New Technology Helps Treat Lung Cancer, Pulmonary Diseases
TylerPaper.com - 28-Jan-09
The outlook on the battles against lung cancer and other pulmonary diseases is brighter thanks to groundbreaking technology, now available at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, medical officials say. Although pulmonary brachytherapy -- a noninvasive technique sending high doses of radiation to cancerous tumors -- is offered in a few medical facilities across the country, UTHSCT is one of only two facilities in the world to directly attack tiny cancerous tumors on the edges of the lungs using a combination of advanced technologies. The other facility is in Heidelberg, Germany, officials said. See complete article.
Professor gets $1.5 M grant for cancer research
Valley Morning STAR - 27-Jan-2009
Chemistry professor Bimal Banik has spent more than a decade investigating compounds that could eventually become lifesaving drugs.
He has numerous patents for organic compounds that, his research has suggested, inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Still, he's determined to find more compounds that could attack cancer without ravaging the body.
Banik, a professor at the University of Texas-Pan American, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio have received a $1.5 million grant to continue this research and also investigate the impact of cancer on the South Texas population. See complete article.
Houston's nanotech researchers ride wave of funding
Houston Chronicle - 25-Jan-2009
When Richard Smalley’s labs at Rice University began making a series of breakthroughs by designing and creating materials at the tiny nanoscale in the 1980s, Houston rose to international prominence in the emerging field of nanotechnology.
But with Smalley’s death at the age of 62 three years ago, some wondered if Houston’s young nanotech industry could sustain his Nobel Prize-winning creativity and keep pace with Boston and other high-tech U.S. cities, let alone countries that were pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into such research. See complete article.
$80 Million+ Available to Texas Technology Entrepreneurs to Grow Their Companies
Business Wire - 22-Jan-2009
The South Texas Regional Center of Innovation and Commercialization (STRCIC) today announced that $80 million of the state of Texas’ $200 million Emerging Technology Fund (ETF) remains available to be awarded to Texas based technology-related start-ups and growth stage companies between now and October 2009. Entrepreneurs, inventors and businesses in the South Texas 32 county region including Nueces County (Corpus Christi) and Bexar County (San Antonio) should immediately apply for funding with the STRCIC. The funding applications will be processed continuously through the third quarter of 2009. See complete article.
In Inaugural Address, Obama Vows to Restore 'Rightful Place' of Science
Chronicle of Higher Education - 21-Jan-2009
Barack Hussein Obama, a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, was sworn in on Tuesday as the 44th president of the United States and promptly vowed to put science and technology at the center of his efforts to restart the nation's ailing economy.“We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost,” said President Obama in his inaugural address. See complete article.
Alzheimer's treatment: UTEP professor forges marketing deal
El Paso Star - 20-Jan-2009
UTEP psychology professor Donald Moss has spent more than 25 years researching and developing a drug to help Alzheimer's patients. Now, he hopes a Swiss entrepreneur can help get the drug to market.
University of Texas at El Paso officials and the founders of the Swiss startup company SeneXta Therapeutics Tuesday announced they formed a licensing agreement to further develop the drug and get it to market -- something that probably will take more than $100 million and several years to accomplish. See complete article.
New biotech player will focus on drug delivery
Austin American Statesman-20-Jan-2009
Austin-based AeonClad Coatings has launched a new subsidiary that will focus on using its technology to coat and encapsulate drugs.
The subsidiary, AeonClad Biomedical, will use the technology to create custom-made coatings for improved dissolution of poorly water soluable drugs, as well as for modified or sustained release, company officials said.Last year, AeonClad Coatings obtained a license from the University of Texas at Arlington for a plasma coating technology for medical and industrial applications.AeonClad said the technology could be used as a new way to coat medical implants to ensure that they are compatible with patients and to make drug-coated stents.AeonClad is a portfolio company of Emergent Technologies Inc., an Austin venture capital firm that forms and manages life sciences companies based on university research. See complete article.
Three Texas researchers are honored for work
Star-Telegram.com 12-Jan-2009
Three Texas researchers, including a biomedical scientist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, each received $25,000 prizes Thursday for their work in medicine and technology.U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, announced the awards during the annual meeting of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas. The organization is open to those who have been elected to the national academies for medicine, science or engineering — the equivalent of an actor making it on Broadway.
"If we’re going to remain a leader in the global economy, we must continue and even increase our state’s research capabilities," Hutchison said during a news conference. "This will not only lead to an economic benefit for our state, but it will also will keep the great minds in our state." See complete article.
Francisco Cigarroa Appointed UT System Chancellor
The University of Texas System Board of Regents today (January 9) named Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., a highly-regarded transplant surgeon and president of the University of Texas Health Science Center – San Antonio, as chancellor of The University of Texas System.“Dr. Cigarroa’s impeccable credentials, superior administrative skills and unparalleled passion for medicine and academia make him an outstanding selection to lead our university system,” said Regents’ Chairman H. Scott Caven, Jr. “As president of the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, he has time and again demonstrated great business acumen and unmatched leadership, and it is our belief that Dr. Cigarroa will apply those same traits to continue to guide this system on a successful path, setting new benchmarks for excellence along the way.”“He is, without doubt, the person most qualified and well suited to lead our 15 institutions to greater national and international prominence. See complete press release.
Bud Kennedy: It's time to demand a research university for Dallas-Fort Worth
Star-Telegram.com 9-Jan-2009
We might argue who’s No. 1.
But it’s very clear who’s not No. 1 today in any kind of college rankings: the underfunded state universities in Fort Worth, Arlington, Dallas and Denton.Forget football. The real measures of a university are research grants, thick course catalogs and quality faculty. The important ranking isn’t the football Top 10. It’s the Carnegie Foundation 96. Of the top 96 research universities in America, not one is here We live in the nation’s fifth-largest metropolitan area. Yet the Texas Legislature has never invested in a leading research university for this region, mostly because of stubborn loyalty to the state’s two largest public universities.Southern California has nine fully funded top-96 universities.North Texas? Zero.If you want a nationally recognized Texas research school, take your pick: the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M or Rice. See complete article.
UT Southwestern professor honored by Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas
Dallas Morning News - 8-Jan-2009
A UT Southwestern Medical Center scientist is among three Texans to be recognized today by the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas as an outstanding young investigator.
Rama Ranganathan will receive this year's annual award from the academy for science. Researchers from Houston and Austin have won the academy's awards for medicine and engineering.
Ranganathan, 45, is a professor of pharmacology at UT Southwestern and director of the university's systems biology division. Systems biology is a recent computer-intensive approach to how vast networks of molecules and cells work together in a healthy organism but fail in a sick one. It advances decades of work in which scientists had studied cell components one by one.
Ranganathan's research in particular has focused on how the arrangement of atoms in a cell's protein molecules can give the molecule its specialized properties. That's important, he said, to help scientists interpret how genetic mutations that change proteins can cause a variety of diseases, from cancer to heart disease to neurological conditions. See complete article.
UTEP professor wins illustrious grant
ElPaso Times - 1-Jan-2009
A prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers is enabling a University of Texas at El Paso professor to continue her groundbreaking research into nicotine addiction. Laura E. O'Dell, 39, a researcher who also teaches in UTEP's psychology department, is one of 12 people in the United States to receive the National Institutes of Health award and grant. It is given to promote research by promising young scholars and to recognize their service See complete article.
