About ACME-POCT

The Atlanta Center for Microsystems Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies (ACME-POCT) is focused on the development and translation of microsystems-engineered technologies including microchip-enabled devices including microelectromechanical systems (MEMs)-based sensors, microfluidics, and smartphone-based systems. These microdevices are notable for their small size, batch manufacturability, and low power requirements, which are vital for POC testing. The overall mission of the ACME-POCT is to assist and enable inventors and clinicians at a national level who have developed or are developing microsystems-based POC technologies to define their clinical needs, conduct clinical validation, and refine their technology with the objective of accelerating the path to translation and clinical adoption and directly addressing the barriers thereof.

The ACME-POCT uniquely leverages Atlanta’s nationally top-ranked clinical programs at Emory University’s hospitals and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, one of the nation’s largest pediatric hospital systems, as well the internationally acclaimed microsystems engineering expertise at Georgia Tech, which includes the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN), and other one-of-a-kind medical device prototyping, innovation, and testbed facilities. The ACME-POCT PIs uniquely balance the engineering and clinical sides of the Center and comprise Wilbur A. Lam, MD, PhD, a clinical hematologist at Emory and Georgia Tech bioengineer with expertise in POC diagnostic development and commercialization, Oliver Brand, PhD, a renowned microsystems engineer and head of Georgia Tech’s IEN, and Greg Martin, MD, MSc, a clinical pulmonologist at Emory and head of clinical research in Atlanta’s NIH-funded CTSA. Together the ACME-POCT PIs are poised to utilize their unique expertise and networks to accelerate translation of microsystems engineered point-of-care technologies.