South Texas Research Facility continues tradition. Translational science in action.
Cancer, healthy aging, neurosciences and regenerative medicine are among the core areas of research to be housed within the South Texas Research Facility. Here are a few examples of translational science that will thrive in labs at the STRF.
Cancer
- Several research groups using translational approaches for cancer prevention and treatment will be located in the new Greehey Cancer Laboratories of the STRF.
- Sunil Sudarshan, M.D., urologic oncologist in the Department of Urology, is profiling metabolites of kidney cancer cells. Metabolites are the byproducts of our cells’ energy consumption. Metabolites produced by kidney cancer cells may be evacuated in the urine. The hope is an effective urine-based biomarker that can assist with diagnosis, prognosis and therapy for this cancer.
- Tyler Curiel, M.D., M.P.H., and Bin Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Medicine, are making strides in immunotherapy. They use novel means of attacking cancers by enhancing the patients’ immune systems to kill cancers selectively.
- Zhi-Min Yuan, M.D., Ph.D., Greehey Distinguished Chair in the Department of Radiation Oncology, is using tumor-suppressor genes to signal cancer cells that it is time to die. This cell death is called apoptosis. The Yuan lab, in collaboration with Chul Ha, M.D., chairman of radiation oncology, also seeks to study how to keep a tumor-suppressor protein called p53 from getting activated in normal cells when a patient undergoes radiation therapy.
- The laboratory of A. Pratap Kumar, Ph.D., is studying molecular signaling associated with development of prostate and pancreatic cancers. Results will allow the formation of nutrition-based preventive strategies, translation of laboratory observations to the bedside, and identification of useful markers for early diagnosis and to predict progression.
- The goal of the cancer prevention work of Rita Ghosh, Ph.D., is to target stress-related molecules that bladder, prostate and melanoma cancers use for their own propagation.
Healthy aging
- The Center for Healthy Aging, which conducts translational and clinical research focused on aging, will be a major part of the STRF. This center in the Long School of Medicine works with clinical partners, the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, as well as the Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.
- Center for Healthy Aging Director Nicolas Musi, M.D., said the STRF space allows the center to set up a lab to study muscle dysfunction. Muscular problems occur with aging, in diabetes and in neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Musi is the Sam and Ann Barshop Endowed Chair in Clinical and Translational Research in Geriatrics and a diabetes researcher in the Department of Medicine.
- Studies will focus on the ability of aging muscles to contract, exercise, burn energy and retain or lose mass. Sarcopenia, loss of muscle mass, is almost universal in aging. Holly Van Remmen, Ph.D., of the Department of Cellular and Structural Biology, focuses effort in this area of study and is the center’s associate director for basic research. Brian Herman, Ph.D., professor of cellular and structural biology, will also establish a lab in the STRF to continue studies of Parkinson’s disease.
- Formally organized in 2010, the Center for Healthy Aging also coordinates medical education in geriatrics and clinical services for older adults. Startup funds came from The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston, the Barshop family, the Health Science Center, the Long School of Medicine, the Department of Medicine and the Department of Family and Community Medicine.
Neurosciences
An amazing microscope will enable all scientists at the STRF to probe much more than cells in Petri dishes and frozen tissue samples. This speedy research instrument captures blink-of-the-eye events in living animals using a pulsed infrared laser.
James Lechleiter, Ph.D., of the Department of Cellular and Structural Biology and director of the Core Optical Imaging Facility, obtained the microscope with university funding and custom modified it to enable multiphoton imaging at very high scanning speeds. It will be used in myriad projects, such as comparing activity in the brains of mice that have Alzheimer’s-like cognitive deficits against activity in normal mouse brains.
Murat Digicaylioglu, M.D., Ph.D., of the Department of Neurosurgery, is part of the STRF neuroscience contingent. The group will study brain injury such as stroke, looking at short-term events in live tissue with the goal of increasing protection for the brain. The aim is to find treatment options for brain trauma patients.
