The southernmost tip of the great state of Texas is known as the Rio Grande Valley (see map below), and University of Texas Chancellor Francisco G. Cigarroa is campaigning hard for the establishment of a South Texas School of Medicine, to be part of a new regional University of Texas research campus. UT already has two smaller campuses in the Rio Grande Valley, in Edinburg and Brownsville; mid-way between those two border cities is Harlingen, which is currently home to a Regional Academic Health Center that, under the Cigarroa plan, would become a full-fledged medical school. The new UT university campus would incorporate both the Brownsville and Edinburg college campuses, but with greater resources available to strengthen its research capacity. UT System Board of Regents voted to approve both plans last month. The next step is to convince the state legislature to give its support.
Tags: 2014, 2013, University of Texas, Texas Medical Center, Texas, Southwest, UTAust, UT Health Science Center San Antonio, UTxSA, University of Texas Health Science Center, Austin, College Station, TAMU, tmc, BioResearch Product Faire Event, San Antonio, Houston, Front Line event, TX, Texas A&M, new facilities, Southwest Region
Last year when we reported on the extraordinary $150 Million gift by the Simons Foundation to Stony Brook University (read the blog), we noted that part of the gift was earmarked for new research faculty hires as part of the SUNY 2020 Plan. Indeed the goal is to hire as many as 250 new researchers into the SUNY System by the year 2020--100 at the Stony Brook campus. The first 25 of those positions will be in 5 "clusters," which were recently selected from a larger pool of program proposals in the first round of the University's interdisciplinary faculty cluster hiring initiative. Rather than approving individual faculty members, or even allotting funds to individual departments, SBU is looking at using this unprecedented opportunity to strengthen its interdisciplinary programs through this clustered hiring of faculty who will work within a department but also as part of a larger team.
Tags: New York, 2012, Stony Brook University, BioResearch Product Faire Event, Funding, NY, Southwest Region, National Lab, Stoneybrook, new research faculty
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have discovered a new stem cell that assists in repairing lung airways. The discovery is significant because the airways are vital in protecting the body from airborne toxins. The airways contain glands that defend the body by producing and then removing mucus, a process which cleanses the lungs of infectious agents and environmental toxins. The study's findings have major potential for advancement in the field of lung regeneration.
Tags: Stem cell research, California, UCLA, Stem Cell, Southwest Region
UCSD Health Sciences just announced that it will partner with Pfizer to speed delivery of new treatments to market. Pfizer has been successful with its Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI) program at other major research universities, in part because of a non-traditional collaborative approach that includes constant transparency, meaning that they will share resources and information at all stages of research. What each side brings to the table:
Tags: University of California San Diego, Translational Research, California, Southwest Region
The ubiquity of cell phone technology in today's world, even in developing nations, has opened a door for biomedical researchers to invent diagnostic devices that utilize the cell phone platform to perform analyses that otherwise would require prohibitively expensive equipment. And that is just what the 32-year-old bioengineering prodigy Aydogan Ozcan is doing at UCLA's Biophotonics Lab (also known as the Ozcan Research Group Nano / Bio Photonics Lab, and contributor of the photo at right) in the Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Tags: University of California Los Angeles, Photonics, Ozcan Nano/Bio Photonics Lab, Lab-on-a-chip Technology, flow cytometry, California, Southwest Region
For over 70 years, the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center has been home to one of the most distinguished hospitals and medical research centers in the country.
Tags: University of California Los Angeles, California, UCLA, new construction, Southwest Region
An important subfield of molecular biology has come into its own with improvements in technology and major NIH funding. The field is glycobiology, and the NHLBI's new “Program of Excellence in Glycosciences” (PEG) is providing $18M over 7 years to researchers at UCSD's Glycobiology Research and Training Center (GRTC) to advance the emerging science.
Tags: University of California San Diego, California, UCSD research, NIH, Southwest Region, Biomedical Research Funding
Five years ago the federal government decided that private biomedical research companies were not bringing enough new technology to patients in need, and that it would step up that process by having the NIH fund research at academic medical institutions to bridge the gap between basic science and practical treatment. Thus the CTSA was born: the Clinical & Translational Science Awards program, a research consortium supporting the translation of science into medicine by accelerating laboratory discoveries.
Tags: University of California Los Angeles, University of Minnesota, Translational Research, Minnesota, California, Southwest Region
The University of California, Irvine and French scientists have discovered the switch that causes healthy brain cells to become epileptic. This breakthrough may help treat and prevent the most common form of epilepsy, temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).
Tags: University of California Irvine, cell biology, California, Research, Irvine, Southwest Region
We’ve blogged about the relationship between university research campuses and the communities in which they’re situated on many occasions, usually to talk about research technologies being commercialized in the form of start-ups, sometimes in university-sponsored business parks. These new business ventures mean science talent stays local and new employment opportunities are created for locals and graduates as well. In a town or small city the university may be the biggest (if not the only) game in town economically and culturally, even geographically if it sits on enough real estate. But what is the role of the university --particularly a public university-- in a very large city with its own complex urban issues? A city like, say, Los Angeles, California?
Tags: University of California Los Angeles, California, Research Funding, Southwest Region