Texas Biomedical Research Institute has created a new global center to foster collaborations in infectious disease research. The International Center for the Advancement of Research & Education (I·CARE) leverages the power of global exchange to solve complex health issues in an increasingly connected world.
A DNA-based vaccine is very effective at protecting against COVID-19, according to a joint preclinical study by Scancell Ltd and Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) recently published in the Journal of Biotechnology and Biomedicine.
Researchers in New York and Texas have identified that female marmosets are more likely to transmit the Zika virus during pregnancy if they have been previously infected by a different virus, dengue.
Researchers at Texas Biomedical Research Institute have succeeded in generating the lung’s most important immune cell, the alveolar macrophage, in the lab.
How malaria parasites evolved to evade a major antimalarial drug has long been thought to involve only one key gene. Now, thanks to a combination of field and lab studies, an international research team has shown a second key gene is also involved in malaria’s resistance to the drug chloroquine.
A new software tool developed by Texas Biomedical Research Institute and collaborators can help scientists and vaccine developers quickly edit genetic blueprints of pathogens to make them less harmful. The tool, called CoDe – short for Codon Deoptimization – enables users to make precise edits to a genetic code to make genes less functional – in other words, to deoptimize the genes.
The National Institutes of Health has awarded $3.8 million to Texas Biomedical Research Institute to further develop a promising HIV vaccine candidate that stops the virus upon entry, before it begins rapidly spreading throughout the body.
A Sudan ebolavirus vaccine and antibody therapeutic tested at Texas Biomedical Research Institute have been sent to Uganda as part of efforts to control the outbreak there.
The federal agency that protects against pandemics and bioterrorism has elevated Texas Biomedical Research Institute into the top ranks of its national readiness and preparedness network. The new designation as a prime contractor opens Texas Biomed to a portfolio of up to $100 million in funding over five years through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
Texas Biomed will help map the developing brain with unprecedented detail for the National Institutes of Health’s BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN). NIH recently awarded a total of $500 million to 11 teams that will work together to build a 3D brain atlas at single cell resolution over the next five years.
NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases awarded Texas Biomedical Research Institute and The Access to Advanced Health Institute in Seattle, Washington, a $3.5 million, five-year Innovation for Tuberculosis Vaccine Discovery grant.
A modified tuberculosis (TB) vaccine developed at Texas Biomed could help treat a form of bladder cancer, called non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, without strong side effects. Results in mouse models and human cells show promising results and pave the way for human clinical trials. The research, conducted in close collaboration with UT Health San Antonio, was published online in June in the journal Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy.
Researchers at Texas Biomed have received approval to work with a weakened, non-harmful version of SARS-CoV-2 in biosafety level 2 (BSL-2) laboratories, which makes it safer, faster and easier to study the virus, its mutations, and to identify new treatments for COVID-19.
Texas Biomedical Research Institute Professor Luis Martinez-Sobrido, PhD, an expert in virology, vaccines and antiviral research, has been recruited to collaborate with three of the nine Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern announced by NIH this spring.
The $5.8 million center at Texas Biomed is one of the inaugural Interdisciplinary NexGen TB Research Advancement Centers (IN-TRAC) funded by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Researchers at Texas Biomed and University of Alabama at Birmingham discovered an antibody cocktail against COVID-19 that appears effective against all variants and other coronaviruses. The cocktail has been exclusively licensed to Aridis Pharmaceuticals, which is seeking a manufacturing partner to advance the treatment to human clinical trials.
Briefly blocking a key molecule when administering the only approved vaccine for tuberculosis vastly improves long-term protection against the devastating disease in mice, researchers from Texas Biomedical Research Institute report this week in the Journal of Immunology.
Sequencing more than 170,000 single cells from animal models have provided exceptionally detailed insight into the early immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in the lungs. The findings will help inform future treatment options for the current pandemic and future coronaviruses.