The STRF will also feature the N-STORM, an ultra-high-resolution microscope. At the time it was acquired earlier this year, the N-STORM was the first in Texas and the second nationwide. It allows scientists to see details at the molecular level. "This is a microscope with 10 to 20 times higher resolution than conventional systems," Dr. Lechleiter said. "This increased resolution enables researchers to visualize the 3-D molecular structures of a cell in ways that have never been accessible by light microscopy." Health Science Center researchers are lining up to apply that new capability to answer a range of biomedical questions.
"One project will look at three-dimensional entry of viruses into cells. These are viruses that infect and initiate many types of cancer," Lechleiter said.
Another project will analyze the interaction between human cells and the bacterium that causes the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia. This bacterium invades and lives inside of the cell. The idea is to identify the specific position of a molecule that is secreted by the bacterium to better understand how it exerts its effects inside the host cell.
The resolution of a conventional optical microscope is limited by the wavelength of visible light, said Michael Wilson, Ph.D., director of institutional research core facilities at the Health Science Center. The accuracy of locating a single point is typically no better than approximately 250 nanometers. Using special chemistry and advanced computational techniques, the N-STORM repeatedly maps blinking lights that are emitted from single molecules to a precise position, so that their location is established to within approximately 20 nanometers. "It is a very data-intensive technique that captures up to 50,000 image frames and processes them into a single, super-resolution image," Dr. Wilson added.
The university and the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) provided matching funds to acquire the N-STORM. Both instruments will be housed in the STRF imaging core facility.
Science of seeking talent
The STRF is a truly monumental achievement and yet, it is the scientists in its labs who will ensure the STRF’s ultimate contribution: making lives better.
The STRF’s occupants reflect months of collaborative efforts by the Long School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Leaders from these schools identified more than 75 current faculty who are relocating to the STRF this fall. The building will provide 125,000 square feet in usable lab space for these and other STRF pioneers, partially relieving the Health Science Center’s research space deficit of 250,000 square feet pre-STRF.
Sixty percent of the STRF will be occupied by current faculty stars while 40 percent will be devoted to recruiting new luminaries. "It appears we are going to be amazingly close to the targeted 60 percent occupancy when the STRF opens its doors," said David Weiss, Ph.D., vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. "Meanwhile the four thematic research groups, funded by both the Graduate School and the Long School of Medicine, have already started recruiting new world-class scientists from around the country to occupy the remaining 40 percent."
Attracting new funding
Paula Shireman, M.D., associate dean for research in the Long School of Medicine, said the joint recruitments by the two schools reflect the desired translational nature of STRF science. "We are excited about the possibilities of expanding interdisciplinary research and believe that STRF faculty will play a major role in providing the transformational science that will improve quality of health and life span," Dr. Shireman said.
The deans, Dr. Weiss and Dr. Francisco González-Scarano of the Long School of Medicine, have been actively involved in hiring faculty with the department chairs.
The STRF is steps away from the Research Imaging Institute, the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute, the Cancer Therapy & Research Center and the Medical Arts & Research Center (MARC). The MARC is the clinical home for UT Health San Antonio, the clinical practice of the Long School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center, where primary care doctors and specialists see patients in private practice. Together, these form a major research campus with a broad array of infrastructure needed to do almost any kind of research.
Counting all disciplines, there will be 750 people working on science on this great campus.
San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro and City Manager Sheryl Sculley, with full support of the City Council, this Fall announced a $3.3 million grant to the Health Science Center to finish construction of the STRF.
"The city is proud to support both the improvements that will be made in human health and the economic vitality that will emanate from this great research building," Mayor Castro said.
"Forty laboratory groups, each with seven to eight people, will be located in the STRF," Dr. Herman said. "The open working environment of the new facility will significantly enhance the proximity of complementary research teams, resulting in the development of multidisciplinary research programs that will be more competitive in attracting new and larger research grants to the UT Health Science Center."
