HSC Champions

We are grateful to all of our donors for their continued support and generosity. The following list recognizes just a few of the gifts that enable the university to provide the best in health care careers education, biomedical research, patient care and community service to San Antonio and the South Texas/Border Region. Thank you for helping us make lives better!

• A $100,000 grant from the Canseco Foundation has funded The Canseco Foundation President’s Endowed Scholarship in Oral Health to provide scholarships to deserving students from Laredo who are pursuing careers in oral health care through the Dental School and School of Allied Health Sciences.
• A five-year, $750,000 Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund will fund the Health Science Center’s first large-scale study of fatty liver disease in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Kenneth Cusi, M.D., associate professor of medicine and staff physician at the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, Audie Murphy Division, is the study’s lead investigator.
• A gift of $100,000 from the Bosque Foundation, as well as an additional$50,000 donation from the William and Elizabeth Moncrief Foundation, will fund the Dr. Mario E. Ramirez Distinguished Professorship in Family and Community Medicine. The professorship honors the legacy of Dr. Ramirez, who, as a family physician in Starr County for 43 years, has committed his life to caring for the citizens of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Dr. Ramirez retired from the Health Science Center in 2007 as vice president for South Texas programs.
• A gift of $223,500 from the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation is supporting the research of Eugenio Cersosimo, M.D., associate professor, and Christopher Jenkinson, Ph.D., associate professor, under the direction of Ralph A. DeFronzo, M.D., professor/chief, Division of Diabetes. They are studying the etiology of insulin resistance and its link to cardiovascular disease with particular focus on the Mexican-American population, in an effort to find novel therapies for treatment.
• Members of the Health Science Center’s President’s Council have givenmore than $500,000 to programs in all five schools to support research, education, scholarships and clinical care initiatives, including $250,000 to the Janey Briscoe Center for Excellence in Cardiovascular Research. Headed by Steven R. Bailey, M.D., the center’s purpose is to develop new methods to treat America’s leading killers – heart disease and stroke. Dr. Bailey is professor of medicine and radiology and the Janey Briscoe Distinguished University Chair in Cardiovascular Research.
• A $250,000 donation from Shirley Markey will support the Michael Markey Memorial Endowment for Medical Ethics. The endowment supports the mission and programs of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics, which embraces a clinically focused curriculum and encourages community service learning in clinics around San Antonio, South Texas and in missions abroad, where medical students experience medicine as it is practiced in resource-poor environments.
• Recent grants totaling $60,000 from the George W. Brackenridge Foundation will fund scholarships for outstanding nursing students and will support the Facilitated Admissions for South Texas Scholars (FASTS) program for students at St. Mary’s University to attend the Summer Premedical Academy at the Health Science Center’s School of Medicine.
• The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation has awarded $282,377 to Ande Bao, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Departments of Radiology and Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, for his breast cancer research. Dr. Bao is studying a new approach to treating cancer with short-range radionuclides that could prevent the reoccurrence of breast cancer following initial treatment while reducing damage to normal breast tissue.
• Susan G. Komen for the Cure also awarded the 2007 Komen Professor of Survivorship award in the amount of $25,000 to Amelie G. Ramirez, Dr.P.H. Dr. Ramirez is a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, founding director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research, the Dielmann Chair in Health Disparities and Community Outreach and the Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Endowed Chair.
• Grants totaling more than $600,000 from Methodist Healthcare Ministriesare supporting programs in the Dental School’s Department of Prosthodontics, the Laredo Campus Extension, the Long School of Medicine’s Department of Ophthalmology, the UT Medicine Family Residency Program in McAllen, and the School of Nursing, as well as outreach programs through the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics that improve access to health care for uninsured patients in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
• The Pearle Vision Foundation has awarded $50,795 to Carlos Rosende, M.D., associate professor and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, for his research of diabetes-related ocular diseases. The grant will fund the purchase of a STRATUS OCT™, which is a diagnostic imaging device that provides direct cross-sectional images of the retina for clinical evaluation in the detection of retinal diseases.
• A $50,000 gift from Dr. and Mrs. Joe H. Ward Jr. will support the President’s Excellence Fund for vital research, education and clinical care programs at the Health Science Center.
• A $50,400 grant from the Morrison Trust will support the research of Pothana Saikumar, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Pathology. Dr. Saikumar is studying the resistance patterns of cancer cells, particularly colon cancer, to conventional therapies with the goal of developing new and more effective treatments for drug-resistant tumors.
• A gift of $100,000 from the Judith and Jean Pape Adams Charitable Foundation is advancing the study of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) research. John Hart, Ph.D., the Ewing Halsell President’s Council Distinguished Chair in the Department of Biochemistry, is principal investigator of the study “The Nascent Conformation of Copper-Zinc Superoxide Dismutase in Familial ALS.” His research is aimed at understanding the molecular basis for the disease – information that is critical/prerequisite for the development of effective therapeutic interventions.
• New gifts totaling $128,000 from Dr. and Mrs. J. Bradley Aust will raise the J.B. Aust M.D., Ph.D., Distinguished Professorship in Surgery to the level of endowed chair.