A graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr. Anderson completed his residency and postgraduate training in gastroenterology at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. He was a member of the faculty at the Rockefeller University, Cornell University Medical College and New York Medical College before coming to UTMB in 1987. He directs the Division of Human Nutrition in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health and is an active clinical investigator particularly on the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC), where he is also Associate Program Director. He is PI for UTMB's NIH K30 grant that supports a variety of clinical research education programs, Director of the Clinical Research Education Office, and Director of the Graduate Program (PhD or MS) in Clinical Science, which is suited particularly for physicians seeking advanced training in clinical research.

Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Co-Director, Integrative Health Science Facility Core,
National Institute for Environmental Health & Sciences Center
Member, Sealy Center for Environmental Health and Medicine

Associate Professor

The goal of Dr. Bente's research is to better understand the transmission and pathogenesis of tick‐borne hemorrhagic fever viruses and to develop countermeasures to combat the disease. The intersection between arbovirology and hemorrhagic fever research requires an interdisciplinary approach, involving virology (classical techniques as well as molecular techniques such as reverse genetics), immunology (human and animal models), and tick physiology. Dr. Bente's is the first laboratory in the world to establish a tick‐host transmission model in a BSL-4 setting. Several collaborations have been established with other virologists at UTMB, including Drs. Alan Barrett, Thomas Ksiazek, David Beasley, Alexander Freiberg and Thomas Geisbert, that include studies on Crimean‐Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, Kyasanur forest disease virus, Alkhurma hemorrhagic fever virus, and West‐Nile virus.

Professor, Departments of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Pediatrics
Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women’s Health
The Ruth Hartgraves MD Chair in Obstetrics & Gynecology

Dr. Berenson is a senior clinical researcher, gynecologist, and mentor, with an international reputation for studies of health issues among reproductive-aged women. In 2002 UTMB selected her as the first female director of a research center, and as such, she is the founding Director of the UTMB Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women’s Health (CIRWH). She developed CIRWH’s infrastructure to promote involvement and success of junior faculty from several departments. During the past 25 years, Dr. Berenson has dedicated substantial effort to train the next generation of researchers, mentoring 21 postdoctoral fellows and 17 assistant professors from a broad array of disciplines related to healthcare of women. She has worked with early career investigators from obstetrics and gynecology, rehabilitation sciences, preventive medicine, family medicine, surgery, oncology, psychology, psychiatry, nutritional sciences, and epidemiology. Mentees include 11 MDs and 30 PhDs, the majority of whom have remained in academic research and have obtained funding as principal investigators on their own external awards.

Dr. Berenson has maintained extramural federal and state grant support since 1994. Her studies include approaches supported by multidisciplinary teams and have resulted in over 230 peer-reviewed publications in high impact journals. Areas of research include Comparative effectiveness studies among diverse populations of young women including: 1) contraception practices, methods, and effects (clinical); 2) interventions directed at cervical cancer prevention (clinical); and 3) epidemiologic studies on prevalence and correlates of infection with human papillomavirus. Sponsors include the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), Department of Defense (DoD), several private foundations, and the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT).  NIH recognized her successful mentoring history by awarding her support from a K24 for the 10-year maximum. The K24 mechanism provided protected time to devote to mentoring activities.

In addition, Dr. Berenson has served on the national level as a board examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She has also served on numerous committees for American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the board of directors for the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society and was the first female president of the Central Association of Obstetricians & Gynecologists. In addition, she was a panel member for the CDC’s US Guidelines for Contraceptive Management and has been a member of several Scientific Review Groups for the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Bhavnani is professor of biomedical informatics, senior fellow at the Sealy Center on Aging, member of the Institute for Translational Sciences, and adjunct faculty at the School of Biomedical Informatics in UT Houston.

Dr. Bhavnani obtained a PhD in Computational Design and Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University, and specializes in network visualization and analysis of biomedical data, with translation to the design of decision-support systems. As PI of the Discovery and Innovation through Visual Analytics (DIVA) lab at UTMB, his research has received five distinguished paper awards in biomedical informatics from the American Medical Informatics Association. In addition, he has received an outstanding research mentorship award from the University of Michigan, the Rising STARs award from the University of Texas Systems, the Outstanding Paper Award at the Science of Team Science conference, and the Educator of the Month award from the Academy of Master Teachers at UTMB. Bhavnani is PI of grants from PCORI, CDC, the AGING Initiative and the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity, and Co-PI/Co-I of grants from NSF and NIH.

As UTMB’s focus on inter-professional education strengthens, it’s fitting that one of the institution’s newest leaders says some of his proudest achievements have come from interdisciplinary collaborations.

Dr. Brown joined UTMB as senior vice president and dean of the School of Health Professions on March 1, 2020. Renowned for his contributions to the rehabilitation science community, he says collaboration has been a key component of his career.

"The things I am most proud of in my career happened in the context of teams of people, all of whom were dedicated to our success," he said.

His career as a physical therapist, researcher and educator has taken him to institutions across the country. Brown joined UTMB from University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he was a professor of Physical Therapy, director of the PhD in Rehabilitation Science Program and co-director of the University-wide Research Center on Disability Health and Rehabilitation Science.

Now, he’s excited for what’s next as he takes on leadership of SHP’s diverse set of professional and scholarly programs. Since arriving at UTMB, he said he has been impressed by the caliber of work being done in education and in research, citing the SHP’s current NIH funding ranking of 11th nationally and the prevalence of translational research with potential to make a direct impact on patient care.

"Our faculty are leaders in their fields," Brown said. "I see faculty who are committed to the success of UTMB and their students. I see people who are selfless and who make sacrifices for the good of their commitment to patient care and the students’ learning."

He certainly understands that inclination. Early in his career as a physical therapist, he said, he felt he needed to do more to be as effective as possible in helping patients—so he made a commitment to go back to school for his PhD, which he earned at the University of Iowa.

