A team of UTMB scientists has achieved a breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research by developing a nasal spray designed to treat the disease and other forms of dementia, reports The Daily News. “This nasal spray approach opens new avenues for non-invasive delivery of tau therapeutic antibodies directly to the brain, and it holds promise for many neurodegenerative diseases,” said UTMB’s Dr. Rakez Kayed.

UTMB students nominated Dr. Jennifer Raley for the Joyce Jeardeau Memorial Award in recognition of her “planning, detailed organization, passion, and vision for the FMIG.” Raley will accept the award at the National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students in August at the same time the UTMB Family Medicine Interest Group wins a Program of Excellence Award for the sixth year in a row.

“From a health perspective, a flotilla of bubbles acts as a natural stress reliever, bringing delight, distraction and even abstraction into our lives,” writes Dr. Victor S. Sierpina in his Daily News column. If life is getting stressful, Sierpina writes, maybe you need a bubble break.

UTMB’s Dr. Jeff Susman was named a 2024 Distinguished Service Award recipient by the National Board of Medical Examiners.

Bioprinting technology has made it possible to “print” a brain, write Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel in their Medical Discovery News column. While promising, there are limitations to the printed brain tissues but it will be an exciting area to watch, Herzog and Niesel write.

Dr. Praveeena K. Gupta designed and manufactured the Ring-IT, a tactile 3-dimensional bottle ring adaptor that improvs the identification and dosing frequency of eye drops for low-vision patients, at the Maker Health Space Medical Fabrication Laboratory at UTMB. The Ophthalmology Times reported that Gupta and her colleagues believe that their study “holds breakthrough potential to catalyze a shift in clinical practice, providing a practical tool to enhance topical eye drop adherence in patients with visual impairment.”

UTMB medical student Johnny Dang wrote about being the child of Vietnamese immigrant parents pursuing the dream of studying medicine for in-Training, an online peer-reviewed publication for medical students. “I arrived at medicine on my own accord, but now that I am here, there is still a pressure to see this American dream fairy tale through,” Dang writes. “From my parents’ perspective, all those days showing up to work while ill, the vacation time never taken, and the years having never been back to Vietnam even once have to amount to something, right?”

The Olympics are set to start later this summer in Paris just as Europe is suffering from yet another outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease, write Drs. Richard Rupp and Megan Berman in their latest Vaccine Smarts column.

Ashwagandha is a common supplement Dr. Samuel Mathis says he recommends to patients. “This plant is rich in anti-inflammatory properties, alkaloids, and a type of molecule known as withanolides, a steroid-like compound that is believed to be the primary agent responsible for ashwagandha’s effect,” Mathis writes in his Daily News column.

While the attention on breast cancer awareness is good, doctors agree that there should be just as much emphasis on women’s heart health. UTMB’s Dr. Fatima Khan tells Flow Space that one of the challenges is that women do not have the same signs and symptoms as men. “Most of the literature in the books and educational material is based on the research done on men, since we did not know for ages that heart disease can also impact women,” says Khan.