With a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, University of Texas Medical Branch researchers will study the short- and long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents’ mental, behavioral and social health.

In a new study, researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch show that a new vaccine developed to fight Lassa Virus, a pathogen that causes Lassa fever, provides rapid protection against the deadly pathogen.

A new University of Texas Medical Branch study links COVID-19 restrictions to poor mental health in adolescents. “While it was necessary to prevent the pre-vaccine spread of COVID-19, removing children from school was not without consequences,” said Dr. Jeff Temple, Vice Dean for research at UTMB’s School of Nursing and the director of the Center for Violence Prevention. Temple is the lead author of the study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Thanks to a $56 million grant, the University of Texas Medical Branch and global health care company Novartis will enhance their work together to discover drugs to fight off the next pandemic. The grant comes from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and is one of nine such grants awarded by NIAID to establish Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern.

Focused on training the next generation of public health workforce and improving the overall health and well-being of residents, the University of Texas Medical Branch is announcing its newly established School of Public and Population Health today.

Scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch have developed a vaccine showing promising protection against Nipah virus, a zoonotic virus that has a mortality rate as high as 70 percent and that is considered to be a pathogen of pandemic potential. The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The University of Texas Medical Branch is naming its School of Medicine the John Sealy School of Medicine in honor of the 19th century Texas entrepreneur and philanthropist John Sealy and the foundation that was established decades after his death to continue his legacy of support. Over the past 100 years, The Sealy & Smith Foundation has contributed more than $1 billion to UTMB, one of the largest cumulative contributions in history to an American institution.

A study published today in Pediatrics found that a healthy relationship curriculum can reduce physical dating violence among adolescents.

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch have found SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the testes of infected hamsters. The findings, published in the journal Microorganisms, could help explain symptoms that some men with COVID-19 have reported and have important implications for men’s health.

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have been awarded an $11.3 Million, multi-year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study immunopathogenesis of Ebola, and in particular to determine why cells infected with Ebola develop “immune system paralysis,” which inhibits immune response leads to hyper inflammation and allows the deadly infection to spread. The research will be led by Co-Principal Investigators Alexander Bukreyev, PhD., of UTMB’s Department of Pathology, and Mariano Garcia-Blanco, MD, PhD, Chair of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department.