Brown went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University and worked as a research scientist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Palo Alto, California, where he first connected with engineering professionals and discovered opportunities to collaborate on translational solutions. His clinical knowledge and the engineers’ mechanical insights complemented one another in ways they found could be advantageous to patients.

Later, at Northwestern University, he engaged in another successful collaboration with engineers. He said it was especially productive because the engineers came into the project asking, "What clinical problems can we help solve?" The team applied for and received a grant to start a company that would develop new products and get them to market.

Although Brown and his partners sold the company in 2011, one of their products, a gait and balance recovery device called KineAssist, is being used to help patients in rehabilitation centers today. It is one of four patents Brown holds for robotic devices that support gait and balance rehabilitation. He is working on a fifth.

His career journey has been "a long arc," he said, and it has not been without its share of challenges. One constant has been the role that mentorship has played at all stages in his career. He appreciates the value that UTMB leadership places on mentoring and looks forward to seeing the benefits of mentorship in action at UTMB.

"I have learned so much from my mentors, and I have also mentored people who have gone on to do great things," he said. "I know that I can’t solve everybody’s problems, but I can mentor others who will go out and do good work, and through them I can have an impact on even more patients."

He sees potential for the School of Health Professions to expand its impact moving forward, as well. Since the Physician Assistant Studies Program moved into the School of Medicine last year, there is an opportunity to develop a new program and enroll more students in the School of Health Professions.

"We are really engaging in a deep dive to find out what are the needs out there? How can we create a program that serves UTMB’s overall mission and develops more skilled health care professionals who will go out and provide the services that are needed?" Brown said.

If it’s not apparent, Brown has an ambitious to-do list. He’s eager to cultivate relationships with the School of Health Professions’ strong, supportive alumni network, and to work with School of Nursing Dean Dr. Deborah Jones to identify opportunities for their schools to collaborate.

He’s also excited about finding opportunities to engage with his new community. The area is a great fit for him, Brown said. He is a fan of the arts, dance and classical music; in fact, his son is a classical violinist who trained at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. And his wife, who is from China, is excited to connect with the large Asian community across the Houston area.

Brown is also an avid runner. After just a week on the job, he found himself lacing up his running shoes and heading up the Galveston Causeway, as the School of Health Professions hosted its largest annual fundraiser, the Causeway FunD Run. It was a fun event, he said, a good opportunity to connect with his team.

As a new leader at UTMB, Brown wants the people he works with to know a few things about him. One is that he’s not afraid to be challenged—he thinks the most productive interactions always have an edge of conflict to them—and another is that he’s not afraid of failure. As a child in kindergarten, he was tasked with choosing a personal slogan. With his father’s help, he settled with “onward and upward”—and it’s stayed with him ever since. 

“No matter how dire or how hopeless a situation may seem, I ask myself, ‘How can I learn from this and move forward?’” he said. “If you were not afraid to fail, what great things could you achieve? I’ve learned from my father and other great mentors, when you take away the stress and anxiety of being afraid to fail, you open up a lot of possibilities.”

Dr. Campbell comes to UTMB Health from the East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine, where he most recently served as the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Chief Academic Officer, and Associate Professor of Family Medicine. He also served as their Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion and Director of their Research Group for Underrepresented Minorities in Academic Medicine. Prior to his tenure at East Carolina University, Dr. Campbell served on the faculties at Florida State University College of Medicine and the University of Florida College of Medicine.

Dr. Campbell earned a Bachelor of Science (BS) from Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, FL and a Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, FL. He completed a residency with the Tallahassee Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program in Tallahassee, FL.

Dr. Campbell currently holds the Sealy Hutchings and Lucille Wright Hutchings Chair in Family Medicine.

Lisa Campo-Engelstein is the Harris L. Kempner Chair in the Humanities in Medicine Professor, Professor and Chair, Department of Bioethics and Health Humanities and Director, Institute for Bioethics & Health Humanities.  Trained in philosophy, she approaches topics in medicine from a feminist and queer perspective. She is particularly interested in how cultural norms, especially gender norms, influence science and medicine and vice versa. Her main research area is reproductive and sexual ethics, especially male contraception, fertility preservation, reproductive/sexual organ transplants, and abortion.  

Dr. Campo-Engelstein is an award-winning teacher and scholar, and has been interviewed about reproductive ethics topics by leading national and international news organizations including National Public Radio, The New Yorker, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the British Broadcasting Corporation. In 2019 the BBC recognized her research as engendering a better future for women, naming her as one of the 100 “inspiring and influential” Women of 2019.

Dr. Chopra is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology (M&I) and a collaborating faculty in the Institute for Human Infections & Immunity, Center for Biodefense & Emerging Infectious Diseases, Sealy Institute for Vaccine Sciences, Center for Tropical Diseases, Institute for Translational Sciences, and the Shriners Bums Hospitals for Children-Galveston. He earned his BS in Biology, and MS and PhD in Microbiology, from India.

Dr. Chopra was a UNESCO fellow at the Czechoslovak: Academy of Sciences, Prague, and was awarded Candidate of Science (C.Sc.) degree in the field of Molecular & Cellular Biology. He rose to the level of full Professor in 2000 and has mentored 19 graduate students belonging to M&I, Cell Biology, Human Pathophysiology and Translational Medicine (HPTM), and MD/PhD programs. Dr. Chopra has successfully trained numerous undergraduate students, ~22 postdoctoral fellows, and mentored junior faculty at UTMB and nationally. His earlier graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have settled in academia, and private and government sectors.