A Zika virus vaccine candidate is effective at preventing the Zika virus passing from mother to fetus in preclinical animal studies, according to a new study in the journal npj Vaccines. The research is a collaboration between Trudeau Institute, Texas Biomedical Research Institute’s Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC), and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), where the vaccine was developed.
For decades, no one really knew how the drug praziquantel treated a parasitic disease afflicting more than 200 million people around the world. Now, two independent teams of researchers have found the answer, which could help lead to improved treatments that support the W.H.O.’s goal of eliminating Schistosomiasis as a public health problem by 2025.
A new study from Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) and collaborators has identified a promising drug candidate to minimize uncontrolled, erratic muscle movements, called dyskinesia, associated with Parkinson’s disease.
As widely-anticipated decisions about COVID-19 vaccine boosters roll out from U.S. agencies today, insights from an independent study underscore why boosters are important for all adults.
Four San Antonio research institutes are collaborating to develop treatments against Nipah virus before it spreads. The World Health Organization has named Nipah virus a priority disease in need of urgent research and development because no approved vaccines or treatments exist.
Ian Cheeseman, Ph.D., and his collaborators can now sequence the genomes of individual parasites found in the blood of infected patients -- even when the infection burden is very low, which can occur during asymptomatic infections. Gaining this incredibly detailed view is expected to help develop more effective treatments, vaccines or therapies.
A version of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, has been successfully modified to glow brightly in cells and animal tissues, providing a real-time way to track the spread and intensity of viral infection as it happens in animal models.
Risk for heart disease does not look the same on the genetic level for different population groups, report an international team of researchers this month in the journal JAMA Cardiology. The study, led by Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, begins to outline gene activity patterns that could serve as early warning indicators for cardiovascular disease.
AAALAC, the international organization setting the gold standard for research animal care and use, has continued full accreditation status for SNPRC and Texas Biomed, citing dedicated staff and "extremely well cared for animals."
Researchers at Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) have narrowed down the proteins enabling SARS-CoV-2 to cause disease. Using advanced genetic engineering techniques developed at Texas Biomed, they systematically deleted the genetic code for five of the virus’s accessory proteins, one at a time, to see how each one affected the virus’s ability to spread and cause illness. The research was published online this month in the Journal of Virology.
Scientists have a general idea of how viruses invade and spread in the body, but the precise mechanisms are actually not well understood, especially when it comes to Ebola virus. Olena Shtanko, Ph.D., a Staff Scientist at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed), has received more than $1 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to explore different aspects of Ebola virus infection.
The Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) at Texas Biomed has been awarded more than $37 million from the National Institutes of Health to continue operations into 2026. The P51 grant, given by the NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs, provides essential funding to house and care for nearly 2,500 non-human primates that are part of life-science research programs at Texas Biomed and partners around the globe.
The work performed by dozens of scientists at Pfizer, BioNTech, Texas Biomed, the SNPRC and scientific partners around the world from April to July of 2020 is now published in the scientific journal Nature. In the paper titled “Immunogenic BNT162b vaccines protect rhesus macaques from SARS-CoV-2” published on Feb. 1, 2021, scientists noted that the vaccine candidate tested for Pfizer “protected the lower respiratory tract from the presence of viral RNA and with no evidence of disease enhancement.”
Texas Biomedical Research Institute received two Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Health Agency subcontracts, totaling nearly $2 million, to assess the efficacy of surface coating and aerosolized decontamination technologies to combat SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces and in the air.
Researchers at the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) at Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) may have found a new pathway to treat and control tuberculosis (TB), the disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq), a next-generation sequencing technology, scientists were able to further define the mechanisms that lead to TB infection and latency.
A $1.2. million challenge grant from the Mabee Foundation brings Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) closer to its goal of $10 million to fund the construction of its Nonhuman Primate Animal Facility (NHP ALFA) on its campus. The Institute is more than halfway to its goal. This project will accommodate the critical need of the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) to provide innovative, contemporary accommodations and laboratory space for animals involved in research that aid in testing the safety and efficacy of new and improved diagnostics, therapies and vaccines at a larger scale.
