{"id":21529,"date":"2026-07-06T11:52:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T07:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/?p=21529"},"modified":"2026-07-06T12:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T08:18:11","slug":"legacy-and-innovation-the-university-of-georgia-s-new-science-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/legacy-and-innovation-the-university-of-georgia-s-new-science-hub\/","title":{"rendered":"Legacy and Innovation: The University of Georgia’s New Science Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"

In modern science, the most significant breakthroughs are often made at the intersection of disciplines.<\/span> This is exactly the philosophy underpinning the new Science Hub established at the University of Georgia, a hub that brings together three distinct yet interconnected fields: molecular medicine, One Health, and synthetic biology.<\/span> The initiative’s goal is to integrate Georgia’s scientific potential into the international research community.<\/span> Most significantly, the project is a continuation of the multidisciplinary vision that Tsotne Javakhishvili founded.<\/span> What is the practical purpose of this collaboration, and what scientific horizons does it open for the country?<\/span><\/p>\n

We spoke to Merab Topuria, Director of the University of Georgia’s School of Science and Technologies; Professor Mamuka Kotetishvili, Director of the One Health Institute; and Gvantsa Brachveli, researcher and molecular biologist at the Synthetic Biology Institute.<\/span><\/p>\n

An interview with Merab Topuria<\/h3>\n

Merab, the University of Georgia has created a Science Hub that brings together three specific and significant institutes. What is the core concept underpinning the Hub, and what practical outcomes do you expect from this kind of interdisciplinary collaboration?<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Everything began roughly two years ago.<\/span> Within the university’s structure is an oncology clinic, Medula.<\/span> At a conference hosted there, an immunological challenge emerged: new immunotherapy methods had arrived for treating cancer, specifically lymphomas, but the scientific explanation for the healing process was still lacking.<\/span> If you understand the mechanism, you can apply that knowledge to other types of cancer as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

That is what led us to reach out to Professor Nino Forakishvili, a distinguished immunologist working at the University of Westminster.<\/span> She decided to return to Georgia and join us as a professor.<\/span> The result was the Institute of Molecular Medicine, which now encompasses several laboratories, including research on cancer mechanisms and gene regulation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, we invited Professor Mamuka Kotetishvili, who had been working in the United States, and we established a laboratory for microbial genetics.<\/span> At the intersection of these two directions, Tsotne Javakhishvili appeared a synthetic biologist who had been working at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.<\/span> We offered him the opportunity to create a corresponding laboratory here, and within a year, the institute was complete.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sadly, he flew back to America and died tragically, which was a devastating blow.<\/span> He had been working in an entirely new direction: the artificial construction of DNA sequences to produce novel, specific proteins that do not exist in nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, all three institutes together form a unique interdisciplinary space where genetics, molecular biology, chemistry and bioinformatics converge.<\/span> Our aim is to develop new types of therapeutic approaches, for example, overcoming antimicrobial resistance through new-generation antibiotics or engineered bacteriophages, and then to bring those solutions into production.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a fact that today the world’s greatest discoveries happen at the intersection of disciplines. How does the Hub help place Georgian science on the international map?<\/b><\/p>\n

The laboratories have been fully operational for only about a year.<\/span> The response has already been extraordinary.<\/span> The UK government and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), for example, have asked Professor Mamuka Kotetishvili to prepare expert reviews in specific areas of scientific research.<\/span> Furthermore, he has been offered an editorial role at Frontiers in Microbiology, a journal ranked among the top three in its field worldwide.<\/span><\/p>\n

I must also mention the fundamental textbook in immunology co-authored by Nino Forakishvili and Peter Lydyard, to be published by Oxford University Press, a work destined to become a standard reference for immunologists worldwide.<\/span><\/p>\n

In May, the major international SynBio conference was held in San Diego, bringing together technology start-ups and investors.<\/span> Our institute participated in it directly.<\/span> We have strong ties with China, where our researchers are travelling to work.<\/span> In Tbilisi, we are hosting an international conference on One Health.<\/span> In practical terms, we have already entered the international arena.<\/span><\/p>\n

I want to ask about Tsotne Javakhishvili’s students. How are they continuing his work, and where are they now?<\/b><\/p>\n

When I asked Tsotne how he had selected these young people, he said: “One student asked such a penetrating question in a lecture that I recognised her potential immediately and invited her to the laboratory.<\/span> Another I saw on television, she was speaking about bioethics, so I tracked down her number and called.”<\/span> He had a gift for recognising critical thinking.<\/span> These young people had spent years attending his seminars, where the conversation ranged far beyond synthetic biology alone into science broadly, and into literature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, these young researchers are placed at the world’s leading institutions: the Scripps Research Institute, the Institut Pasteur in Paris, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the University of Bonn and the University of Florida.<\/span> Despite the enormous opportunities available to them abroad, opportunities that those institutions would gladly offer permanently, they are deeply patriotic and determined to work within Georgia’s scientific landscape.<\/span> Their level is such that, while still students, they are already publishing papers in international journals, including at the Pasteur Institute.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I have never encountered young people so intelligent and so motivated.<\/span> We must support them, so that this enthusiasm and fanatical love of their work is never extinguished.”<\/span><\/p>\n

