Biomaterials Team Awarded NIH Training Grant

Atlanta (July 9, 2008) — Graduate Training for Rationally Designed,
Integrative Biomaterials: GTBioMAT

A training grant, entitled “Graduate Training for Rationally Designed, Integrative Biomaterials” or “GTBioMAT” was awarded by the National Institutes of Health to the Georgia Tech/Emory Biomaterials Research Team. Ravi Bellamkonda, PhD, Principal Investigator and Director and Julie Babensee, PhD, Co-Director, will be responsible for the overall management and implementation of the program’s objectives.

The goal of the grant is to train the next generation of pre-doctoral students in the interdisciplinary field of Biomaterials to rationally design new materials with engineered ‘hooks’ in their structure such that they are integrated better into the body or can be remodeled in vivo. Graduates of this program will be well-positioned to realize the full potential of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Moreover, they will be able to exploit the revolution in molecular biology and molecular materials to rationally design new, integrative biomaterials and apply them to the next generation of medical devices, imaging techniques and implants.

Biomaterials are an integral part of medical devices such as hip implants, vascular grafts and stents, and are part of evolving applications such as scaffolds/drug delivery devices for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Furthermore, this group believes that the realization of the full potential of “molecular medicine” will depend on the next-generation biomaterials that will enable spatial and temporal control over delivery of protein/peptide-based diagnostics and therapeutics, both in extracellular and intracellular environments.

The multidisciplinary Georgia Tech/Emory Biomaterials Team consists of more than twenty faculty members in diverse departments including, Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Surgery, and Chemistry and Biochemistry. The team performs research in the key areas of biomaterials science, including novel biomaterial synthesis and rational design, functionalization and integration into living systems; and biomaterial carrier design for tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and the drug/vaccine delivery.

The GTBioMAT training grant will provide funding for four students per year for five years. Students graduating from the GTBioMAT program will distinguish themselves from other graduate students developing a unique skill set which will include developing proficiency in biomaterial synthesis, an ability to functionalize and characterize such materials with bioactive agents, and the ability to implant and evaluate the materials they design. In addition these students will learn strong leadership skills that will enable sound decision making as they become academic and industrial leaders in the future.