University of Texas Medical Branch researcher Dr. Shannon Guillot-Wright was awarded a $660,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fund a five-year research project to address health disparities for commercial fishermen.

The new year is starting strong with the news that those with Medicare Part D may receive all recommended vaccines without paying a dime.

In the wake of the cardiac arrest episode experienced by NFL player Damar Hamlin, UTMB pediatric cardiologist Dr. Ashraf Aly took some time out to visit with our friends at Houston Moms to answer some important questions surrounding the heart and how it works.

Unless you are vegan, odds are that your holiday meal was vaccinated. Whether you had prime rib, a Christmas ham or a turkey with all its fixings, vaccination was involved. Even the whipped cream on the pumpkin pie came from a vaccinated dairy cow. While most of us appreciate the role vaccines play in keeping us and our pets healthy, few recognize the major role vaccines play in our food supply.

UTMB has been awarded an agreement up to nearly $25 million from the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) (within the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR)), for their efforts in the collaborative development of vaccines to protect against infection by Ebola (EBOV), Sudan (SUDV), Marburg (MARV), and Lassa (LASV) viruses. This project award was executed via Other Transaction Authority (OTA) to UTMB through the Medical CBRN Defense Consortium (MCDC).

In this video, these UTMB doctors and providers share that they got their own children vaccinated for flu and COVID.

People are sick of hearing about COVID. So are we! But the truth is, the virus is not sick of us, and it’s not going anywhere. There has been nearly a 30 percent increase in COVID hospitalizations among elderly adults in the past two weeks. You should be aware of new information.

Be prepared for cold weather

During a recent chat with Meagan Clanahan of Houston Moms, Dr. Bindi Naik-Mathuria covered some common seasonal safety tips to help everyone have a happy, healthy, uneventful holiday season.

Q: I was recently sick and I think it must have been the flu. Do I still need a flu shot? A: The short answer is yes, get vaccinated. You are among the millions who have already suffered a respiratory illness this season. We are experiencing a “tripledemic” with flu, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), causing a large number of infections and hospitalizations. RSV and about a dozen other common viruses cause flu-like illnesses in adults.