You mentioned the Tsotne Javakhishvili Prize. What is the main purpose of this award?<\/b><\/p>\n

Tsotne deeply disliked being referred to as a descendant of Ivane Javakhishvili.<\/span> He wanted to build his own name, and he truly was a great scientist in his own right.<\/span> We have established the Tsotne Javakhishvili International Prize, which carries a substantial financial award.<\/span> This will not be a local recognition.<\/span> It will be presented to scientists of world standing who have a connection to Georgia, or to Georgian researchers who have achieved distinction abroad.<\/span> The last Sunday of every October has been designated “Tsotne’s Day,” and it is on that day that the prize will be awarded in a formal ceremony.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking five to ten years ahead, where do you see the University of Georgia’s Science Hub, and what would be the result that would let you say the mission has been accomplished?<\/b><\/p>\n

I will begin with something we have not disclosed until now.<\/span> The University of Georgia will be the first private university to launch Georgia’s first satellite into space.<\/span> This is a CubeSat, assembled entirely in our own laboratories, with the exception of the photovoltaic cells.<\/span> It carries genuinely original technology and several pieces of know-how that our team has even presented to NASA.<\/span> The launch is planned for the final quarter of this year and will be carried by SpaceX.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for biology, we are advancing at such speed that it is difficult to predict the shape of things to come.<\/span> But when I observe the enthusiasm and the capability of our researchers, I feel enormous hope and conviction that, in time, someone from within this group will receive the Nobel Prize.<\/span> That will be the complete vindication of Tsotne’s vision and the university’s shared ambition.<\/span><\/p>\n

An interview with Mamuka Kotetishvili<\/h3>\n

The broad conceptual and infrastructural framework described by Merab Topuria is only the beginning.<\/span> To understand the specific, practical challenges this Hub is taking on, we need to go deeper into the spectrum of individual research.<\/span> One of the most critical of these is the One Health Institute, which is investigating some of global medicine’s most urgent threats, among them, zoonotic infections and antimicrobial resistance.<\/span> How this concept operates in practice, and why the integration of disciplines is decisive, is explained by Mamuka Kotetishvili, the institute’s director.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mamuka, the One Health concept is today one of the foremost priorities in global medicine and science. What is your institute’s core mission within the University of Georgia Science Hub?<\/b><\/p>\n

One Health encompasses the unity of human, animal, plant and environmental health.<\/span> These four domains are interlocked: a change in any one of them has direct or indirect consequences for all the others.<\/span> Our institute, working within this framework, focuses primarily on zoonotic infections (those that pass between animals and humans in either direction) and on antimicrobial resistance.<\/span> The latter is one of the most severe global challenges we face.<\/span> If the problem is not resolved by 2050, the world will be confronting a catastrophic medical and economic crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our Hub brings together three institutes: the Institute of Molecular Medicine, which investigates the mechanisms of cancer; the Institute of Synthetic Biology; and the One Health Institute.<\/span> Our mission is to respond to the challenges that cannot be solved within any single, isolated discipline but only through a multidisciplinary approach.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do you envision the practical scientific collaboration between the three institutes, and what kinds of innovative research should we expect from this partnership?<\/b><\/p>\n

Synthetic biology is an extraordinarily powerful platform that serves both molecular medicine and One Health.<\/span> Through synthetic biology methods, for example, it becomes possible to develop far more effective tools for the early detection and screening of cancers.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the perspective of our institute specifically, synthetic biology gives us the means to develop unique markers for the rapid identification of infectious agents.<\/span> Without going deep, to the level of molecular mechanisms, surface-level approaches will never be enough to overcome infections and antimicrobial resistance.<\/span> Synthetic biology is the platform that provides us with the instruments to move from superficial diagnostics into the cellular and molecular mechanisms themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea of institutional synergy and a science hub is bound up with Tsotne Javakhishvili’s vision. What does it mean to you, as a director, to see this model become reality, particularly given that Tsotne did not live to bring these ideas to fruition?<\/b><\/p>\n

Although my relationship with Tsotne was not long, the three of us, Merab Topuria, who was the primary driving force behind all of this, Tsotne Javakhishvili, and I were united by one great shared conviction.<\/span> We believed that the Georgian people possess an enormous intellectual potential, and we wanted to build the most powerful biomedical hub in Georgia.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we speak of the economic strength of the United States, one of its main pillars is the export of knowledge and science.<\/span> Our goal was the same: that Georgia should become not merely a trading hub, but a generator of intellect, like Israel, where technological breakthroughs are created.<\/span> Our vision was the export of knowledge to the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