Faculty physicians featured in this article, including Hinan Ahmed, M.D., Steven Bailey, M.D., Tyler Curiel, M.D., M.P.H., Francisco González-Scarano, M.D., Nicolas Musi, M.D., Kristen Plastino, M.D., Paula Shireman, M.D., and Sunil Sudarshan, M.D., practice with UT Health San Antonio, the clinical practice of the Long School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Some also serve at University Hospital and other health care partner institutions. University Hospital is a teaching hospital of the Long School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center. For more information about UT Health San Antonio, visit UTHealthPhysicians.org.
Revving up research
Collaboration between the UT Health Science Center and UTSA accelerates
It isn’t salsa, but an institute with a similar name is firing up the cogs of collaboration between the Health Science Center and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Launched in 2003, the San Antonio Life Sciences Institute, or SALSI, is now viewed by many across Texas as the model for how an educational institution and a health science center join forces for greater research and graduate education.
Brian Herman, Ph.D., vice president for research at the Health Science Center, calls SALSI "the collaborative engine for South Texas’ new knowledge-based economy." As the economy moves further into the Information Age, SALSI ensures that better-trained professionals are being educated for the workforce of the future, he says. A special advisory group that studied whether to merge the Health Science Center and UTSA recommended to the UT System Board of Regents: "Expand and fund SALSI as an effective vehicle to advance UTSA’s graduate and research programs as well as the scientific goals of the Health Science Center."
William L. Henrich, M.D., MACP, president of the Health Science Center, says "SALSI has been an efficient, cost-effective model to bring together Texas’ great academic and scientific minds. In this era of declining National Institutes of Health dollars, it has helped to ‘prime the pump’ for collaboration in the areas of research, education and intellectual property that will benefit the entire state." Thomas Kowalski, president of the Texas Healthcare & Bioscience Institute, located in Austin, says "SALSI represents everything we have been advocating for the last 15 years; Texas is on the map because of programs like SALSI."
119 publications, 20 inventions, 172 percent ROI
Since funding its first pilot research projects in 2004, SALSI has brought together dozens of teams of Health Science Center and UTSA investigators representing many scientific and academic disciplines. Forty-eight SALSI seed grants have enabled teams who might not have collaborated otherwise to conduct research leading to 119 joint publications and 20 inventions developed jointly by the Health Science Center and UTSA. One of the inventions is a Chlamydia vaccine being developed with MERCK. Chlamydia is a common sexually transmitted disease.
SALSI has helped researchers acquire an additional $8.2 million in research funding beyond the $4.8 million that was originally awarded — a 172 percent return on investment. Moreover, the Health Science Center and UTSA expect to soon see additional returns on investment for projects funded in 2009 and 2010. Ongoing research targets glaucoma, prostate cancer, drug delivery, HIV, diabetes, aging, regenerative medicine and more. Researchers who team up to conduct SALSI-supported pilot projects are required to apply for extramural funding within 12 months of receiving SALSI grants.
SALSI has launched seven joint educational initiatives between the two institutions, including Master of Science (M.S.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree programs in biomedical engineering. Thirty M.S. students and 41 Ph.D. students are in the biomedical engineering program. Eight students have received the M.S. degree and 12 the Ph.D. since the first degrees were awarded in December 2007. One graduate is working in government, 11 are in academia and five are working in industry. Three are in advanced programs, such as the M.D.-Ph.D. dual-degree program. "Our students have come from places such as Yale, Duke, MIT, Rice and UT Austin, so our quality is on a par with those institutions in STEM areas (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)," said Joo Ong, Ph.D., chair of biomedical engineering at UTSA.
