Vaccines protect better than natural immunity. Dr. Richard Rupp, assistant director of the Sealy Center for Vaccine Development at UTMB, spoke to the newspaper about the evidence. “We know natural immunity is limited,” Rupp said. “Healthy people start getting reinfected as soon as six months after their initial infection. There is a good chance that natural immunity will only protect for three to five years.”

Dr. Samuel E. Mathis, an assistant professor of Family Medicine at UTMB, is a new member of the American Academy of Family Physicians board of directors. The academy held elections for its board in September. The academy represents 133,500 physicians and medical students.

Dr. Jeff Temple, director of the Center for Violence Prevention at UTMB, took part in a conversation about medication for ADHD.

Sheryl L. Bishop, UTMB professor emeritus and social psychologist, spoke about how many people to put in a crew going to Mars. “There isn’t a real ‘Goldilocks’ number for a Mars crew; the general opinion is that you need a group of at least five people,” Bishop said. One reason would be to have someone who could break a tie, she said.

Dr. Alan Barrett, director of the Sealy Institute for Vaccine Sciences at UTMB, was part of an expert panel on the radio program Town Square discussing the future of the COVID-19 booster shots.

A British news outlet featured UTMB and new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "The safety and antibody response of a booster dose administered seven to nine months after the regular two-dose series suggests that a third dose could prolong protection and further increase the breadth of protection against variants," said Pei-Yong Shi, professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UTMB.