Features
Banking on the brain
When the Biggs Institute was established in 2017, it was intended to be a comprehensive center that offers patient care, treatment and family support as well as advanced research in dementia and other brain disorders. Without brains, research is limited.
I’m giving my brain to science. It’s the smart thing to do.
When Mike Nixon was diagnosed with an exceptional neurodegenerative disease, he felt a calling to become a research subject. Then, he realized if he was going to make a genuine difference, he needed to find a postmortem home for his brain and spinal cord.
Mothers and babies
Casa Mia provides the supervision, structure, support and hope mothers with substance use disorder need to turn their lives around. The recovery home is one of only a few in Texas that gives mothers with substance use disorder the opportunity to recover with their children.
Work doesn't have to hurt
Juanita Lozano-Pineda wanted to help people avoid pain and career-ending injury, so she began lecturing dental students on ergonomics. That became a three-part program that includes faculty and students from the departments of occupational therapy and physical therapy.
Growing city, expanded patient care
With UT Health San Antonio's recent and forthcoming additions to primary care, specialty services, oral health care and cancer therapy, as well as a first-of-its-kind multispecialty and research hospital, patients throughout the community and across the region won’t have to go far to receive the care they need.
And caring donned a thousand faces
The darkest days of COVID-19, of course, were normal for no one. And yet, COVID-19 also magnified the courage, the heroics, the inclination to run toward the fire, to go beyond, that marks the healing professions and the mission of UT Health San Antonio.
University in Motion
Prioritizing public health
The UT School of Public Health is a collaboration between UT Health San Antonio and The University of Texas at San Antonio to improve health outcomes and build a workforce equipped for that mission.
Meeting the need for imaging specialists
The School of Health Professions will launch a new Master of Science in Imaging Sciences program to train imaging technologists in radiography, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging to address the technologist shortages currently stressing the health care system. The program’s first cohort will begin in fall 2023.
Providing novel approaches to trauma
A $2.5 million Trauma Research and Combat Casualty Care Collaborative at UT Health San Antonio will be the first and only of its kind in the U.S. It is a partnership with the Department of Defense and University Health’s Level 1 Trauma Center at University Hospital.
Making Lives Better
Teaching. Discovering. Healing.
New therapy reduces headache disability after brain injury
The first therapy developed for post-traumatic headache significantly reduced related disability in veterans following a traumatic brain injury and decreased co-occurring symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
In the race to solve Alzheimer’s disease, scientists find more needles in the haystack
Because of international collaboration, more genetic variations for Alzheimer’s disease are known today than ever before.
Eating fish could make you smarter
Having at least some omega-3s in red blood cells was associated with better brain structure and cognitive function among healthy study volunteers in their 40s and 50s.
Losing weight could come down to your liver
In a breakthrough finding, scientists discovered that inhibiting a liver enzyme in obese mice decreased the rodents’ appetites, increased energy expenditure in fat tissues and resulted in weight loss. What could this mean for us?
Mouse pups’ cries give clues about autism spectrum disorder
One-fifth of babies who inherit a genetic variant located on chromosome 16 will develop autism spectrum disorder by age 3. The variant is called 16p11.2 deletion.
Studying the impact of antibiotics in dental care
With a four-year, $2.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, School of Dentistry researchers will conduct a clinical trial studying the responsible use of antibiotics in combination with other treatments for periodontal disease.
‘It’s like being able to see a dime on the surface of the moon.’
UT Health San Antonio is investing $5 million over the next three years in cryo-electron microscopy, or cryo-EM for short. Cryo-EM visualizes proteins that are extremely difficult to image using other techniques.
Robotic kidney cancer surgery shows desirable outcomes in study
Robotic IVC thrombectomy — the removal of cancer from the inferior vena cava — is not inferior to standard open IVC thrombectomy and is a highly safe and effective alternative approach, researchers have found.