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Professor Bellamkonda's group relocated to Georgia Tech/Emory in the summer of 2003 after spending eight years at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio . At Georgia Tech/Emory, Prof. Bellamkonda directs the Neurological Biomaterials and Therapeutics group (Neuro-BAT), a part of the Laboratory for Neuroengineering in the joint Georgia Tech/Emory Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. He also serves as the Programmatic Thrust Leader for Neural Tissue Engineering in the NSF funded Engineering Research Center, GTEC.
Neurological Biomaterials and Therapeutics is a diverse group that believes in developing meaningful and productive science and technology, and doing so in an amiable and exciting environment. Our members come from four different countries, and their backgrounds include Chemistry, ChemE, MechE, BME, and EE, creating a multi-disciplinary environment.
Our group is interested in developing anisotropic scaffolds for peripheral nerve regeneration, understanding and overcoming CSPG contribution to regenerative failure in the CNS, and in developing vehicles for contrast agents and receptor-targeted nano-scale drug delivery for the treatment of brain tumors, specifically astrogliomas. We are also interested in interfacing technologies that will better integrate external electronics to the nervous system.
The philosophy of our research program is to derive the design criteria for therapeutic approaches from a thorough examination and understanding of the underlying biology, both developmental and pathological, and then draw from the biomaterials science and engineering to fashion novel therapeutic approaches. Our work is funded by grants from The Whitaker Foundation, NIH (NINDS & NIDCD), NSF, the Coulter Foundation, the Georgia Cancer Coalition, the Nora L. Redman Fund, and GTEC.