Emory and the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) are launching the Georgia ImmunoEngineering Consortium (GIEC), a research partnership aimed at combining engineering with studying the immune system in search of better immune responses to diseases, according to a Feb. 25 University press release.

Comprised of engineers, physicians, chemists, physicists, computational scientists, immunologists and clinical investigators, the consortium will focus on cancer, autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, spinal cord injury treatment and areas of regenerative medicine, the press release says.

The consortium is an extension of the already-extensive partnership between the two schools.

This partnership includes the joint Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, which combines Georgia Tech’s engineering expertise and Emory’s medical research and clinical practice, according to Holly Korschun, director of research communications for the Woodruff Health Sciences Center.

The GIEC was established through the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), a nonprofit organization that expands research and commercialization capacity in Georgia’s universities and medical infrastructure in order to launch new companies, create high-value jobs and transform lives, according to the press release.

The immune system is the basis of human health and disease, and immunoengineering combines engineering technology with immune system studies to modulate and improve the immune response to disease, Korschun said.

According to David Stephens, vice president for research at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center and chair of the Department of Medicine in the School of Medicine, immunoengineering is a logical progression for scientific partnerships.

“The fields of medicine and engineering have become much more tightly linked as medical researchers and engineers alike realize the promise of using new tools and technologies to address some of the most challenging problems in medicine,” Stephens wrote in an email to the Wheel.

Mason I. Lowance Chair and professor of Rheumatology Ignacio Sanz, co-chair of the steering committee responsible for creating the GIEC, wrote in an email to the Wheel that the consortium has recruited new outstanding talent and has brought collaborative, beneficial projects to both schools.

“Emory brings to the table multiple assets including great expertise, both clinical and scientific, in multiple areas of immunology, inflammation, vaccines, transplantation, cancer and cardiovascular diseases and neurological diseases as well as unique expertise in public health,” Sanz wrote in an email to the Wheel.

The steering committee was also responsible for planning the first annual symposium, held at the Emory Conference Center Feb. 28, according to Sanz.

The symposium had more than 200 faculty, postdoctoral and graduate students and administrators attend and featured presentations on topics ranging from autoimmune diseases to genomics, Korschun said.

The symposium launched GIEC and was a starting point for communications with other scientists and clinicians in Georgia and featured two keynote speakers, immunoengineering expert George Georgiou from the University of Texas, Austin, and vaccine expert Rafi Ahmed, professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory, Sanz wrote.

According to Stephens, the consortium will be an effective vehicle for paving the way for the future of immunoengineering.

“New possibilities for research that joins medicine and engineering will continue to increase and to become more sophisticated, and Emory and Georgia Tech are already well positioned to be leaders in this advancing field,” Stephens wrote.

– By Stephen Fowler

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Stephen Fowler 16C is the political reporter at Georgia Public Broadcasting, the statewide NPR affiliate in Georgia. He graduated from Emory with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and covered the central administration and Greek Life for the Wheel before serving as assistant news editor, Emory Life editor and the Executive Digital Editor from 2015-16.