Training a future physician-scientist
One of these students is Will Lavery, who is in the fourth year of the M.D.-Ph.D. program at the Health Science Center. A SALSI grant enables him to work with Timothy Duong, Ph.D., and Jeffrey Kiel, Ph.D., of the Health Science Center, and Rena Bizios, Ph.D., of UTSA, in an area of research interest: the eye disease glaucoma. Glaucoma is silent; by the time a person notices vision loss, irreversible damage has occurred. This SALSI-funded project uses magnetic resonance imaging to study blood flow in early glaucoma. Dr. Duong performs the MRI studies, Dr. Kiel works with an animal model and Dr. Bizios conducts cell studies. "We complement each other, Dr. Bizios said. The team hopes to shed new light on abnormal blood flow conditions in the eye that long precede current medicine’s ability to detect this blinding disease.
"To me, SALSI encompasses two big things," Lavery says. "First, it is a chance for scientists to work on new ideas and gather pilot data with the ultimate goal of attaining very large grants from the National Institutes of Health. Second, SALSI is a chance to conduct translational research — that is, to conduct research at the laboratory bench that can eventually help improve health care delivered at the patient bedside. My career goal is to be a true physician-scientist who conducts original research and helps to translate discoveries into improving health care delivery."
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte and Rep. Robert Puente, supported by members of the Bexar County legislative delegation, authored bills in the 77th session of the state Legislature to create SALSI. The goal was to develop synergies in research and education that would exceed the combined efforts of the Health Science Center and UTSA if each were acting alone. "To date, SALSI has enabled the development of initiatives that will stimulate the growth of the biomedical and biotechnology industries in San Antonio and South Texas," Dr. Herman said. "These developments will foster the commercialization of the products of research at the partner institutions."
From research that can enhance the quality of life, to education of a well-educated work force, to commercialization of new technologies, to bolstering the region’s knowledge-based economy, SALSI is truly proving to be a catalyst for positive change — the ignition for a new era of Health Science Center and UTSA collaborations for the public good.
Researchers discover life-extending agent
Leaving no stone unturned
The giant monoliths of Easter Island are worn, but they have endured for centuries. New research hints that a compound first discovered on the South Pacific island might one day help us stand the test of time, too.
In Nature this summer, the Health Science Center and collaborating centers reported that the Easter Island compound - called "rapamycin" after the island's Polynesian name, Rapa Nui - extended the expected lifespan of middle-aged mice by 28 percent to 38 percent. In human terms, this would be greater than the predicted increase in extra years of life if cancer and heart disease were both cured and prevented.
The rapamycin was given to the mice at an age equivalent to 60 years old in humans.
The studies were part of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) Interventions Testing Program, which seeks compounds that might help people remain active and disease-free throughout their lives. The Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the Health Science Center is one of the three NIA Interventions Testing Centers, along with the University of Michigan and the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine.
"This study has identified a potential therapeutic target for development of drugs that might prevent age-related diseases and extend healthy lifespan," said Randy Strong, Ph.D., a professor of pharmacology who directs the Interventions Testing Center for the Barshop Institute. He is a senior research career scientist with the South Texas Veterans Health Care System (VA).
Discovered in the 1970s, rapamycin has been used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients. It also is used in stents and is in clinical trials for treatment of cancer. The Texas, Michigan and Maine sites for the aging experiments each found it extended the life of mice.
"We believe this is the first convincing evidence that aging can be slowed and lifespan can be extended by a drug therapy starting at an advanced age," Dr. Strong said. Study co-author Z. Dave Sharp, Ph.D., director of the university's Institute of Biotechnology, said the findings have "interesting implications for our understanding of the aging process."
Aging researchers currently acknowledge only two life-extending interventions in mammals: calorie restriction and genetic manipulation. Rapamycin appears to partially shut down the same molecular pathway as restricting food intake or reducing growth factors. It does so through a cellular protein called mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), which controls many processes in cell metabolism and responses to stress.
A decade ago, Dr. Sharp proposed to his colleagues that mTOR might be involved in calorie restriction. In 2004, a year after the NIA Interventions Testing Program began, he submitted a proposal that rapamycin be studied for anti-aging effects. The proposal was approved, and the three testing centers began to include rapamycin in the diets of mice. The male and female mice were cross-bred from four different strains of mice to more closely mimic the genetic diversity and disease susceptibility of humans.
