Dr. Johnna S. Temenoff is the Carol Ann and David D. Flanagan Professor at the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech/Emory University. She is also currently the Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center in Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT) and the Director of the Marcus Center for Therapeutic Cell Characterization and Manufacturing (MC3M). Scientifically, Dr. Temenoff is interested in scaling culture of therapeutic cells and tailoring the molecular interactions between glycosaminoglycans and proteins/cells for use in regenerative medicine applications.  Her laboratory focuses primarily on promoting repair after injuries to the tissues of the shoulder, including cartilage, tendon, and muscle.

Dr. Temenoff has been honored with several prestigious awards, such as the NSF CAREER Award, Arthritis Foundation Investigator Award, and Society for Biomaterials (SFB) Clemson Award for Contributions to the Literature, and was named to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE), as a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), as a Fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE) and as a Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering, International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBSE).  She has co-authored a highly successful introductory textbook - Biomaterials: The Intersection of Biology and Materials Science, by J.S. Temenoff and A.G. Mikos (now in a 2nd edition), for which Dr. Temenoff and Dr. Mikos were awarded the American Society for Engineering Education’s Meriam/Wiley Distinguished Author Award for best new engineering textbook. 

Anju Toor is a researcher in nanomaterials for energy systems. She was a Bakar Innovation Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked on printed on-chip integrated micro batteries. She earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at University of California, Berkeley.

Her research focuses on advanced energy materials, printed electronics, energy storage systems, and nanoparticle self-assembly. She has led research on flexible and stretchable batteries for next-generation Augmented/Virtual Reality applications at Meta Reality Labs. She was named EECS Rising Star and selected for The Rising Stars Women in Engineering Workshop in Asia.

As an expert in self-assembly and energy materials, she has published over 20 research publications in the most reputed platforms in the field.

Itamar Kolvin received his B.Sc. (2007) in Physics and Mathematics and his M.Sc. (2009) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2017, he completed his Ph.D. in Physics under Prof. Jay Fineberg in the Hebrew University. He was a HFSP cross-disciplinary postdoctoral fellow in the Physics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara with Pro. Zvonimir Dogic. His research interests are in the fundamentals of soft matter out-of-equilibrium: assembly, deformation, flow and fracture. Current efforts make use of model systems that are assembled of protein machineries to investigate active and adaptive material mechanics. 

The questions that keep us up at night are: How does the immune system present and recognize antigens to combat disease? What are the molecular features involved in stimulating robust and specific immune responses? How can we exploit distinct features of immune recognition to develop new treatments for disease? Our research centers on answering these important questions. We focus on the CD1 family of major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) related proteins, which present both self and foreign lipids to αβ, γδ, and natural killer T cells. Examples of CD1 complexes involved in the adaptive and innate immune response to human disease include those associated with lipids derived from cancerous cells (Leukemia, Carcinoma, Lymphoma, Melanoma), wasp/bee venom including yellowjackets of the genus Vespula who represent Georgia Tech's mascot Buzz (Hymenoptera venom allergy), bacterial pathogens (Mycobacterium tuberculosis - Tuberculosis, Borrelia burgdorferi - Lyme Disease, Pseudomonas aeruginosa - Pneumonia), viral pathogens (HSV-1 - Herpes, HBV - Hepatitis B), marine sponges, and self cells in autoimmune disease (Dermatitis, Psoriasis, Lysosomal Storage Disease). Recent studies have shown that CD1 can also associate with and present a much broader range of antigens, such as skin oils that lack a discernible hydrophilic head group, lipopeptides, and non-lipid small molecules. Unlike peptide antigen presentation by high polymorphic human MHC-I complexes for which therapeutics must be tailored to a patients genetic background, the non-polymorphic nature of CD1 means that lipid/CD1 molecules are attractive candidates for donor-unrestricted (i.e. universal and patient-haplotype independent) vaccines and immunotherapy treatments. Progress in the development of lipid/CD1 mediated therapies has been hindered by an incomplete understanding in several important features of the CD1 antigen processing and presentation pathway as well as a lack of structural information for clinically relevant lipid/CD1 complexes. We aim to address these knowledge gaps with our research.
 

Anant Paravastu holds bachelors (MIT, 1998) and Ph.D. degrees (UC Berkeley, 2004) in chemical engineering. His Ph.D. research with Jeffrey Reimer focused on the use of lasers to control nuclear spin polarizations in the semiconductor GaAs. From 2004 to 2007, he worked as a postdoc at the Laboratory of Chemical Physics at NIH with Robert Tycko, where he learned to apply nuclear magnetic resonance to structural biology. Paravastu’s early structural biology work focused amyloid fibrils of the Alzheimer’s β-amyloid peptide. He was part of the team and community that showed that amyloid fibril formation is a complex phenomenon, with individual peptides exhibiting multiple aggregation pathways capable of producing multiple distinct aggregated structures. Between 2008 and 2015, Paravastu worked as an assistant professor at Florida State University and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. Paravastu started his present position at Georgia Tech in 2015. Paravastu’s laboratory presently focuses on 3 general lines of inquiry: 1) structural analysis of peptides that were rationally designed to assemble into nanostructured materials, 2) nonfibrillar aggregates of the Alzheimer’s β-amyloid peptide, and 3) aggregation due to misfolding of proteins driven away from their natural folds.

