Facilities
Centers of Excellence at the Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Tech is one of the nation's leading research universities. Groundbreaking research is underway in dozens of labs throughout campus, focused on producing technology and innovation that will drive economic growth. Through the use of state-of-the-art facilities, institutes and research programs, Georgia Tech encourages researchers to collaborate with the private sector to turn discoveries into commercial successes.
Life Sciences Complex
This complex contains over 1 million square feet and was designed to foster interaction among peers from various departments. Rather than the traditional design of devoting sections of a building to each discipline, researchers from chemical, electrical, mechanical and biomedical engineers share office and lab space with their colleagues from areas such as biology and chemistry. This arrangement is already leading to developments in fields like molecular imaging, which requires experts with knowledge of molecular biology, quantum mechanics and electrical and computer engineering. The complex includes the Ford Motor Company Environmental Science and Technology, the Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Building, the Molecular Science and Engineering Building and the Parker H. Petit Biotechnology Building.
Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Building
The #2 ranked Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, the nation's first joint department linking a public and a private university. The Coulter Biomedical Engineering Department receives the highest funding from NIH of all BME programs in the USA. The U.A. Whitaker Building, funded in part with a grant from The Whitaker Foundation, provides a permanent home for the department on the Tech campus. The Biomedical Engineering (BME) Building is envisioned to provide essential research and instructional facilities for faculty and students from the College of Engineering who are focused on the advancement for biomedical engineering in an exceptionally comprehensive strategy. Both universities have identified thrust areas in which to focus research and faculty recruiting. The individual thrusts are comprised: cardiovascular mechanics and biology, biomaterials and tissue engineering, neuroengineering, biomedical imaging and informatics, cellular and biomolecular engineering, and health systems.
The Ford Environmental Science & Technology Building
The 287,000-square-foot Ford Environmental Science & Technology Building (ES&T), which opened in late 2002, is the largest academic building ever constructed on the Georgia Tech campus and provides space for 80 faculty and their graduate students, research laboratories, and classrooms. An incubator and entrepreneurial center facilitate the transfer of new environmental technologies into the marketplace. The building houses facilities and a variety of life-science programs in such areas as biomedical engineering, earth and atmospheric sciences, clean energy, the environment, sustainable technologies, chemical engineering and biological sciences.
Parker H. Petit Biotechnology Building
In 1999, the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience moved into a $30-million facility on the campus of Georgia Tech. This is the first step in the development of facilities mirroring Tech's commitment to biorelated and environmental research in the decades to come. The Petit Institute occupies a three-story building with a total size of nearly 150,000 gross square feet. The building is configured to facilitate the interdisciplinary research programs of 40 faculty and their research groups, including both graduate and undergraduate students. The concept behind the building is to provide an environment to integrate the research efforts of the bioengineers on campus with those of the bioscientists in a way that fosters synergistic collaborative research. The building is also designed to provide the flexibility to rapidly change to meet growing needs in biorelated research and health care delivery in the next decade.
Georgia Tech/Emory Center (GTEC) for the Engineering of LivingTissues
The Georgia Tech/Emory Center (GTEC) for the Engineering of Living Tissues is headquartered in the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, with strong interactions with Emory University School of Medicine. Established in 1998 by the National Science Foundation as an Engineering Research Center, GTEC's mission is to be the leader in the development of critical core technologies and an educated workforce that will enable the development of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine and revolutionize the medical implant industry.
GTEC is developing tissue engineering technologies and regenerative medicine approaches through an integrated systems approach, harnessing discoveries from recent biological and engineering advances to significantly improve clinical therapies. Focus areas of research are in cardiovascular systems, bioartificial pancreas, orthopaedic tissues, and neural repair and regeneration. Associated projects in biomaterials development, cell sources and cellular engineering, stem cells, cryopreservation of cells and tissues, modulation of immune responses, bioreactor system development, biomechanics of cells and tissues, flow dynamics in cardiovascular tissues.
Dr. Robert M. Nerem
Director, Georgia Tech/Emory Center (GTEC) for the Engineering of LivingTissues
Phone: 404-894-2768
Email: robert.nerem@ibb.gatech.edu
Website
Molecular Science and Engineering Building
The 275,000 sq. ft. Molecular Science and Engineering Building opened in August 2006. This building houses faculty from the Schools of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Materials Science Engineering, Biomedical Engineering faculty, and is the center for the College of Engineering Health Systems Institute.
Center for Biologically Inspired Design
Biologically inspired design, or biomimicry, capitalizes on the rich source of design solutions present in biological processes at all levels. All successful organisms survive because they have adapted to a particular challenge where biological processes serve as design solutions. The goal of CBID is to enable the search for biologically inspired solutions as efficient, practical, and sustainable answers to design and engineering problems. CBID was organized to facilitate, develop infrastructure, and promote interdisciplinary research and education in biological inspired design. CBID is an intellectual incubator for knowledge exchange and provides opportunities for integrating, networking and promoting interdisciplinary research. Research focuses on biosensors, biomimetic materials and processes, locomotory devices, systems organization, environmentally conscious design.