Dr. Strong soon recognized a problem: Rapamycin was not stable enough in food or in the digestive tract to register in the animals' blood level. He worked with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio to microencapsulate the compound and solve these problems.
The goal was to begin feeding the mice at 4 months of age, but because of the delay caused by the stability issue, the mice were not started until they were 20 months old - the equivalent of 60 human years. "I did not think it would work because the mice were too old," said Arlan G. Richardson, Ph.D., director of the Barshop Institute, professor of cellular and structural biology, Methodist Hospital Foundation Chair and VA senior research career scientist. "Most reports indicate calorie restriction doesn't work when implemented in old animals. The fact that rapamycin increases lifespan in relatively old micewas totally unexpected."
Dr. Strong summarized possible implications of this discovery: "If rapamycin or drugs like it work as envisioned, the potential reduction in overall health cost for the world will be enormous." Indeed, such an intervention would cast an enormous shadow, just like the well-worn monoliths of Easter Island.
Uncovering the mystery of a sleeping menace
What do frequent stoppages in breathing during sleep do to the body? A team of 30 researchers, led by three senior investigators in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, is seeking answers in a unique model of sleep apnea in rodents. A five-year, $9.5 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) supports the research program in the departments of Pharmacology, Physiology and Anesthesiology. The multidisciplinary team is mimicking sleep apnea in the laboratory by simulating the sporadic reductions in oxygen that mark the disorder. In special chambers, the rodents breathe a normal oxygen level, then half of that level, in alternating cycles for eight hours — the course of a normal night’s sleep.
First team observes brain stem
The Health Science Center researchers, initially supported by seed money from the university’s Presidential Research Enhancement Fund leading to the NIH grant, are divided into three teams categorizing different changes that take place in the brain and nervous system with recurring low oxygen. The grant principal investigator, Steven W. Mifflin, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology, leads a contingent studying what happens when oxygen sensors in the arteries inform the brain that blood oxygen levels have fallen.
"We are looking at how that information is processed in the brain stem and how the processing is altered after repetitive exposure to low oxygen levels in blood," Dr. Mifflin said. "You have these oxygen sensors telling the brain that levels have fallen, resulting in faster breathing, raised blood pressure and other actions to try to get more oxygen into your blood. Part of the reason sleep apnea patients have high blood pressure is the repetitive activation of this machinery."
Sleep apnea simulator
The chambers, designed by the Division of Instrumentation Services at the university, rely on a series of timers that control the flow of gasses through valves, allowing nitrogen to enter and displace some of the oxygen while the rodents sleep. The rodents experience about 80 episodes of reduced oxygen over an eight-hour sleep cycle, which is during the daytime because the rodents are nocturnal. "The model we are using is a fairly moderate form of sleep apnea," Steven W. Mifflin, Ph.D., said. Most people have this form, he said, but there are severe cases in which an individual may stop breathing every couple of minutes, or 30 times in an hour.
Second team observes forebrain
Tom Cunningham, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacology, leads a second team investigating how forebrain mechanisms contribute to elevated blood pressure in the rodents, even when the blood oxygen levels have returned to normal. "The reason blood pressure remains high, even after oxygen levels return to normal, is because the brain adapts," he said. "When oxygen is low, genes induce changes in brain function, which stimulate the heart and arteries to maintain high blood pressure. We are observing these changes in the rodents experiencing intermittent low oxygen conditions."
Blood pressure increases by the same amount in these animals as it does in people with sleep apnea, he noted. "Dr. Mifflin developed this rodent model, which has a great deal of potential clinical relevance," Dr. Cunningham said. "I think that is why the Health Science Center received this large and important NIH grant."
