Dr. Garth D. Ehrlich
In
Fantastic Voyage : Live Long Enough to Live
Forever authored by
Ray Kurzweil and Terry
Grossman, the authors talked
about a research team headed by Garth Ehrlich of the
Allegheny Singer Research Institute in Pittsburgh that is developing
MEMS-based sensor robots which can be implanted inside the body to detect
infection, identify the pathogen, and then dispense the appropriate
antibiotic from the device’s internal containers.
One application they envision is preventing bacterial infections, a
major cause of hip joint replacement failure. Garth points out that
today, “the only recourse for such patients is the traumatic removal of
the implant, which results in additional bone loss, extensive soft tissue
destruction, months of forced bed rest with intravenous antibiotics, and
significant loss of quality of life due to complete loss of
mobility.”
Dr. Garth D. Ehrlich is currently Executive Director of Center for
Genomic Sciences at Allegheny-Singer Research Institute. He is
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the MCP Hahnemann University
School of Medicine and the Professor and Vice Chairman, Dept. of Human Genetics
at the MCP Hahnemman University School of Medicine.
The Center for Genomic Sciences (CGS) is a comprehensive and flexible
research facility designed to investigate a broad range of medically and
surgically relevant problems using cutting-edge molecular genetic and
bioinformatics techniques. CGS is a self-contained research unit of
Allegheny-Singer Research Institute, ASRI, the research arm of
Allegheny
General Hospital which, in turn, serves as the tertiary care facility
for the entire West Penn Allegheny Health System.
He is coeditor of
PCR-Based Diagnostics in Infectious Disease and author or
coauthor of Loss of T cell receptor V-repertoire in HIV-1 infected SCID-hu mice
in AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses,
Genomic Organization of the Human Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 2
(FGFR2) Gene and Comparative Analyses of the Human FGFR Gene Family
in
Gene,
The prevalence of Human
T-cell Leukemia Virus Types I and II in various patient populations,
retroviral risk groups and healthy blood donors
in
American Journal of
Hematology,
RNA differential display
of scarless wound healing in fetal rabbit indicates downregulation of a
CCT chaperonin subunit and upregulation of a glycophorin-like gene
transcript
in
Journal of Pediatric Surgery,
and Pseudomonas aeruginosa Displays Multiple Phenotypes during Development
of a Biofilm
in
Journal of Bacteriology.
He earned his B.A. in Biology with Honors from Alfred University in
1977 and his Ph.D. in Biology from Syracuse University in
1987. He is a consultant for Teltech and
is on the Scientific Advisory Board of
Radvault and of
Bacterin
and is doing molecular diagnostic support of clinical trials for
Pfizer. He enjoys
Magic the Gathering.