Antonio Facchetti obtained his Laurea degree in Chemistry cum laude and a Ph.D in Chemical Sciences from the University of Milan. In 2022 he joined the School of Material Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is a co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer of Flexterra Corporation.

Facchetti has published more than 600 research articles, 14 book chapters, and holds more than 120 patents (H-index 141). He received the 2009 Italian Chemical Society Research Prize, the team IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe 2010 Award, the corporate 2011 Flextech Award. In 2010 was elected a Kavli Fellow, in 2012 a Fellow of the American Association for the Advanced of Science (AAAS), in 2013 Fellow of the Materials Research Society, in 2015 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and in 2016 a Fellow of the ACS Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering. In 2010 he was selected among the "TOP 100 MATERIALS SCIENTISTS OF THE PAST DECADE (2000-2010)" by Thomson Reuters and in 2015-2023 recognized as a Highly Cited Scientist. In 2016 he has been elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and was awarded the 2016 ACS Award for Creative Invention. In 2017 he was awarded the Giulio Natta Gold Medal from the Italian Chemical Society for his work on polymeric materials and in 2019 he was inducted into the Advanced Materials Hall of Fame. In 2025 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Facchetti’s research interests include organic semiconductors and dielectrics for thin-film and electrochemical transistors, metal oxides, conducting polymers, molecular electronics, sensors, batteries, and photovoltaics.

Vinny is an Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech with joint appointments at the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Biological Sciences.

A majority of antibiotics and drugs that we use in the clinic are derived or inspired from small organic molecules called Natural Products that are produced by living organisms such as bacteria and plants. Natural Products are at the forefront of fighting the global epidemic of antibiotic resistant pathogens, and keeping the inventory of clinically applicable pharmaceuticals stocked up. Some Natural Products are also potent human toxins and pollutants, and we need to understand how these toxins are produced to minimize our and the environmental exposure to them.

We as biochemists ask some simple questions- how and why are Natural Products produced in Nature, what we can learn from Natural Product biosynthetic processes, and how we can exploit Nature's synthetic capabilities for interesting applications?

Broadly, we are interested in questions involving (meta)genomics, biochemistry, structural and mechanistic enzymology, mass spectrometry, analytical chemistry, and how natural product chemistry dictates biology.

Chen has an extensive research interests in environmental science and engineering. More specifically, he is a leading researcher in the environmental applications of nanomaterials and their potential fate, transport, transformation, bioaccumulation and toxicity in the environment. His interests in environmental nanomaterials dated back in his graduate research in 1992. He has also been active on algae based bio-renewable energy and sustainable urban development. Chen has been principle and co-principal investigators for 28 research projects (by June 2010) funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, Boeing and other organizations. The total funds are $7 million. He has also served as a review member or panel review member in the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy evaluation committee. He has also been invited to serve as an abroad review expert for the China Changjiang Scholars Program (which is to awarded to the top researchers in China). He has published more than 40 papers and two book chapters in this field.

Chen received his Ph.D in Nankai University, China. He joined the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering in May 2009.

Dr. Yeo holds the titles of G.P. "Bud" Peterson and Valerie H. Peterson Endowed Professor, as well as Harris Saunders Jr. Endowed Professor, in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is also the director of the Wearable Intelligent Systems and Healthcare Center (WISH Center) and the KIAT-Georgia Tech Semiconductor Electronics Center (K-GTSEC). Dr. Yeo's research focuses on understanding the fundamentals of soft materials, deformable mechanics, interfacial physics, manufacturing, and the integration of hard and soft materials for the development of biomedical systems. He earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and genome sciences from the University of Washington in Seattle and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With over 180 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Yeo has contributed to many prestigious journals, including Nature Materials, Nature Machine Intelligence, Nature Communications, and Science Advances. He is an IEEE Senior Member and has received numerous awards, including the Visiting Professorship from the Institute Jean Lamour at the Université de Lorraine in France, the Lucy G. Moses Lectureship Award at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the NIH Trailblazer Young Investigator Award, the IEEE Outstanding Engineer Award, the Emory School of Medicine Research Award, the Imlay Innovation Award, the American Heart Association Innovative Project Award, the Sensors Young Investigator Award, the Med-X Young Investigator Award, and the Outstanding Service Award from the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology, as well as the Outstanding Yonsei Scholar Award. Dr. Yeo is also the founder of two startup companies: Huxley Medical, Inc. and WisMedical, Inc.

George will oversee activities designed to facilitate individual faculty members and teams of researchers in attracting extramural research funding, particularly opportunities with a focus or component involving external partnerships. This proactive and strategic role will allow George to assemble teams for creating collaborative research relationships with HBCUs and other MSIs, industry, government agencies, and other external organizations in order to respond to large-scale research opportunities.