Third team evaluates hypothalamus
A third investigator, Glenn Toney, Ph.D., associate professor of physiology, leads a team evaluating how an area of the hypothalamus processes input from both oxygen sensors in the arteries and the genes triggered by low oxygen. The hypothalamus governs the sympathetic nervous system, which causes blood vessels to constrict and increases the pumping force of the heart, further contributing to the high blood pressure.
"It turns out information from arterial oxygen sensors transmit signals to the brain stem, which communicates with the hypothalamus," Dr. Toney said. "Meanwhile, the forebrain neurons Dr. Cunningham is studying also communicate with the hypothalamus. According to our hypothesis, the hypothalamus integrates information from both the brain stem and the forebrain, thereby activating brain stem sympathetic nerve activity, which results in high blood pressure."
This NIH-funded research team is supported by several institutional core facilities. Carmen Hinojosa-Laborde, Ph.D., adjunct associate professor of anesthesiology, leads the animal core, which is responsible for exposing rodents to the sleep apnea model. David A. Morilak, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology, leads the biochemical and molecular core, which ensures standardization of the tests that investigators run to verify findings. Dr. Cunningham leads the neuroanatomy core, which performs anatomical analyses using standardized procedures.
Health Science Center support results in NIH grant
The Health Science Center has been extremely supportive of these cores, the construction of 10 chambers and the recruitment of faculty for the project, Dr. Mifflin said. "The seed money we received from the university’s Presidential Research Enhancement Fund totaled $125,000. That initial investment has resulted in a $9.5 million grant."
Study has enormous implications
The true result is an unprecedented research study of one of our nation’s most prevalent – and debilitating – disorders of sleep. The study is a multipronged effort to unravel the mystery of the "black box" of sleep apnea, the basic biology of this disease. The implications are enormous. "Sleep apnea is rampant, absolutely huge, particularly here in South Texas, because obesity and diabetes are both associated with sleep apnea, and we have a preponderance of both conditions," Dr. Toney said. "In addition, one in three people in the U.S. is hypertensive. Sleep apnea is a complex issue, and this research is being conducted with considerable technical sophistication. People with real expertise are working here on it."
Frontera de Salud
In phase exams, lectures and wet labs, second-year medical student Linda Pham Pearson is learning the equivalent of a medical encyclopedia. But she and her classmates are soaking up equally valuable lessons through a program called Frontera de Salud (Border of Health).
Pham Pearson and other Frontera de Salud volunteers have broken in their new stethoscopes and reflex hammers at health fairs and community visits in Laredo and Robstown, Texas, located near Corpus Christi. "The trips are why I want to become a doctor—to help my community in every way possible, especially those who have limited access to health care services," Pham Pearson says.
Frontera de Salud reaches about 300 patients per year. The students provide crucial clinical interventions and preventive health care to the underserved. These visits are often the only opportunity that many of the citizens have to obtain health care.
Ruth E. Berggren, M.D., says "Humanism is a way of being, a set of deep-seated convictions about one’s obligations to others, especially others in need. It is a major goal of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics to promote humanism as a value in medical education. Frontera de Salud is a great example of how to accomplish that."
In the midst of a brain-crunching medical curriculum, it certainly reminds Linda Pham Pearson why she is determined to achieve her medical degree.
- An estimated 60 students participate in the Frontera de Salud program each year, which is supported by grants from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, Methodist Healthcare Ministries, the Center for South Texas Programs at the Health Science Center and The University of Texas System.
Student-run free clinics in San Antonio
The poor and disenfranchised have many needs today, not least among them compassionate health care where they live.
Health Science Center medical students are learning to provide this class of care in two student-run free clinics in Bexar County – one offered to women at the Alpha Home chemical dependency treatment center and the other to homeless families at the San Antonio Metropolitan Ministries (SAMM) Transitional Living and Learning Center.
In these weekly clinics, students learn to care for individuals in the persons’ own environment and treat health issues before they escalate and require an expensive and lengthy visit to an emergency room.
