouldn’t just enhance the patient experience compared to injections, but it also may enable improved or even completely new treatments," said Alex Abramson, an assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE).

"We're able to deliver to organs that are hard to target via traditional administration methods while simultaneously reducing uptake in organs normally associated with toxicity."

The researchers published their findings in ACS Nano in September.

Delivery Direction

Typically, LNPs are delivered subcutaneously or intravenously, but that can mean the drugs affect more than just the intended target. Drug interactions with organs such as the liver, lungs, and spleen can cause unwanted side effects that limit how much medicine can be administered. The researchers found that delivering LNPs to different regions of the GI tract changed where the nanoparticles traveled in the body, allowing them to reach targets like the pancreas and lymph nodes while reducing targeting to the liver, lungs, and spleen. 

"We found that the LNP was completely safe at a very high dose when delivered via a gastric route of administration," said Abdulraouf Abbas, a Ph.D. student in James Dahlman's Emory lab. Dahlman is a McCamish Early Career Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory School of Medicine.

"What's really exciting about not affecting the liver and the lungs is that it may allow us to increase the dose without increasing the side effects," Abramson said.

Even better, if the goal is vaccination, the dose could be smaller because the therapy is delivered more directly to the desired target. "Not only are we potentially improving LNP benefits by changing how it is administered, but we could even potentially decrease the cost of those mRNA vaccines or mRNA drugs," said Ramy Ghanim, a ChBE Ph.D. student.

Different Routes, Different Results

Using mouse models, the researchers mapped where nanoparticles traveled after microneedle injections delivered them to different parts of the GI tract. Once they identified which organs received the therapy, they could begin exploring potential medical applications. 

"If you're designing mRNA for a vaccine, then you want to prioritize targeting the lymph nodes. We saw in that case that delivering to the cheek matched or improved the immune response of a vaccine compared to a traditional injection," Ghanim said. "But just because that route is optimal for that application doesn't mean one solution fits all applications."

For example, delivery through the stomach was particularly useful for targeting the pancreas. The researchers also showed that delivering glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) mRNA doses through the stomach improved blood sugar regulation in mouse models. GLP-1 medications are potent treatments used to treat obesity and diabetes.

The researchers hope to test more disease models in the future and eventually bring this technology into the clinic to help patients.

This work was funded in part by: The Georgia Research Alliance and Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance’s 2023 Regenerative Engineering Medicine pilot grant co-awarded to Dahlman and Abramson labs, Lakshmi and Subramonian Shankar Fellowship and Diabetes Translational Accelerator, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, National Institutes of Health Maximizing Investigators' Research Award grant R35GM150689, and the National Research Foundation of Korea.

CITATION: Abdulraouf M. Abbas, Ramy Ghanim, Sebastian Rudden, David Schultz, Bora Jang, Avraham Shakked, Hyejin Kim, James E. Dahlman, Alex Abramson; Targeted Gastrointestinal Delivery of mRNA Lipid Nanoparticles Enables Systemic Vaccination and Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Metabolic Therapy. ACS Nano 2026; https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c18549

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What if a DNA test could help predict what diseases you might be at risk for — years before they appear? This is one of the dreams of genome-enabled personalized medicine, with DNA tests and screenings opening an unprecedented window into a person’s unique genetic risk of developing certain illnesses.

New research from Georgia Tech shows that the contexts in which genes act — lifestyle and environmental factors — are also important in understanding how genes express themselves, and how genetic risk may lead to disease.

In a new study published in Nature Genetics, Pervasive Interactions Between Exposures and Polygenic Risk Can Inform More Effective Clinical and Behavioral Interventions, researchers analyzed the genetic data, health outcomes, and lifestyle factors of over 400,000 individuals. 

“Genetic risk is often seen as something that can’t be controlled, but that approach assumes a determinism that does not reflect reality,” says the study’s corresponding author Greg Gibson, Regents’ Professor, Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the School of Biological Sciences, and director of the Center for Integrative Genomics at Georgia Tech. “Our research shows that people with low genetic risk who live in disadvantaged environments face disease risks similar to those with high genetic risk living in more resourced circumstances.”

The findings suggest that people at highest genetic risk may also be the individuals who benefit the most from targeted interventions — paving the way for more informed genetic counseling and social policy. 

Science at Scale 

Gibson began his career studying the genetics of Drosophila fruit flies before turning his attention to human genetics when he joined Georgia Tech in the late 2000s, soon after the Human Genome Project successfully delivered the first complete sequence of the human genome. “It transformed the way we do this type of research,” he recalls. “Suddenly it was possible to analyze genetics across large groups of people.” 

