{"350551":{"#nid":"350551","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Patel Wins Young Investigator Award","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESome day, Yogi Patel expects to enjoy the best of both worlds \u2013 starting a successful company while enjoying a career in academia. Apparently, \u2018some day\u2019 may not be very far off for Patel, a third-year Ph.D. student in the Wallace H. Coulter Department for Biomedical Engineering, who recently won a Young Investigator Award at the IEEE BRAIN Grand Challenges Conference.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe mid-November conference, put on by the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), preceded the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The EMBS meeting focused on engineering challenges related to President Obama\u2019s BRAIN (for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnother goal of the conference was to recognize outstanding young investigators working on innovative research. There were 13 BRAIN Grand Challenge Young Investigator Award winners, students from a range of institutions, including Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., and one from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Patel, who works in the lab of Robert Butera (professor of electrical and computer engineering who holds a joint appointment in the Coulter Department). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cA lot of the work in our lab is based on peripheral nerve stimulation. Nerves are like cables that let us interact with the world and a lot of our work is focused on answering questions such as, how do you selectively stimulate nerves using electricity, how do you selectively block them using electricity, and what information can we read from them,\u201d says Patel, whose research involves the incorporation of micro-needle technology from Atlanta-based Axion BioSystems with standard nerve cuff electrode technology. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re trying to get close to the source of the signal, which is inside the nerve,\u201d he adds. \u201cThe use of micro-needles enables a safe and effective way of recording neural activity from inside the nerve, as opposed to the outside. This may not be a huge leap forward, but it is an incremental leap that helps gain new insights on the types of activity underlying specific neural circuits.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe idea, essentially, is to improve our ability to read and write to the brain through peripheral nerves. Patel and his fellow researchers are developing technology for better, more precise tools when it comes to recording from the nervous system. \u201cWe\u2019re sort of listening in with higher resolution and picking up things we couldn\u2019t pick up before,\u201d says Patel, who also spends time as a mentor in the Petit Scholar program. \u201cThe idea is to provide better ways to get better measurements.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt\u2019s work that he expects will be published early next year and work that will be commercialized, which gets back to the two worlds Patel wants to inhabit \u2013 entrepreneur businessman and academic researcher.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI really want to work at that interface of science and industry \u2013 because both worlds are good at their respective things,\u201d he says. \u201cI think that would provide a better way to identify and understand what the rest of the world around us needs.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"BioE grad student\u2019s innovative research grabs honors at national conference"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBioE grad student\u2019s innovative research grabs honors at national conference\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"BioE grad student\u2019s innovative research grabs honors at national conference"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2014-12-01 11:02:13","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:37","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-12-01T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-12-01T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"350401":{"id":"350401","type":"image","title":"Yogi Patel","body":null,"created":"1449245702","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:15:02","changed":"1475895075","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:15","alt":"Yogi Patel","file":{"fid":"201083","name":"yogi.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/yogi_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/yogi_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2890659,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/yogi_0.jpg?itok=Dn30WGhz"}}},"media_ids":["350401"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"111361","name":"BRAIN initiative"},{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"}],"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":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}