What was Tsotne’s primary motivation in bringing these three disciplines together, and how well does this approach align with contemporary international standards?<\/b><\/p>\n

Tsotne had an extraordinarily clear grasp of the necessity of trans-sectoral and multidisciplinary research.<\/span> By today’s international standards, solving global problems is possible only through the close interconnection of disciplines.<\/span> The convergence of synthetic biology, One Health and molecular medicine is precisely the kind of contemporary vision that reflects the current direction of science in the West.<\/span> Whatever one institute is investigating, the discoveries will inevitably be of use to the others.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we consider the challenges facing us today, how can the Hub’s efforts make a genuine contribution to the development of public health in Georgia?<\/b><\/p>\n

Georgia has one fundamental problem: we still do not have a clear picture of the challenges we actually face, because we lack adequate and in-depth disease data.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take a simple example.<\/span> A patient comes to a clinic with a diarrhoeal infection.<\/span> In many cases, the physician prescribes an antibiotic on a presumptive basis, without specific diagnostics.<\/span> This means that such cases are not counted epidemiologically.<\/span> We have no accurate baseline to show us the true scale and nature of this or that disease.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is exactly where our Hub intervenes.<\/span> Through the collaboration of synthetic biology and One Health, we can develop modern pathogen detection methods that precisely identify what is causing a disease, where its source is, and what factors are driving its spread in our region.<\/span> As long as we are prescribing antibiotics on a presumptive basis, without precise molecular diagnostics, we will never truly understand what infectious challenges our country is actually facing.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do you see the Hub’s role in attracting international partners and establishing Georgian research capacity on the global stage?<\/b><\/p>\n

Our institute was founded only recently, and we have already achieved significant international recognition.<\/span> Because the University of Georgia is a strong legal entity, we have become full members of the EU’s One Health Association.<\/span> This gives our young researchers access to the highest-level training from Europe’s leading experts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The results are already visible: in the past four months alone, our small team has published four scientific papers in the world’s leading journals, including Springer Nature, BMC Microbiology, Virus Evolution (Oxford Academic) and Frontiers in Microbiology.<\/span> Many large institutions would envy that output in such a short time.<\/span><\/p>\n

How important is the existence of an interdisciplinary platform like this for the current generation, including Tsotne Javakhishvili’s students?<\/b><\/p>\n

The greater your command of related disciplines at the experimental level, the broader the horizons that open before you.<\/span> A scientist with that breadth is of incalculable value in contemporary research.<\/span><\/p>\n

In all honesty, there was a period when I was a professor at the University of Maryland and was seriously considering returning to the United States permanently.<\/span> But when I saw Merab Topuria’s enthusiasm, met Tsotne, and witnessed the full support of the university’s administration, I stayed.<\/span> When you reach a certain age, you feel the pull to invest everything you have accumulated in your homeland and to build something truly significant.<\/span> This Hub is exactly the environment in which we can develop the next generation of scientists and genuinely make Georgia a strong, intellectual country.<\/span><\/p>\n

An interview with Gvantsa Brachveli<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If One Health and molecular medicine reveal the threats we face and where the roots of the problem lie, synthetic biology offers concrete, high-technology tools with which to address them.<\/span> At the forefront of this powerful platform within the University of Georgia Hub stands a young, energetic generation of scientists and researchers who were students of Tsotne Javakhishvili and who are now bringing the knowledge they have gained at the world’s leading laboratories back to Georgia’s scientific landscape.<\/span> Gvantsa Brachveli, researcher and molecular biologist at the institute, tells us about the practical future of synthetic biology and about how Tsotne Javakhishvili’s scientific legacy lives on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gvantsa, you are a researcher and molecular biologist at the Tsotne Javakhishvili Synthetic Biology Institute. What is the institute’s main research focus at present, and what specific areas is the team working on?<\/b><\/p>\n

The institute’s primary focus is the development of synthetic and applied biology through modern molecular biology technologies.<\/span> Our goal is not only to study biological processes but to modify them purposefully and to create new functional systems.<\/span> Specifically, our research concentrates on the regulation of gene expression and the mechanisms by which it is controlled, which enables us to understand how a cell’s behaviour can be reprogrammed in response to different signals.<\/span> Alongside this, we are investigating how the tools of synthetic biology can be used to generate new biological functions and systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

The founding idea of the institute belongs to Tsotne Javakhishvili, and the team was built around his scientific vision.<\/span> Although he is no longer with us, his legacy and his way of seeing continue to define the direction of our research.<\/span><\/p>\n