Because the effects of genetics can be small in an individual, large datasets are key to understanding genetics and disease at scale. “If we need to study 200,000 people to see a genetic effect, it takes even more than that to see how those genes interact with the environment,” Gibson says.  

The team, which included first author Sini Nagpal, formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Tech Center for Integrative Genomics, leveraged the UK Biobank, a program that collects genetic information from half a million volunteers in the United Kingdom to understand who falls ill and why. Started in 2006, the UK Biobank is home to the world’s largest single set of genetic sequencing data — along with the world’s largest whole-body imaging and long-term health tracking. This type of data is critical, Gibson says, to the advancement of genetic research, and is in large part what has made this new research possible. 

“Our research shows that we do have a way to capture situations where a person’s lifestyle and environment interacts with genetics in interesting ways,” he explains. “These genotype-environment interactions matter. They are important, but they can't be captured one variant at a time. An integrated approach — utilizing information in the thousands of genes influencing each disease — is much more powerful.” 

Improving Health Outcomes — For Everyone 

The team is now interested in expanding their research outside of the British database. Nagpal is now an assistant professor at the Koita Centre for Digital Health at IIT Bombay, where she is investigating translational genetics in India, including research into diabetes, cardiovascular disease and asthma.  Gibson is interested in translating the research to more broadly apply to the United States, with a focus on rural and disadvantaged communities. 

“Ultimately, if we can quantify which people are at highest risk, we believe we can suggest therapeutic and environmental interventions that could help mitigate their risk, reducing the prevalence of disease in the first place,” he says. 

“We want to dig deeply in ways that reveal disease pathways and begin to unearth the mechanisms behind disease,” Gibson says. “It's not just our ancestry that determines health; it's also culture and environment. We want to incorporate those factors into treatment of individuals and at scale.” 

These themes are also present in Gibson’s newly published book, Natural Virtue: Genetics, Anti-Eugenics, and Moral Philosophy, which explores how nature and nurture impact social issues like educational and gender disparities. 

Gibson adds that the message is hopeful. “The genetic differences between different socioeconomic groups aren’t meaningful,” he explains. “Our genetics do not predetermine our health outcomes. If we can create more equitable environments, we can improve outcomes across the board.”

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly vital to the nation’s power grid. However, AI tools meant to help energy companies manage the grid, plan for future needs, and respond to problems also create new security and safety concerns.

Saman Zonouz, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is helping address those concerns as a member of a planning committee for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Since May 2026, Zonouz has served on the planning committee for an upcoming public workshop on integrating AI into the electricity system. The workshop is scheduled for Oct. 26 and will convene experts to discuss how to safely and reliably use AI across the power grid.

The workshop will explore how AI is used today, the challenges of integrating AI into existing power systems, and how people and AI can work together. The event will also examine relationships between AI and cybersecurity, data centers, workforce development, and future research.

For Zonouz, cybersecurity and resilience are key parts of the conversation.

“AI is both a shield and a target for the grid,” Zonouz said.

Zonouz leads Georgia Tech’s Cyber-Physical Systems Security Research Laboratory. The lab’s research, much of it funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, investigates how AI can protect power systems from cyberattacks.

One recent initiative combines AI with detailed knowledge about power system operations to detect attacks in near real time. Another project sought to identify security weaknesses in solar inverters and other devices that connect energy sources, such as solar panels, to the power grid.

Regardless of the challenge, Zonouz and his lab work to identify and fix these weaknesses before attackers can exploit them. Despite their best efforts, however, Zonouz said that some AI tools meant to secure a system can create new ways for attackers to target a power grid.

The lab has demonstrated in several studies that AI systems can be tricked by false or manipulated data. Attackers can also target the software and systems that AI depends on. As AI becomes more advanced, some systems may even be able to modify grid operations.

This raises an important question: What happens if an AI system fails or is attacked?

“That is why the right frame is resilience,” Zonouz said.

For Zonouz, the goal is not to create an AI system that can never fail or be attacked. It’s to build a trustworthy power grid that can continue operating safely even if an AI system fails or is compromised.

Zonouz will bring his perspective to the National Academies workshop. In addition to helping organize the event, he will lead a session on cybersecurity and resilience. He will also help summarize the workshop’s key takeaways during the closing session. The workshop will be held virtually in late October.  

“Lessons learned from the electricity grid can be applied to other critical infrastructure as AI monitoring and control tools continue to advance and become more common,” he said.

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