Dr. Chopra chairs the M&I Graduate School Admissions Committee and is an Assistant Director of the program. He is an active member of the Cell Biology and HPTM Graduate Programs and is involved in teaching Advanced Pathogenic Bacteriology course in M&I (current co-Director of the course). While serving as the chair of the James W. McLaughlin Endowment Funds, he instituted "McLaughlin Scholars Award" to recruit excellent students with Infectious Disease research interests and developed plans to attract excellent postdoctoral fellows to UTMB. In addition, Dr. Chopra has directed the Medical Microbiology Course for the medical students and have lectured in CVP and GIN Courses, and facilitated PHO, Renal & Electrolyte, GIN, and MCT modules in the medical school curriculum. He has served on the SOM admissions committee and is a collaborating faculty on all of the NIH-funded T32- and T35- training grants on infectious diseases and directs the T32 Biodefense Training Program.

In 2011, Dr. Chopra was honored with "Dr. Leon Bromberg Professorship for Excellence in Teaching," the highest honor bestowed by GSBS. In 2015, he was inducted to AMT. In 2012, he was elected to the "Academy of Research Mentors (ARM)," and Director of ARM in 2018. With over 200 peer-reviewed publications, several patents, and cutting-edge research in the areas of bacterial pathogenesis, vaccinology and translating bench research to bedside, he was honored by the GSBS in 2013 with the "Distinguished Faculty Research Award."

Dr. Chopra is the holder of "John S Dunn Distinguished Chair in Global Health" and was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology (2018). He has obtained funding from NIH, NSF, Private Companies and Foundations, and DoD, served on several national and international study sections, and on the editorial boards of scientific journals. Together, these honors reflect his passion and devotion for teaching, mentoring, and research.

Peter Cram MD MBA is the Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, TX. He was on faculty at the University of Iowa (2002-2013) and Director of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at Sinai Health System and University Health Network at the University of Toronto (2014-2021). His current research foci include: 1) using administrative data to compare healthcare utilization and outcomes across developed countries; 2) enhancing communication of risk and prognosis to patients and after low impact hip fractures; 3) studying prices of care and the impact of price transparency efforts. He has published more than 200 research papers. Peter is the co-founder of the international health system research collaborative (IHSRC) with Bruce Landon from Harvard.

Kathryn Cunningham earned her PhD in behavioral neuropharmacology from the University of South Carolina and pursued a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) to further integrate pharmacology within medicine and therapeutics. She rose through the ranks to tenured full professor and founded the Center for Addiction Research with her colleagues in the department and on campus. She is currently the Chauncey Leake Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, the Director of the Center for Addiction Research and Vice Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology.

Dr. Cunningham is a translational scientist with robust collaborations across academic and industry scientists. Their ultimate goal is to develop biomarkers and biosignatures that identify risk for substance use disorders (SUDs) and predict success of innovative diagnostics and therapeutics to effectively prevent and manage these disorders. She has published over 160 peer-reviewed papers and is an invited speaker at numerous local, national, and international events. Dr. Cunningham has maintained continuous funding for over thirty years from NIH, pharmaceutical companies, and foundations and has served extensively on academic and professional committees. Her accomplishments have been recognized with multiple awards including the UTMB Distinguished Faculty Research Award, the ASPET-Astellas Award for Translational Pharmacology, and the Paul Vanhoutte Award for Excellence in Science. Dr. Cunningham also works with varied groups regionally and nationally to foster clinical research, awareness, and knowledge of SUDs. She was instrumental in the creation of the National Recovery Month celebration in Texas (Big Texas Rally for Recovery). Her community engagement efforts have resulted in the Lone Star Award from the Texas Association of Substance Abuse Programs, the Cruisin’ to Recovery Community Award, and the Angel Among Us Award for Long-Standing Community Support of Women in Recovery.

Throughout her academic career, Dr. Cunningham has cultivated and sustained a life-long commitment to fostering the research and career development of new scientists. One of her greatest strengths is her efficacy in creating strong collaborative networks across leaders in the fields of chemistry, preclinical, and clinical expertise, providing rich learning and growth opportunities for students. Her mentees are successful with publications in high impact, peer-reviewed journals and funding of competitive NIH and other awards. Her ability to inspire excellence and achievement is underscored by their successes with over 45 mentees who have productive careers in academia, industry and/or government. Of note, she has trained both M.D./Ph.D. and Ph.D. students who have capitalized on their backgrounds to pursue postdoctoral training and careers in clinical research. Dr. Cunningham is committed to increasing diversity in science and is a requested speaker in events hosted by the NIH Office of Diversity and Health Disparities. 

Brian Downer, PhD is an Associate Professor in the School of Public and Population Health (SPPH) at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB). He received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Aquinas College (Grand Rapids, MI) and a PhD in Gerontology from the University of Kentucky. He also completed an NIA T32 postdoctoral fellowship on Hispanic Health and Aging at the UTMB Sealy Center on Aging.

Dr. Downer studies the influence of social and cultural context on life course pathways for dementia and cognitive decline in diverse older adult populations. He also investigates healthcare utilization by older adults, focusing on the quality and outcomes of post-acute care and differences in healthcare utilization by older adults with and without dementia.

Dr. Finnerty is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery. She received her PhD from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in 2001. Her post-graduate training began in the Sealy Center for Cancer Cell Biology and was completed through the burns research program in the Department of Surgery with the Shriners Hospital for Children-Galveston. In 2005, Dr. Finnerty joined the faculty at UTMB as an Instructor and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2007. In 2011, she was appointed Associate Professor and later awarded tenure in 2016. Dr. Finnerty is a proud ELUM, having completed her fellowship year with the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program for Women, in 2019. She is currently Co-Director of the Postdoctoral Training in Trauma and Burns T32 training grant (MPI: Finnerty/Suman/Wolf), and Co-Director of two faculty mentoring programs: the Academy for Research Mentors and the Translational Research Scholars Program.    

