Manu Platt, Ph.D.

Damage to arteries continued in adult-equivalent mice in disease model

Undergoing a bone marrow transplant during adolescence may reduce the risk of stroke in people with sickle cell disease (SCD), while waiting until adulthood is unlikely to mitigate this risk, a mouse study suggests.

“We saw that if you wait until after the vasculature is damaged to do this procedure, the tissue doesn’t bounce back,” Manu Platt, PhD, the study’s corresponding author at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said in an institute news release. “Down the line, this could be another key piece of information that is a motivator for earlier interventions… Continue reading.

Like motley bandits, certain enzymes implicated in cancer and other diseases also annihilate each other. A new study reveals details of their mutual foils in the hopes that these behaviors can be leveraged to fight the enzymes’ disease potential.

The bandits are cathepsins, enzymes that normally dispose of unneeded protein in our cells. But in unhealthy scenarios, cathepsins can promote illnesses like cancer, atherosclerosis, and sickle cell disease. Many experimental drugs that inhibit them, while effective, have failed due to side effects that could not be well explained, so researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology abandoned the common focus on single cathepsins to model three key cathepsins as a system… Continue reading.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has announced the induction of Manu Platt, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, to its College of Fellows.

Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to a medical and biological engineer. The College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers. College membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering and medicine research, practice, or education” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education.”

Dr. Platt was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows for “outstanding contributions to diversity, inclusion, community involvement, and interdisciplinary research aimed at global health problems and domestic health disparities.”