Texas Biomedical Research Institute Associate Professor Corinna Ross, PhD, is a principal investigator on a $3.38 million National Institutes of Health multi-investigator grant to study “microbiome-mediated therapies for aging and healthspan” in marmosets, which are small monkeys native to South America and are becoming increasingly more important in aging and infectious disease research. Dr. Ross is partnering with University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy Assistant Professor Kelly Reveles, PharmD, PhD.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Professor Mahesh Mohan, D.V.M., Ph.D., and collaborators more than $3.5 million over five years to investigate the effects of cannabinoids on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND). This research project aims to evaluate whether delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD) alone or in combination can potentially alter DNA methylation, which is a biological process that can create a change in the expression of certain genes.
Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) in San Antonio, Texas, was awarded $1 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to test the efficacy of human monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection. MAbs are human-made proteins meant to mimic human immune system antibodies. Texas Biomed Professors Luis Martinez-Sobrido, Ph.D. and Jordi B. Torrelles, Ph.D. will co-lead the project to evaluate the protective efficacy of these MAbs in small rodent models, developed at Texas Biomed, on behalf of the Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium (CoVIC), an international nonprofit consortium evaluating MAb therapeutics for COVID-19.
The Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) at Texas Biomedical Research Institute and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio received a $1.3 million collaborative grant to continue the San Antonio Marmoset Aging Program (SA MAP) and further define the hallmarks of aging in a nonhuman primate (monkey) model. Developing the marmoset model will allow for eventual testing of interventions in additional model systems that could slow or change age-related decline in humans.
Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) Professor Luis Martinez-Sobrido, Ph.D., recently released study findings, alongside colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Aridis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. indicating that a human monoclonal antibody (hmAb) 1212C2 showed promise for further clinical development for preventative use or as a therapy for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Earlier this year, the consortium of scientists isolated specific B cells from patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 and developed a panel of hmAbs that not only bind to SARS-CoV-2 infected cells, but also neutralize the ability of the virus to infect cells. The hmAb 1212C2 was subsequently licensed to Aridis Pharmaceuticals.
Researchers apply a novel reverse genetics approach to create recombinant SARS-CoV-2San Antonio, Texas (October 1, 2020) – Researchers at Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) recently published findings from an innovative SARS-CoV-2 study that will assist in the development of new vaccines and antivirals for COVID-19.
Squirrel monkeys have been identified as a new animal model to further study and improve therapies for hepatitis B infection caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV). Christopher Chen, Ph.D., Assistant Director for Research at the Southwest National Primate Center at Texas Biomed, led the team of scientists who published their findings in Hepatology Communications.
The leadership team at Texas Biomedical Research Institute is excited to announce the addition of Akudo Anyanwu, M.D., M.P.H. to its administrative leadership team as Vice President of Development.
Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) scientists have added another tool to the COVID-19 toolbelt, validating a new small animal model for studying SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Fueling transformative research through collaboration, the San Antonio Partnership for Precision Therapeutics (SAPPT) announces the funding of three more collaborative COVID-19 research efforts in San Antonio. SAPPT has awarded more than $600,000 to fund these projects, following the funding of a SARS CoV-2 vaccine project announced in April of this year.
More than $3.7 million was awarded to Mahesh Mohan, DVM, MS, Ph.D., Professor at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, and Chioma M. Okeoma, Ph.D., Associate Professor at Stony Brook University, to explore the link between cannabinoids (THC) and chronic intestinal inflammation in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
– New technology employing single cell genome sequencing of the parasite that causes malaria has yielded some surprising results and helps pave the way for possible new intervention strategies for this deadly infectious disease, according to Texas Biomedical Research Institute Assistant Professor Ian Cheeseman, Ph.D.
A major goal of tuberculosis (TB) research is to find a way to treat people with the latent (or inactive) form of the disease to keep them from developing symptomatic TB. A breakthrough study using a new animal model developed for this purpose showed a combination of two classes of antibiotics can wipe out this hidden threat.