Dr. Finnerty’s research has two areas of focus: improving outcomes following burn injury and elevating the patient voice in mast cell diseases. She has been continuously funded since 2006; the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, Shriners International, and other funding agencies have awarded >$12 million to her research program in systemic and tissue-specific inflammation induced by significant burns.  She holds one patent for a device developed in her lab and has published 169 peer-reviewed articles. Over the course of her career, Dr. Finnerty has mentored >170 postdoctoral fellows, research associates, master’s students, high school, and undergraduate students and served as the primary PhD advisor for two PhD students. 

James S. Goodwin, MD is the George and Cynthia Mitchell Distinguished Chair in Geriatric Medicine at UTMB. He received his baccalaureate degree from Amherst College and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. Starting in the mid 1980’s, he studied patterns of diagnosis, treatment and outcomes of cancer in the elderly, using population-based interview studies as well as analyses of administrative databases. More recently he has used national Medicare data to evaluate overutilization of tests and treatments. He established the Geriatrics Division at the University of New Mexico in 1980. In 1985 he moved to Wisconsin as Vice Chairman of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He moved to UTMB in 1992. He was the Chief of Geriatrics Division in the Department of Internal Medicine at UTMB from 1992 until 2004. In 1994 he established the Sealy Center on Aging and directed it until 2014, when he became Vice President for Research at UTMB. He has developed and directed several other multidisciplinary research centers during his career. At UTMB these include the Health of the Public Initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Claude Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, the Center for Population Health and Health Disparities, and the Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research for Cancer in Texas (CERCIT). He was also the Principal Investigator of an infrastructure grant to develop patient centered outcomes research at UTMB. For 10 years he was PI of a T32 pre and postdoctoral training grant and a K-05 Established Investigator Award that supported his mentoring of junior faculty. Dr. Goodwin is listed in "Best Doctors" in America. His 400 research articles have been cited more than 26,000 times in the scientific literature.

Dr. Thomas Green received his PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Kentucky under Dr. Michael Bardo and completed his postdoctoral training at UT Southwestern Medical Center with Dr. Eric Nestler, both world-renowned scientists in the field of addiction. He was recruited to UTMB in 2009 and is currently an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology. He serves as an associate member of the Pharmacology & Toxicology, Neuroscience, and Human Pathophysiology & Translational Medicine graduate programs and is a member of the Center for Addiction Research and the Palermo-UTMB Joint PhD Program faculty. He also co-founded the Mental Health Research Group at UTMB.

Dr. Green’s research program focuses on complex psychiatric conditions, such as addiction, depression, and anxiety, that are a function of interactions between genes and the environment. His current research using preclinical animal models focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying protective addiction and depression phenotypes that could be of therapeutic value for these disorders. Dr. Green’s research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 2010, with multiple R01 and R03 grants. He has published 62 peer-reviewed journal articles and has served as a reviewer for over 25 scientific journals.

Dr. Green is also a dedicated educator in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) and the School of Medicine. Since joining UTMB, he has been an active course director, lecturer, and mentor, particularly in the Pharmacology & Toxicology and Neuroscience graduate programs. He has mentored multiple graduate students and medical students and participates as a summer undergraduate mentor each year. His doctoral trainees have a successful track record of publishing numerous impactful papers, being supported by competitive NIH-funded grants, and receiving competitive awards, including traineeships, fellowships, and travel awards. His graduates have earned noteworthy postdoctoral and faculty positions at such institutions as the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and the University of North Carolina Medical School. During his tenure, Dr. Green has made multiple contributions to curriculum development in the GSBS. He has created several courses for the Pharmacology & Toxicology, Neuroscience, and Postdoctoral Programs. He also co-developed the curriculum for the Pharmacology & Toxicology Master of Science degree program that was launched in 2019. He is the associate director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program and also mentors its students in the organization of the Neuroscience Graduate Program student symposium, now in its fifth year and an important component of the program.

In addition to his teaching and mentoring, Dr. Green has served on numerous institutional, regional, state, and national committees, including being the founding chair of the Gulf Coast Consortia Mental Health Research Cluster, member of the College on the Problems of Drug Dependence, chairing program advisory and curriculum committees, and member of multiple admissions committees, among many others. 

Dr. Hu’s laboratory is interested in understanding host-virus interactions and antiviral immunity in HIV/AIDS and emerging viral infections. A long-term goal is to develop countermeasures to combat these life-threatening viral diseases.

The laboratory currently has three major research areas: 

1. The first project investigates host epigenetic and transcriptional mechanisms regulating HIV proviral transcription and latency, and develops novel strategies to disrupt or enforce HIV latency for HIV cure. The laboratory also examines the effects of these host cell epigenetic and transcriptional machineries on regulating other viral infections.  
2. The second project aims to elucidate mechanisms for susceptibility of antigen- or vaccine-induced T cells to HIV/SIV infection and their implications in HIV pathogenesis (e.g., co-infections) and immunization.
3. The third project focuses on development of novel vaccines and immune therapeutics for emerging viral infections. We employ various antigen delivery platforms, including mRNA and viral vectors, to understand vaccine-induced innate and adaptive immunity as well as immune correlates of protection. Through collaboration with the biocontainment laboratories here in campus (BSL-3/BSL-4), we are interested in developing new vaccine and therapeutic approaches for important emerging viruses.

