September 2017
Bold Vision
Dr. Larry Schlesinger, President/CEO

I have now been at Texas Biomed three months, and I have been impressed by the level of excitement and support from our community and team. We are working hard to create a bold, new vision for Texas Biomed that I suspect will generate even more enthusiasm.

I am committed to developing strong interdisciplinary research programs while building upon the unique assets of Texas Biomed and creating a place where scientists and professionals can think, work and innovate together for the advancement of human health. We hope you enjoy reading more about some of our recent successes, innovations, collaborations, and education. We look forward to sharing our progress and discoveries with you each month! For even more updates on our research, please see our latest Annual Report and Progress reports online.   
Scientist Dr. Andrew Hayhurst works in the Biosafety Level 4 laboratory
Success
City of San Antonio supports high containment expansion efforts
The City of San Antonio is supporting the Institute's efforts to expand its high containment laboratory space. The city is providing a $250,000 loan to Texas Biomed so that the Institute can begin preliminary design work on the new facility. For full details on the City announcement, click here .
Texas Biomed Associate Scientist Dr. Marie-Claire Gauduin and colleagues at UTHealth Houston receive grant to research TB vaccine candidate.
Innovation
$4.4 million grant for TB vaccine candidate study
Texas Biomedical Research Institute Associate Scientist Dr. Marie-Claire Gauduin has partnered with Dr. Chinnaswamy Jagannath, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston to test a modified TB vaccine that, if effective, could prove more powerful and provide longer lasting immunity. Dr. Gauduin and Dr. Jagannath are principal investigators on this $4.4 million NIH-funded study. To learn more about this exciting new research study click here.

News coverage can be viewed at the following links:
Scientist Dr. Robert Davey partners with SwRI to find novel Ebola drugs
Collaboration
Texas Biomed and Southwest Research Institute working to create drug to combat Ebola
Texas Biomed and Southwest Research Institute are working together to combat Ebola virus on an NIH-funded collaborative project that is trying to turn a compound that inhibits Ebola virus into a drug. You can read more in this Express-News story that ran June. Studies in Dr. Robert Davey's laboratory have been supported through direct donations from Forum and Founder's Council grants, as well as direct donations to Ebola virus research projects. These donor-funded projects help support the science that leads to NIH funding.
Education
Graduate student in Texas Biomed stem cell lab receives NIH training award
Rebecca Bricker, a graduate student in Dr. Tiziano Barberi's lab, has received a Ruth L. Kirschstein Research Award through the Translational Science Training (TST) TL1 Program supported by the National Institutes of Health.  
 
Rebecca, whose work is also being supported by the Douglass Foundation, is training with Dr. Barberi, whose lab is focused on the use of human pluripotent stem cells as a tool to address basic biology questions and to develop stem-cell based therapies for diseases of the eye and the skeletal muscle. 

to learn more about Rebecca's work and her award, visit www.txbiomed.org.
Contact:
Lisa Cruz,
Director of Public Relations
7620 NW Loop 410, San Antonio, TX  78227