When it comes to pain, at least, UTMB psychiatry professor Robert Rose and colleagues elsewhere now have evidence suggesting that beliefs really could be causing physiological changes, affecting the body through some mechanism involving the brain.
When the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced last fall that UTMB had won $110 million in federal funding to build one of two proposed National Biocontainment Laboratories (the other went to Boston University), talk turned quickly to the possibilities created by the proposed lab.
In a rare operation that restores sight to those injured by chemical burns, heat or some infections, UTMB’s Dr. Stefan Trocme last March performed a corneal stem cell transplant, taking stem cells from donor corneas and transplanting them into a young man's injured right eye, restoring his vision.
Medical science has learned in recent years that severely burned children lose bone mass. A study undertaken by UTMB pediatrics professor Gordon Klein helps explain why and proposes a possible cure.
Might a bout of hay fever prompt a pregnant woman to deliver prematurely? Maybe. Research by Robert E. Garfield, director of reproductive sciences, and Egle Bytautiene, UTMB research fellow, offers the first experimental evidence that some types of allergic reactions trigger what is known as preterm labor.
Last year, UTMB researchers produced the most detailed image ever made of a mammalian membrane-bound P450, revealing a previously unseen feature that provides hints about how the protein and others in its class break down foreign chemicals such as drugs.
Brain vs. Pain
‘An Extraordinary Facility’
Stemming Blindness
Burns and Bones
Do Allergies Precipitate Premature Births?
The P450 Puzzle