Dr. Laezza is a tenured Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and the Director of the Pharmacology and Toxicology Graduate Program. She received her MD from the University of Turin, Italy, and her PhD in neuroscience from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She completed post-graduate training at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2008, Dr. Laezza joined the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2015. In addition to her faculty appointment at UTMB, Dr. Laezza serves in a variety of roles at the Gulf Coast Consortia (GCC) including being the co-founder and Chair of the GCC Mental Health Research Consortium. Dr. Laezza is also a full member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Dr. Laezza’s research focuses on the understanding of and therapies for complex brain disorders associated with genetic and environmental factors. Dr. Laezza has been continuously sponsored by extramural funding for the past 10 years, with five NIH R01 grants from the NIMH, NIDA, and the NIEHS and over six foundation awards as Principal Investigator. She holds two patents for her work and has over 60 articles in peer-reviewed publications. She teaches in both the UTMB School of Medicine and the GSBS and serves on multiple academic committees. Over the course of her career, Dr. Laezza has mentored 50 postdoctoral fellows, research associates, master’s students, foreign exchange students, high school, and undergraduate students and served as the primary PhD advisor for a total of eight PhD and MD/PhD students. Dr. Laezza is also the founder and interim CEO of IonTx Inc., a start-up company dedicated to the development of new neurotherapeutics. 

Melissa (Missy) Morrow, PhD, is the Associate Director for the Center for Health Promotion, Performance, and Rehabilitation Research (CHPPRR). She is also the A. Russell Shearn Moody Distinguished Chair in Neurological Rehabilitation and a Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Metabolism & Rehabilitation Sciences in the School of Health Professions at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Dr. Morrow received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Tulane University, a Master of Clinical and Translational Science from Mayo Clinic, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Biomedical Engineering from Mayo Clinic. Dr. Morrow completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship on an NIH T32 Training Program in Rehabilitation and was an NIH K12 Scholar on the Mayo Clinic Building Interdisciplinary Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) Program.

Dr. Morrow is a biomechanist and rehabilitation scientist with an interest in understanding and improving physical function during daily life. She utilizes technology (wearable sensors, mHealth, motion capture, imaging, etc.), survey-based, and qualitative methods to better understand how disability impacts the lived experience.

Dr. Jupiter's research focuses on lower extremity complications of diabetes, including ulceration, amputation, and infectious diseases such as osteomyelitis. I work closely with clinical collaborators in studying the epidemiology of, risk factors for, and treatment of these diseases. By understanding these aspects of the disease process, we can design better interventions to cure the disease or alleviate its symptoms, and, better yet, develop more successful preventive measures. My work encompasses small trials, secondary data analysis, and retrospective review of patient data. As a member of the Office of Biostatistics within PMPH, I am offered the opportunity to work with investigators in a broad array of research areas. This includes colleagues in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation, Microbiology, and Trauma, among others.

Dr. Kuo is the Don W. and Frances Powell Professor in Aging Research and the director of the Office Biostatistics. Her research assesses patterns of care, treatment toxicities, and health outcomes using a variety of large data sets. She also examines health care delivery focused on hospitalist care and its impact, and the use and effectiveness of primary care provided by nurse practitioners in communities and nursing homes. Her research is widely published in medical and health services research journals. Kuo’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. As a biostatistician, she serves as the director of Biostatistics and Analysis Core for several center grants funded by NIH and Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. She has been a biostatistics mentor for more than 80 trainees including junior faculty, pre-doc and post-doc fellows. Her expertise is in the analyses for comparative effectiveness research, pharmacoepidemiology, and health outcome studies.

Dr. Limon, PhD, MSc. is Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology, Faculty member of the Mitchell Center of Neurodegenerative disease, the GSBS Neuroscience program and Fellow of the Sealy Center on Aging at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Galveston.

Before joining UTMB in 2018, Dr. Limon completed his Chemistry and Pharmaco-biology professional degree at the Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla (BUAP), Mexico, as well as his Master (Ad honorem) and Doctorate (Cum Laude) in Physiological Sciences at the Institute of Physiology, BUAP. His postdoctoral training with FRS Ricardo Miledi at the University of California Irvine (UCI) in the department of Neurobiology and Behavior, and his research in the department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at UCI, set up the basis for his current research program studying the physiology of human native receptors in health and disease. His approach reactivating synaptic receptors from postmortem brains to record their electrical activity and integrating this information with clinical and multi-omics data, has provided deeper understanding of molecular processes that are most likely occurring in living human brains affected by disease.

Over the course of his career, he has been funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Mental Health and has continuously served as reviewer on study sections at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in USA, and abroad in Latin America (Colombia, Argentina and Mexico) and Europe (Spain, Italy, UK and Poland). He has received several awards like the Maximiliano Ruiz Castaneda by the National Academy of Medicine in Mexico, the GRASS fellowship in USA, the University of Texas Rising STARs, as well as Travel Awards from the International Brain Organization and the American College of Neuropharmacology among others.

Dr. Limon is strongly committed to education and mentoring. He is a Visiting Professor at the International Master in Neurosciences Program at the University of Trieste in Italy since 2015. And has participated as teacher in Physiology and Neuroscience programs in Mexico, Bolivia and USA.  At UTMB he is an active lecturer and mentor. He co-directs two courses in the Neuroscience program and T32 Alzheimer’s Pathology program and directs an interdisciplinary course on novel approaches to understand mental health disorders. He serves in several institutional and regional committees including, graduate program admission, UTMB biorepository and the steering committee for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience of the Gulf Coast Consortia among others. 

Dr. Patel specializes in operating exercise clinical trials in healthy individuals and oncology patients. He has a strong background in exercise physiology with specific training on inflammatory and growth factor signaling in clinical conditions. Dr. Patel has obtained funding to support his research through the NIH, Department of Education, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Texas Department of State Health Services, UT Health San Antonio Mays Cancer Center, Owens Medical Research Foundation and a number of other foundations.

As an educator and mentor, Dr. Patel is passionate about developing the next generation of scientists that will make breakthroughs in the prevention and treatment of disease. He has taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, specifically nursing students in research and evidence-based practice and quantitative research methods. Dr. Patel prides himself on being a teacher and mentor that promotes independent, creative, and applied critical thinking, while also facilitating practical knowledge acquisition through experiential learning that challenges students in ways to help them build confidence.