The University of Georgia Science Hub brings together three institutes. From the perspective of a molecular biologist, what possibilities does this kind of multidisciplinary collaboration open up?<\/b><\/p>\n

To understand how these three directions connect, it helps to start with what each of them is actually trying to do.<\/span> The One Health approach studies the dynamic relationship between environmental, animal and human health.<\/span> Under that umbrella fall questions such as the effect of environmental carcinogens on human beings, the spread of infectious agents across different host organisms, and the impact of global warming on disease epidemiology.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other side of the same problems is molecular immunology: how the human immune system responds to these external and internal factors at the molecular and cellular level.<\/span> In other words, One Health gives us the broad ecological and epidemiological picture; immunology explains the underlying processes \u2014 how infection is responded to, how immunopathology develops.<\/span><\/p>\n

Synthetic biology, in turn, functions as a connecting and interventional platform.<\/span> If immunology tells us what is happening, and One Health shows us where and why it is happening, synthetic biology gives us the capacity to change those processes deliberately.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we look at this more practically, what specific problems does the synthetic biology platform allow you to work on in healthcare and medicine?<\/b><\/p>\n

This interdisciplinary approach enables us to work on questions such as the regulation of receptor expression in tumour cells and how we might modulate that process to strengthen immune responses.<\/span> Antimicrobial resistance is another significant direction, encompassing the study of pathogen spread in the environment.<\/span> Synthetic biology is also frequently applied in the creation of biosensors, which could be particularly valuable for developing rapid, precise diagnostic systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

I expect our work will begin with gene regulation and the modulation of signalling pathways, and then, in a subsequent phase, we will translate that knowledge into a broader applied context \u2014 modulating immune responses through gene therapy, developing next-generation therapeutic approaches, and engineering strategies against antimicrobial resistance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Six of the institute’s researchers are direct students of Tsotne Javakhishvili. Tell us about his legacy, what was his core scientific vision and approach, and what is it that holds this team together?<\/b><\/p>\n

What unites our group, above all, is Tsotne himself and the friendship each of us had with him.<\/span> Personally, I regard him as my primary mentor because of the particular way he approached young scientists.<\/span> He was always collegial, always an equal, and full of remarkable humour.<\/span> I cannot remember a single moment of self-doubt that Tsotne did not meet with motivation and validation, enabling me to take the next step.<\/span> He saw the potential and the capacity in people, and then actively helped those things to develop.<\/span> A great deal of our motivation to continue in this field comes from him.<\/span><\/p>\n

The institute’s team members are currently gaining experience at the world’s leading research centres. How important is this international network, and the university’s support, for developing this field in Georgia?<\/b><\/p>\n

We are approaching the completion of our laboratory setup, and in parallel, we are continuing to build relationships with the world’s leading institutions.<\/span> I must particularly acknowledge the partnership of the Scripps Research Institute, where Tsotne worked for many years, which is one of the foremost biomedical research institutions in the world.<\/span> One of our colleagues, Anastasia, is currently there, studying the evolution of bacterial genomes and synthetic methods.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two colleagues, Nini and Nini, are at the Institut Pasteur, developing expertise in biodesign and bioengineering.<\/span> A third colleague, also Nini, is in Bonn, participating in a project on gene therapy methods at a haemophilia research centre.<\/span> Meko will shortly be heading to the University of Florida’s microbiology and cell science laboratory.<\/span> And I am currently studying at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with funding from the University of Georgia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once the laboratory is fully equipped, every member of the team will have not only the relevant knowledge and practical experience, but also active collaborations with the world’s leading institutions and researchers.<\/span> The University of Georgia’s contribution to this process deserves special recognition.<\/span> It is through their active support that both the laboratory setup and the development of our scientific partnerships are being realised.<\/span> This support matters not only to us: its impact on the development of biomedical science and synthetic biology in Georgia will be felt far more widely.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Science Hub’s example makes one thing unmistakably clear: the era of isolated, siloed research in Georgian science is coming to an end.<\/span> At the intersection of molecular medicine, One Health and synthetic biology, a new generation is turning Tsotne Javakhishvili’s unfinished work into reality.<\/span> The result will be a country that moves from being an importer of knowledge to an exporter of technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

By Arsen Sebiskevradze<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In modern science, the most significant breakthroughs are often made at the intersection of disciplines. This is exactly the philosophy underpinning the new Science Hub established at the University of Georgia, a hub that brings together three distinct yet interconnected fields: molecular medicine, One Health, and synthetic biology. The initiative’s goal is to integrate Georgia’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1594],"tags":[6182,6184,6183,4823,6185,4330],"class_list":["post-21529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-gvantsa-brachveli","tag-merab-topuria","tag-science-hub","tag-the-university-of-georgia","tag-mamuka-kotetishvili","tag-saqarthvelos-universiteti"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21529"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21553,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21529\/revisions\/21553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}