Contact: Monty Jones, (512) 499-4363

Date: January 29, 2004

UT System News Release

AUSTIN – The University of Texas System will allocate $2.5 million to support collaborative research in cognitive neuroscience and cancer at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, UT Dallas, and UT Arlington, Chancellor Mark G. Yudof announced Thursday.

The research will concentrate on neuroimaging techniques and will bring together UT Southwestern's medical faculty, engineers and psychologists at UT Arlington, neuroscientists and psychologists at UT Dallas, and researchers in other fields.

“The UT System is pleased to be able to support this important and exciting collaboration among our three institutions in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex,“ Yudof said.

“Uniting the outstanding talents of faculty members from all three campuses will bring forth synergies that will, I am confident, not only contribute to the advancement of our knowledge in neurological imaging and in therapy for cancer patients, but also strengthen the overall research presence of the institutions.”

Last spring, the UT System allocated $2.5 million for collaborative interdisciplinary research in the life sciences at UT San Antonio and the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. That allocation, as with the money provided on Thursday to the Metroplex institutions, came from excess medical liability funds. Under Yudof's direction, the System has been planning since 2002 for an expansion of research collaborations among its academic and health science institutions.

The allocation announced on Thursday will assist with the purchase and operation of imaging equipment to be used in the diagnosis and therapy of patients with cancer. The work will involve collaboration between a program in optical imaging developed by engineers at UT Arlington and the cancer imaging program at UT Southwestern.

The enhanced neuroimaging capability will also be used in collaborative research involving psychologists at UT Arlington, the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UT Dallas, and several medical departments at UT Southwestern.

Note to News Media: For additional information about research at the three institutions, please contact:

Philip Schoch, UT Southwestern Medical Center, 214/648-3404

Donna Darovich, UT Arlington, 817/272-2761

Jon Senderling, UT Dallas, 972/883-2565