Our long-term goals are to understand the mechanisms of neuronal cell death and deficits associated with both acute and chronic trauma to the central nervous system at a molecular and cellular level. We have developed an array of interventions ranging from modified liposomal gene transfer, endogenous receptor antagonists and gene specific "decoy" inhibition of transcription factor binding to promoter sites as intervention approaches to therapy at the transcriptional level. We are also focusing on the role of intracellular trafficking in stress response mechanisms. Our hypothesis is that oxidative stress in the nervous system, caused by chronic or acute trauma, triggers inflammatory responses that result in the uncoupling of gene networks responsible for cell viability and function that result in the altered phenotypes associated with neural deficits present after injury. In addition, we hypothesize that trauma-induced phosphorylation events affect organelle occupancy by proteins regulating cell death. For example, inflammatory cascades activated by trauma have genotoxic and energetic consequences that activate stress response genes via the NF-B transcription factor. Transcription factors bind to cognate DNA sequences that regulate stress response gene expression essential to survival and function. We DNA sequences is finely tuned by the specificity of the sequence, position within a promoter and protein-protein interactions with other sites on a promoter. Our ongoing studies focus on the Bcl-protein family of genes, COX-2, iNOS, and the IL-1 cytokine. We rely on in vitro and working animal models for perinatal ischemia, spinal cord injury, and head injury in rats and mice. In vitro models used are the PC12 line and primary cultures derived from fetal and neonatal brain. We use in vivo MRI techniques to assess damage and vascular changes in brain and spinal cord in addition to confocal immunocytochemistry to assess organelle function in response to oxidative stress. In vitro reporter constructs and transgenic models suitable to unraveling the role of the NF-kB transcription factor in transcriptional regulation of select genes are also used. In addition, we are applying genomic, proteomic and bioinformatics approaches to analyses of time course studies of post-traumatic injury response. Our animal studies look at outcomes to trauma and therapeutic molecular interventions in terms of locomotor functional recovery, cognitive and sensory outcomes.

B. Montgomery Pettitt is Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry at the University of Texas Medical Branch where he is in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology as well as Pharmacology and Toxicology. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and an NIH Fellow at Harvard University. He spent 27 years as a faculty member at the University of Houston before moving to UTMB. He directs the Sealy Center for Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics, a research center serving UTMB faculty and students with facilities for structural biology (x-ray, NMR and cryoEM) and scientific computing for use in the areas of simulation and modeling. His research focuses on understanding the molecular recognition of proteins and DNA in solution and the relationship to signaling in cells. Signaling that becomes unregulated leading to cancer and other diseases is central to the medical motivation in his laboratory. His theoretical work relies on techniques in statistical mechanics and high-performance scientific computing.

https://scsb.utmb.edu/labgroups/pettitt/welcome

Professor, Dr. Pomila Singh received her PhD degree in Endocrinology and Biochemistry and trained as a Postdoctoral Fellow in neuroendocrinology. She was recruited as an Assistant Professor by UTMB in 1983, and concurrently served as the Director of Hormone receptor laboratory, until 1990. Within seven years of joining UTMB, she was promoted and tenured to the level of Full Professor. From 1983-2017 (for a total of 34 years), Dr. Singh remained continuously funded as the PI of several RO1 grants from the NCI. Her laboratory has so far published 145 peer-reviewed papers and invited articles/book chapters. She has expertise in the areas of cell and molecular biology of solid tumors, cancer stem cells, colon carcinogenesis, chemoprevention, and epigenetics of cancer cells. She has trained many graduate students and post-graduate trainees. Her laboratory is credited with several new discoveries and paradigm-shifting concepts. She has so far received seven patents for cancer treatment and diagnosis. One of her technologies was licensed in 2012, and another licensed in 2018. She is serving on the board of CLICK-S, a company formed based on her recent patent.

Her research interests include delineating mechanisms mediating inhibitory effects of chemo preventive dietary agents against cancer stem cells and mechanisms by which DCLK1, a cancer stem cell marker, exerts tumorigenic/metastatic effects on colon and pancreatic cancers. Her laboratory is currently investigating diagnostic/prognostic use of their patented antibodies/markers for predicting risk of the patients for developing colon cancers and developing strategies for targeting cancer stem cells.

Dr. Soong’s research focuses on tropical infectious diseases caused by insect‐transmitted pathogens. Using mouse and cell culture infection models, she examines how innate and adaptive immune responses against bacteria, viruses, and parasites are regulated, which host‐ and pathogen‐derived factors are responsible for disease pathogenesis, and which molecules can be incorporated into the disease control regimen. Special focus is placed on the activation and dysregulation of infected target cells (endothelial and dendritic cells, neutrophils, and macrophages), as well as on their impact on T cell responses, during acute versus chronic infection. New lines of research include host cellular signaling, tissue‐specific gene expression profiles, and genetic susceptibility variants for leishmaniasis and scrub typhus. She also has collaborations with other scientists on animal models of Zika virus infection and vaccine development for viral infection.

The DePaoli Taylor Lab focuses on conducting epidemiologic investigations to identify immunological biomarkers that indicate women who will develop pregnancy complications including preeclampsia and preterm birth. Other research has focused on identifying pathways associated with the progression of Chlamydia trachomatis genital tract disease. The lab also works on community-based projects addressing gender and racial/ethnic syndemics for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in youth and understanding the impact of STIs on adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Education

• BS 1982 Boston University - Boston, Massachusetts, Physical Therapy
• MS 1996 Boston University - Boston, Massachusetts, Electrical Engineering
• PhD 2008 State University of New York - Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, Exercise Science