"It is incredibly encouraging to see families and individuals, who have experienced so much hardship in life, band together and help one another get back on track," says Leonard Chow, M.D., a 2008 School of Medicine graduate.
"The student-run clinics inspire our students to provide compassionate, non-judgmental health care to people with the greatest need for help," says the clinics’ faculty adviser, Richard Usatine, M.D., professor of Family Medicine and assistant director of Humanities Education at the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics. "This caring brings out the best in the human spirit as students learn to give so openly with their hearts and minds."
- Nearly 800 patients have been served through the SAMM and Alpha Home clinics in approximately 18 months. The clinics are funded by grants from the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, the Marcia and Otto Koehler Foundation, the Genevieve and Ward Orsinger Foundation, and through support from the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics.
Dynamic Duo
Thirty years ago, biochemist Katherine Wood Klinger, Ph.D., and microbiologist Jeffrey D. Klinger, Ph.D., learned the innovative patterns of analytical thought, problem solving and research-to-clinical-medicine bridge building that have established them as senior leaders at the biopharmaceutical company Genzyme Corporation.
The couple received that solid foundation at the UT Health Science Center’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, which awarded their doctoral degrees in 1978. Over their careers, the Klingers have contributed to scientific discoveries and therapies to alleviate human suffering in infectious diseases and genetic diseases.
"We’re very fond of the place; we tell everyone we were there as members of one of the first classes," Dr. Katherine Klinger said. "We often tell people we could not have gotten a better education. It was an ideal spot for people who wanted to one day work at the interface between industry and science."
"It was a new institution that had attracted world-class faculty who happened to be particularly appropriate for our areas of interest," Dr. Jeffrey Klinger added. "Not only were students expected to be grounded in academic disciplines, but they were to be flexible and well rounded enough to prepare for a changing world."
The main influences on Dr. Katherine Klinger’s doctoral studies were Armand Guarino, Ph.D., the founding dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and John Lee, Ph.D., who remains a professor in the Department of Biochemistry. Dr. Guarino was a charismatic leader who listened to input, forged consensus and made ideas reality, she said. Dr. Lee, meanwhile, was her major professor who ran a very popular laboratory, attracting many talented students.
Dr. Jeffrey Klinger’s major professor in the Department of Microbiology was Joe Bass, Ph.D., a bacteriologist. Dr. Bass spoke against the existing belief that bacterial infections were a thing of the past because of the rise of antibiotics. "He and I were convinced that emergence of infections was far from over, and that we were on the brink of using the new molecular tools to understand the mechanisms by which bacteria cause disease and, by understanding those, to develop new therapies," Dr. Klinger said.
The couple moved from faculty positions at Case Western Reserve University to join Integrated Genetics (later acquired by Genzyme) in 1984. The move to a new company was viewed as risky, but Dr. Katherine Klinger recalls seeking counsel from Evelyn Oginsky, Ph.D., associate dean of the Health Science Center Graduate School, who said spiritedly: "If opportunity is knocking, get out of the shower and answer the door!"
The Klingers did so, and today Katherine is Presidential Fellow and senior vice president at Genzyme while Jeffrey is vice president of research and development operations. Katherine recently co-authored a ground-breaking paper in Nature on novel therapies for polycystic kidney disease. She was also named Genzyme’s first Presidential Fellow, an honor that acknowledges her more than two decades of contributions both to the corporation and to multiple areas of genetic disease and oncology research.
Jeffrey is president of the Northeast Branch, American Society for Microbiology. He directed building and renovation of a large research facility for drug development and biomaterials research in Waltham, Mass., and work from his lab has led to the development of a novel non-antibiotic polymer therapy for patients with Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea. He also has a major role in the company’s program for neglected diseases of the developing world.
They are unassuming about their achievements but very outspoken about the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. "In 2003," Jeffrey said, "we put together a reunion of microbiology and biochemistry students in San Antonio. We had 40-50 students and faculty show up and had the chance to honor some of the early faculty. It wasa wonderful time."