Coming in 2008
Marcus Nanotechnology Building
Already one of the world leaders in nanoscience and nanotechnology research and design, the new facility will help Georgia Tech attract more research funding as well as world class scholars and students. When completed in 2008, the Center will include 20,000 square feet of space dedicated physical science and an adjacent 10,000 square feet of space dedicated to biological and biomedical nanotechnology research; creating a unique combination of research space currently non-existent in the world. The facility will also be available to research scientist throughout the University System as well as the private sector.
Georgia Center for Electronic Design at the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB)
The Technology Square Research Building is located within the Centergy complex, adjacent to Technology Square. The building is the new home of the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC), Georgia's strategic initiative to foster growth in the broadband telecommunications industry. The Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) supports world-class research that fosters the development of new communications technology in wireless/RF, wired/copper and fiber channel applications. Home of the nation's largest university-based mixed-signal research team, Georgia Tech's GEDC collaborates with more than 40 member companies and federal agency partners, conducting approximately $10 million in research each year.
GEDC leverages Georgia's existing high-tech base and combines it with resources from private sector companies, major universities, the research community, and more than $100 million in state funds. The initiative is making Georgia a world leader in the design of broadband (high-speed) communication systems, devices, and chips--the industries that will mold the future. The Center for Research on Embedded Systems and Technologies (CREST), also located in TSRB, was established in 2000 with a mission of international leadership in embedded systems technology through both groundbreaking research and curricular innovations. CREST's goal is to reduce by orders of magnitude the non-recurring engineering costs and time-to-solution of embedded systems, accelerating their pervasive growth and positive impact on all aspects of our lives including transportation, communications, entertainment, education, and ubiquitous information access.
Microelectronics Research Center
The Center provides expertise, facilities, infrastructure and teaming environments to enable and facilitate interdisciplinary research in microelectronics, integrated optoelectronics, microsensors and actuators. The Center currently provides user support and training for nanotechnology researchers from academia, industry and government. It is also the location for the southeast node of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), which is a National Science Foundation funded program consisting of thirteen integrated sites that offer state-of-the-art facilities to serve the needs if the nanoscale science and engineering community.
The Klaus Advanced Computing Building, College of Computing
The Christopher W. Klaus Advanced Computing Building, opened in the 2006, will house some of the most advanced computing labs and innovative educational technology in the world. The College of Computing, a national leader in the creation of real-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress, recently announced that, starting with the 2006-2007 academic year, incoming freshmen will be the first to experience Threads™, its transformational approach to undergraduate computer science education developed by college faculty. With the goal of producing graduates whose skill sets will be difficult to outsource in a globally-competitive marketplace, Threads is the basis for a flexible, exciting and innovative computer science curriculum that enables students to pursue lifelong learning and drive real, sustainable value throughout their careers.
The Food Processing Technology Building at Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech's state-of-the-art Food Processing Technology Building is a world-class center for collaborative food processing technology development, academic research, and public interaction. The building serves as headquarters for the Food Processing Technology Division of the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the nonprofit applied research arm of Georgia Tech. The division is a unique research unit focused on new technology developments for processing efficiency and operational enhancement in the food processing and poultry industries, and conducts significant research under two major programs: the Agricultural Technology Research Program (ATRP) and Georgia's Traditional Industries Program for Food Processing, which is managed through the Food Processing Advisory Council (FoodPAC).
Institute of Paper Science and Technology
The 162,000-square-foot facility Paper Tricentennial Building on the corner of 10th and Hemphill streets houses laboratories, classrooms, offices, a library, and The American Museum for Paper Making. Located on a corner of the Georgia Tech campus, the Institute of Paper Science and Technology (formerly the Institute of Paper Chemistry) is dedicated to the further development and utilization of this inexpensive but highly versatile material called paper.
With support from nearly 60 of the nation's major pulp and paper manufacturers and supplier companies, researchers at the Institute are addressing such concerns as enhanced productivity, improved quality control, dwindling resources, and meeting increasingly stringent environmental regulations. They do this through a rigorous program consisting of both fundamental and applied research, process engineering, and commercialization of technology. Projects range from studying a tree as a raw, renewable resource, to converting that tree into paper products, to utilizing those products as unique engineering materials.
Centergy
Together with Technology Square, Centergy forms one of the largest and most important public/private projects ever developed in Atlanta. Phase One of the project contains Centergy One and the Technology Square Research Building, both totaling 700,000 square feet of office, research and retail space. Centergy is adjacent to Technology Square, a 700,000 square foot project developed and owned by the Georgia Institute of Technology. Technology Square contains the Institute's College of Management, the Global Learning Center, the Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center, the Enterprise Innovation Institute and the Georgia Tech Bookstore.
Centergy One
Houses ATDC, VentureLab and GCATT
Located adjacent to the Technology Square Research Building, Centergy One, a 487,000 square foot building in Midtown Atlanta, houses Georgia Tech's Advanced Technology Development Center, a nationally recognized incubator for emerging technology companies, as well as the Busbee Center for Global Economic Development & Innovation, the State of Georgia's center for economic development and international trade that includes the State's Department of Economic Development, their Quick Start division of the Department of Technical & Adult Education, and the U. S. Department of Commerce's Export Trade Assistance Center.