{"316731":{"#nid":"316731","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Healtcare Champions: Visionaries Who Are Making Atlanta a Healthier Place To Live","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EShuming Nie\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis Atlanta professor uses tiny glow-in-the-dark particles to root out cancer\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe only sure way to beat cancer is to remove it completely, with surgery. But the tumor margin\u2014where cancerous cells merge into healthy tissue\u2014is notoriously difficult to clear. Thanks to some Atlanta researchers, those gray areas are now a little less murky.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShuming Nie, a biomedical engineering professor at Emory University and Georgia Tech and director of the Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology, is heading up a clinical trial for breast and pancreatic cancer, testing a new method of ensuring that every last tumor cell gets detected. Nie\u2019s team injects patients with luminescent nanoparticles, which spread to the site of the tumor and bind with cancerous cells. When surgeons shine a specialized light on the area, tumor cells glow like stars in the night sky while healthy tissue remains dark. During one surgery for pancreatic cancer last year, this process revealed otherwise undetected malignant cells, which the doctors were then able to remove. \u201cWe believe we\u2019ve already saved a few lives,\u201d Nie says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENie\u2019s background is in chemistry, but he found the dry academic output of that field unsatisfying. \u201cI wanted to tackle big problems,\u201d he says. Cancer was that big problem. Nie has focused on nanoscale engineering since coming to Atlanta from Indiana University in 2002. Here he joined an extensive community of nanomedicine researchers, including Georgia Tech professor Gang Bao, who leads two national centers. Nie\u2019s team works at the state-of-the-art \u201cclean room\u201d lab at Marcus Nanotechnology Building on Tech\u2019s campus.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOver the past decade, Nie has published almost 100 papers, filed twenty patents, and received too many awards to list. But for all his accomplishments, he is understated, working out of a small, neat office in the new Health Sciences Research Building on the east side of Emory\u2019s campus.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHe\u2019s definitely a relaxed person. He puts a lot of trust in the people who work with him and allows them the freedom to explore novel concepts or designs,\u201d says Nie\u2019s colleague Brad Kairdolf, an assistant professor and researcher. The team is also developing cancer-fighting drugs that could be sent straight to a tumor, though that technology is likely a decade away. Similar research could be used to fight cardiovascular disease, using nanoparticles to target plaque inside arteries.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 2011 Atlanta-based Spectropath spun out of Nie\u2019s research to commercialize the detection tool; it\u2019s planned for an early 2015 launch in Europe, where the regulatory process takes less time. Spectropath CEO Ralph Gaskins, whose father died of colon cancer after an initial surgery failed to completely remove the tumor, became interested in the work after hearing a presentation by Nie in 2009. \u201cMy first thought was that this technology would have saved [my father\u2019s] life,\u201d says Gaskins.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.atlantamagazine.com\/health\/healthcare-champions\/\u0022 target=\u0022_self\u0022\u003ERead Original Article\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOriginally posted by\u0026nbsp;Christine Van Dusen,\u0026nbsp;Mary Jo DiLonardo,\u0026nbsp;Van Jensen, and\u0026nbsp;Carolyn Crist.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EShuming Nie, a biomedical engineering professor at Emory University and Georgia Tech and director of the Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology, is heading up a clinical trial for breast and pancreatic cancer, testing a new method of ensuring that every last tumor cell gets detected.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Shuming Nie testing a new method of ensuring that every last tumor cell gets detected."}],"uid":"27960","created_gmt":"2014-08-18 16:13:20","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:56","author":"Chris Calleri","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-08-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-08-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"316741":{"id":"316741","type":"image","title":"Shuming Nie","body":null,"created":"1449244947","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:02:27","changed":"1475895024","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:24","alt":"Shuming Nie","file":{"fid":"199956","name":"gilstrap_atl_mag_dr_nie_114.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gilstrap_atl_mag_dr_nie_114_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gilstrap_atl_mag_dr_nie_114_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":52898,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/gilstrap_atl_mag_dr_nie_114_0.jpg?itok=c5KQuAm9"}}},"media_ids":["316741"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"385","name":"cancer"},{"id":"168899","name":"Shuming Nie"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}