{"574001":{"#nid":"574001","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Mannino has Real Skin in the Game","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIt takes a lot of nerve to pursue a Ph.D., especially in something as demanding as biomedical engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor one thing, students enter an academic caldron where they not only tackle a challenging curriculum but must also overcome their own doubts and fears. Ultimately, there is the thesis \u2013 an original, self-directed project that must first be approved and later defended before discerning review panels.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo much rides on that project. The stakes are high for any scholar. But Robert Mannino, a fourth year Ph.D. student in the Wallace Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, has actual skin the game.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAnd blood,\u201d adds Mannino, who got unanimous approval for his project proposal last semester. He may have received some personal points for creativity.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cRob is basically devoting his Ph.D. work to his own disease, and everyone grasped not just the novelty of that, but the importance of it,\u201d says Mannino\u2019s advisor, Wilbur Lam, a researcher at the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, who is assistant professor of pediatrics and biomedical engineering in the Coulter Department (a joint department of Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology).\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMannino has been a fixture at Georgia Tech and the Petit Institute for about seven years. A former Petit Undergraduate Scholar (and then mentor in the Petit Scholar program), he now co-chairs the Bioengineering and Bioscience Unified Graduate Students (BBUGS, based at the Petit Institute, the core student group for the bioengineering and bioscience community).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESince his sophomore year he\u2019s worked in Lam\u2019s lab on multiple projects that have targeted, in some way, beta thalassemia major, a rare blood disorder that results in a reduction of hemoglobin, the iron-containing protein in red blood cells that delivers oxygen throughout the body.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMannino, 25, was diagnosed with the disease at six months of age, and needs blood transfusions every three to four weeks. His little brother Kevin, 19, has the same diagnosis. His Ph.D. project is focused on perfecting a diagnostic tool that works with a smartphone camera. It\u2019s a non-invasive, home test for anemia, and he\u2019s already tested it on himself.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe longer it\u2019s been since my last blood transfusion, the more anemic I get,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo I tracked myself over the course of a transfusion cycle, about a month.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne day each week, he\u2019d take a picture of one of his fingernails, then draw blood.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI wanted to see I could come up with a relationship between the fingernail colors and the actual results of the blood test,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, after one cycle, over the course of about a month, I was able to find color values in my fingernail that matched up pretty well with my dropping hemoglobin levels.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYour color comes into play at the doctor\u2019s office during a physical examination for anemia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe doctor is going to look at how pale you are, or he\u2019ll look at your fingernails and your lips and eyes, looking for indications of some sort of anemia,\u201d Mannino says. \u201cIf you see me everyday, it might be hard to pick up on a color difference. But the cameras in our phones are getting so sophisticated. This is a procedure that would use existing technology.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGlobally, anemia affects about 1.6 billion people. And plenty more people are at risk.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s a symptom of many diseases, of malnourishment, of vitamin deficiency. A lot of different people are affected or potentially could be,\u201d Mannino says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd a lot of those people have more access to a smartphone they do to a physician\u2019s office. Mannino plans to spend his time developing a system that will let a person take a picture of their fingernail, then spit out information about hemoglobin levels.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThen they can go see a doctor,\u201d Mannino says. \u201cWe\u2019re working on the app to make that happen. Now it\u2019s a matter of coming up with the best hemoglobin prediction algorithm possible. Ideally, by the time I graduate I\u2019d like this to be something that other people can actually download and use.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto: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\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Ph.D. student developing novel diagnostic tool for anemia, testing it on himself"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. student developing novel diagnostic tool for anemia, testing it on himself\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Ph.D. student developing novel diagnostic tool for anemia, testing it on himself"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2016-09-07 22:18:27","changed_gmt":"2022-05-26 17:09:36","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-09-07T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-09-07T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"573981":{"id":"573981","type":"image","title":"Robert Mannino in lab","body":null,"created":"1473300476","gmt_created":"2016-09-08 02:07:56","changed":"1475895383","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:56:23","alt":"Robert Mannino in lab","file":{"fid":"218354","name":"robertm.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/robertm.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/robertm.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2049558,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/robertm.jpg?itok=8WxZINRw"}},"573991":{"id":"573991","type":"image","title":"Mannino phone device","body":null,"created":"1473300587","gmt_created":"2016-09-08 02:09:47","changed":"1475895383","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:56:23","alt":"Mannino phone device","file":{"fid":"218355","name":"robert_and_device_copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/robert_and_device_copy.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/robert_and_device_copy.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1113985,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/robert_and_device_copy.jpg?itok=Awpv_l8P"}}},"media_ids":["573981","573991"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"4407","name":"Graduate Student"}],"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\u003ECommunications Officer II - Parker H. Petit Institute for - Bioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}