Current Funding

• Development of the Full Qualification Package for the Pediatric PROMIS Fatigue Instrument for Children with Crohn's Disease Food, Drug Administration, FDA/NIH Grant: 1 U01 FD006978-01, Role: Principal investigator, 2020 – 2022
• Self-Management of Adolescent and Young Adult Survivors of Childhood Cancer National Cancer Institute, NIH Grant #1R01DC016094-01A1, Role: Co-Investigator, 2021 – 2023
• Translation and Clinical Implementation of a Test of Language and Short-term Memory (STM) in Aphasia National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, NIH Grant # 1R01DC016094-01A1, Role: Co-Investigator, 2018 – 2022

Professor, Dr. Verklan's main research emphasis is on the development of the fetal and neonatal cardiopulmonary and autonomic nervous systems as evaluated by linear and non-linear methods of analysis. She works with the University of Houston Superconductivity Center and uses magnetocardiography to obtain heart rate signals from the fetus and EKGs to obtain physiologic variability from the neonate. Terese has taught in all programs (baccalaureate, masters and doctoral (both PhD and DNP) prior to coming to UTMB. Currently she is teaching in the PhD program, GNRS 6350 Clinical Nurse Investigations in Nursing Grant Proposal.

Dr. Verklan still works at the bedside in a Level IIIC Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. She is an internationally recognized expert in the care of neonates and consults both nationally and internationally as a Critical Care Clinical Nurse Specialist on matters related to the care of the newborn.

Dr. Verklan is a member of several editorial boards and is the Associate Editor for Nursing and Health Sciences and a Contributing Editor for the Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing. She also reviews for nursing and medical journals.

David H. Walker received his premedical and liberal arts education at Davidson College, graduated from the School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, and trained in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. During residency in pathology, he investigated Chagas disease and tropical diseases and pathology at the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory in Panama, where he deepened his commitment to tropical infectious diseases. Following residency, he was an officer in the US Public Health Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta where he was mentored into a scientific career by Fred Murphy, DVM PhD in the Virology Division. There he investigated the role of Mastomys natalensis rodents in the zoonotic cycle of Lassa virus and the pathology of Lassa fever in nonhuman primates in the glovebox biosafety level 4 laboratory.

He also began his career-long focus on investigations of immunity to Rickettsia while a research officer at the CDC. His recruitment as an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of North Carolina provided a laboratory where BSL-3 research was performed safely for 12 years, and he had access to abundant clinical and pathologic material from current and past cases of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. During this period, he gained and created abundant knowledge of rickettsial diseases by personally applying a skin biopsy immunohistochemical diagnostic method to scores of patients with Rocky Mountain spotted fever and following their clinical courses. In parallel, he studied the archives and his own autopsy cases and clinical records of RMSF patients and identified the target cells and pathologic lesions and correlated the clinical pathophysiology of injury to the renal, pulmonary, cardiac, hepatic, gastrointestinal, and central nervous systems to create an in-depth understanding of the disease. This knowledge was extended to Mediterranean spotted fever during periods of research in Palermo, Sicily. At UNC he established a research program on rickettsiae and rickettsial diseases that has been supported by competitive investigator-initiated NIH grants since 1979.

As chair of the Department of Pathology at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in 1987, he began training the next generation of rickettsiologists and continued his efforts to elucidate the mechanisms of immunity to rickettsiae. His team developed novel, valid mouse models of rickettsial and ehrlichial diseases and scrub typhus and are building the foundation of knowledge to enable the development of vaccines. Because the main target of Rickettsia is endothelial cells, they have also investigated the pathobiology of endothelial infection by rickettsiae and the role of endothelial cells in host defense including their rickettsiacidal mechanisms.

Walker determined the key immunological components and events that contribute to protective immunity to rickettsiae, including dendritic cells, natural killer cells, IFN-gamma, TNF-alpha, TLR-4, cytokines, CD8 cytotoxic T lymphocytes, and antibodies to outer membrane proteins A and B. The studies have elucidated the mechanisms of immunity provided by these immune components and the intracellular rickettsiacidal mechanisms of endothelial cells, macrophages, and hepatocytes mediated by nitric oxide, indoleamine 2, 3-dioxygenase, reactive oxygen species and autophagy, as well as the effect of T regulatory cells in suppressing protective immunity in overwhelming infection.

He developed valid animal models of infectious diseases that have enabled mechanistic studies of immunity to rickettsiae and ehrlichiae. These mouse models are characterized by their course of illness, target cells of intracellular infection, and pathologic lesions characteristic of human spotted fever rickettsioses, typhus, scrub typhus (Orientia tsutsugamushi), ehrlichiosis, and viral hemorrhagic fevers.

Walker contributed substantially to knowledge of the components of the immune system that mediate protective immunity against Ehrlichia , including CD4 and CD8 T lymphocytes, TNF alpha, interferon gamma and antibodies. He also determined that pathogenic CD8 T lymphocytes overproducing TNF alpha play a major role in toxic shock of lethal ehrlichiosis and that overproduction of IL-10 and NK and NK T cells contribute to the immunopathology.

His efforts currently comprise leadership of the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, co- Investigator of an NIH-sponsored training grant for Colombian scientists to develop a Colombian center of excellence in investigation of acute non-malarial undifferentiated febrile illnesses, a collaborative grant from the UT System and CONACyT (Mexican NIH-equivalent) on tick host defense against Ehrlichia and ehrlichial gene expression during tick transmission, and pursuit of grant support to elucidate the mechanisms of immunity to Orientia tsutsugamushi and t develop a vaccine against scrub typhus.

He has a major role on the Autopsy Service as Attending Pathologist. His educational activities span the medical school curriculum (laboratory instructor in Pathobiology and Host Defenses, the Cardiovascular-Pulmonary and Gastrointestinal-Nutrition courses), the graduate school Experimental Pathology curriculum including lectures in Pathobiology of Infectious Diseases, Tropical Diseases, Functional Histopathology, and

Vector Biology, PhD candidate supervisory committees, the Pathology Residency Program (three working conferences weekly on current cases) and Infectious Diseases Fellowship program (lecture on biologic threat diseases). He has served as primary advisor for 18 students who have been awarded PhD degrees.

