Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, awarded its 2023 Future Insight Prize to Khalid Salaita, professor of chemistry at Emory University. The award comes with $540,000 to fund the next phase of research into an air sensor that can continuously monitor indoor spaces for pathogens that can cause pandemics.
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Alisina Bazrafshan began his journey with Laney Graduate School in 2016 after having studied at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. He will graduate from Emory with a PhD in chemistry, leaving faculty and students with fond memories of a natural mentor.
Laney Graduate School is recognizing Bazrafshan’s work and impact in that regard by naming him the 2021 Eleanor Main Student Mentor Award recipient. Named in honor of the late Eleanor Main, a transformative leader at Emory and a devoted advocate for graduate education, the award recognizes individuals who exemplify mentoring of the highest quality in graduate education.
Shortly after arriving at Emory in 2016, Bazrafshan joined the Student Education Experience Development (SEED) program. Through it, Bazrafshan led multiple successful initiatives to promote the significance of higher education to Atlanta High School students with a focus on refugee high schoolers in the Atlanta region. From 2017 to 2019, he served as
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Emory University received a National Institutes of Health grant, for a total of $883,000 over two years, to develop a sensor capable of detecting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the air of indoor spaces. The grant is part of the NIH RADx Radical initiative, which aims to support new, non-traditional approaches for rapid detection devices that address current gaps in testing for the presence of SARS-CoV-2, as well as potential future pandemic viruses.
“Our goal is to create a fully automated electronic sensor that continually measures for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment in real time,” says Khalid Salaita, principal investigator of the grant and an Emory professor of chemistry. “The sensor could be used in schools, airports or any high-traffic indoor areas.”
Emory University | Jan. 6, 2021
Chemists have developed a nanomaterial that they can trigger to shape shift from flat sheets to tubes and back to sheets again in a controllable fashion. The Journal of the American Chemical Society published a description of the nanomaterial, which was developed at Emory University and holds potential for a range of biomedical applications, from controlled-release drug delivery to tissue engineering.
The nanomaterial, which in sheet form is 10,000 times thinner than the width of a human hair, is made of synthetic collagen. Naturally occurring collagen is the most abundant protein in humans, making the new material intrinsically biocompatible.