He peer-reviews more than 100 articles annually and serves as a very active associate director of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Nature partner journal Vaccines. He is an active member of the editorial boards of American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, American Journal of Pathology, and Vector-borne and Zoonotic Diseases.

He served as Chairman of the Department of Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch for 27 years. During that time, he played a major role in the development of the programs in vectorborne and zoonotic diseases and the construction of biocontainment laboratories at both BSL3 and BSL4, including the Robert Shope Infectious Disease Pavilion and the Galveston National Laboratory. He was founding director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Tropical Diseases and of the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases at UTMB. For 10 years he served as the Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded Western Regional Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research, a collaborator on several grants with younger scientists, the Western Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, a $105 million collaboration to develop countermeasures against bioweapons and emerging pathogens among 40 institutions in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and New Mexico.

He has served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, the Defense Health Board, the External Advisory Committee of the National Research Council Standing Committee on Biodefense for the US Department of Defense, the Viral and Rickettsial Diseases Panel of the Military Infectious Diseases Research Program, the Vector Biology Study Section of the National Institutes of Health, President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Chair of the Programmatic Panel of the Congressionally Mandated Department of Defense Managed Tick Borne Diseases Research Program, and Cochair of the Congressionally Mandated Tick Borne Diseases Working Group, which is preparing a report to Congress.

He received the honorary degree Docteur Honoris Causa from the Universite Mediterranee in Marseille, has been named one of America’s Top Doctors for the last 19 years, and received the Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award from Vanderbilt Medical School in 2012. He is a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and the American Academy of Microbiology.

My research focuses on understanding of immune response to West Nile virus infection in protection and pathogenesis. West Nile virus, a vector-borne pathogen, has resulted in annual outbreaks of viral encephalitis in North America since 1999. Human vaccines are not yet available. Using a murine infection model, my current work explores immune factors contributing to the development of long-lasting protective immunity against West Nile virus. Aging is a known risk factor for West Nile virus induced encephalitis. We also attempt to understand immune factors that could lead to a defective adaptive immunity in aged mice in order to evaluate new strategies in WNV vaccine development for the more susceptible aging population.

John Sealy Distinguished University Chair in Human Infections & Immunity
Director, Institute for Human Infections, and Immunity
Professor and Chair, Department of Microbiology, and Immunology
Scientific Director, Galveston National Laboratory

Dr. Scott C. Weaver is a virologist and vector biologist who studies arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses), their transmission by mosquitoes, and develops vaccines to control the diseases that they cause. His research encompasses the ecology and epidemiology of enzootic arbovirus transmission cycles, virus-mosquito interactions, pathogenesis, and emergence mechanisms of epidemic strains. These studies have had major impacts on understanding arboviral emergence including Venezuelan equine encephalitis, for which the international research groups he has led determined the ecological and evolutionary sources as well as mechanisms of epidemic strain emergence. Dr. Weaver’s recent studies have focused on chikungunya virus, its history of emergence from wildlife African nonhuman primate cycles, mosquito-adaptive evolution and its viral genetic constraints, as well as Zika virus, which is now associated with congenital malformations and Guillain Barré syndrome. He has also developed promising new vaccines for several of these arboviral diseases; the chikungunya vaccine developed in his laboratory, licensed to Takeda Pharmaceuticals and patented in 19 countries, is in late preclinical development. Dr. Weaver’s research has led to over 330 peer-reviewed research publications and over 100 reviews and book chapters. He has served as a mentor for 20 PhD students and 27 postdoctoral fellows, many who have developed highly successful independent scientific careers in academia and government. Among his many awards, Prof. Weaver has received the Walter Reed Medal from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the Robert C. Gallo Award for Scientific Excellence from the Global Virus Network (GVN). He is a Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the National Academy of Inventors. He also Chairs the GVN’s Chikungunya and Zika Task Forces and serves as an editor for several major tropical medicine and microbiology journals. At UTMB, Dr. Weaver is chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, ranked second nationally among its peers for National Institutes of Health funding, and directs the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity, the Administrative hub for infectious disease programs and facilities such as the Galveston National Laboratory. He is also PI of the CDC-funded Western Gulf Center of Excellence for Vector-borne Diseases and the NIH-funded World Reference Center for Emerging Viruses and Arboviruses.

My laboratory is studying human neural stem cells and currently focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of self-renewal, plasticity, multipotential and trophic factor secretion of stem cells. The outcome of our studies will provide insights towards development of stem cell-related therapy to treat diseases like ALS (Lous Gehrig’s disease), traumatic brain and spinal cord injury. Human neural stem cells can be used to study how the human nervous system is developed, how neural diseases damage the system and how to use stem cells to repair the injured or degenerated brain and spinal cord. Previously, our group has developed an in vitro priming technique, which allowed us to obtain a large proportion of transplanted stem cells becoming cholinergic nerve cells in rat spinal cord and brain. We further showed that stem cell-derived motor nerve cells, when grafted, sent projections to reach muscle targets, and stem cell grafts improved motor function in rat models with acute and chronic spinal cord injury. Using a brain injury model, we also found that stem cell grafts prevented injury-induced cognitive impairment (memory loss) by secreting trophic factors to protect injured nerve cells. Next, we will focus on the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying stem cell priming and differentiation as well as interactions between stem cells and host cells. Such studies will allow us to improve the efficacy of stem cell therapy for various neurological disorders, including spinal cord injury, brain trauma and Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS).

Recently, through collaboration with investigators in the Center for Addiction Research, we began to study the effects and mechanisms of chronic alcohol consumption on endogenous neural stem cells in rodents. We have also started a collaboration with virologists at UTMB through NeurolD Initiative by applying human neural stem cell-derived neurons and glia for mechanistic studies of viral encephalitis.