UTMB News

  • Scientists develop Nipah virus vaccine that may give life-saving protection in just three days

    University of Texas Medical Branch researchers have developed a vaccine that could protect against the deadly Nipah virus in just three days. All six monkeys given an experimental jab seven days before being exposed to a lethal dose of the disease survived. Two-thirds of primates given the shot three days in advance lived. Many other international news outlets carried a related story from the Indo-Asian News Service that cited Dr. Thomas W. Geisbert from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UTMB. The experimental vaccine was found to be “safe, immunogenic and effective at protecting the monkeys from a high dose of Nipah virus given shortly after immunization,” Geisbert wrote in the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

  • Hospital mortality from non-SARS-CoV-2 causes up among seniors

    UTMB researchers discovered an increase in mortality rates among Medicare beneficiaries in the 30 days after hospital admission for non-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (non-SARS-CoV-2) causes during the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020 through September 2021), according to a study published online March 9 in JAMA Network Open.

  • This is what you should be eating and drinking after 60

    Fancy a tipple? Research from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston suggests that light alcohol consumption during later life helped improve people’s episodic memory if they did not have dementia. Needless to say, it’s important to drink only in moderation as you age. If you are concerned about this issue, speak to a doctor first.

  • Children are like a different species

    “We tend to think children are like small adults in many ways, but in terms of energy utilization, they’re definitely not the equivalent of small adults,” write Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel in their Medical Discovery News column. “They consume more energy than a pregnant person and even more than growing teenage boys. Unbelievable! Scientists have stated that in terms of burning energy, young children are like a different species.”

  • You might not have heard of vitamin K — but it's important

    Vitamin K doesn’t cross the placenta, so babies are born with very little vitamin K in their bodies. To complicate their low levels, breast milk is low in vitamin K, Dr. Sally Robinson writes in her regular column. Since 1961, the standard of care is for newborns to receive one shot of vitamin K to prevent those complications. However, in recent years there has been an increase in the number of parents who refuse the intramuscular shot.

  • Keep yourself healthy with the sunshine vitamin

    “Now that spring has sprung, get your dose of sunshine daily and keep yourself healthier,” Dr. Victor S. Sierpina writes in his regular column. “Nudist camps often claim to be health-promoting — and we may have something to look at there.”

  • UTMB Scientists Develop a Vaccine Against Nipah Virus

    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.

  • UTMB to Name Medical School to recognize $1 billion donor

    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.

  • headshots of Drs. Clark and Levy

    Changing the narrative of women’s care

    Dr. Gal Levy and Dr. Shannon Clark recently shared their expertise in a recent Community Impact article about the disparities women face when receiving health care.

  • Local experts puzzled at CDC’s high-risk rating for Galveston County

    For about half of the counties in the country, which contain 70 percent of the U.S. population, the CDC advised people could unmask indoors. But it continued to recommend indoor masking for areas like Galveston County. “I am trying to study the metrics that CDC has provided. They don’t actually give the actual data that they’re extracting,” said Dr. Janak Patel, director of infection control and health care epidemiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. “I have a feeling that Galveston County got a worse rating than Harris County because we have a large health care system that serves multiple counties.”

  • How the mainstream movement against gender-based violence fails Black workers and survivors

    In 2016, at the request of anti-violence coalitions in Texas, University of Texas Medical Branch associate professor Leila Wood undertook a study of job-related stress among advocates. The resulting survey of hundreds of movement workers in the state found that 30 percent reported experiencing or witnessing racial microaggressions at work. Those incidents were associated with high rates of “compassion fatigue”—the toxic mix of burnout and secondary traumatic stress that often drives people to quit their jobs. Black advocates, who reported experiencing or witnessing microaggressions at some of the highest rates, were also the most likely to be planning to leave their agencies.

  • Texas’ rising generation of Black physicians want to increase representation

    Tsola Efejuku, a UTMB medical student, was raised by a family of health care professionals. His mom is a pharmacist, one of his uncles is a physician and another is a physical therapist. This early exposure piqued his interest in the field. But outside of his family, he found little reinforcement. “I didn’t see too many [other] Black physicians,” he said. In 2020, 6.3% of active physicians in Texas identified as Black or African American, compared with 13.4% of the state population.

  • Ouch! Dealing With Another Toe Cramp?

    According to podiatrist Chanel Perkins, DMP, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch, what’s happening in the body when someone gets a toe cramp depends on the exact cause. One common reason according to Perkins is dehydration. Also, the lack of movement could be causing your toe cramping. “Lack of blood flow leads to low oxygenation and nutrition in the tissues, causing them to cramp,” she said.

  • Successful vaccination program keeps mumps mild

    The mumps cases in vaccinated individuals are mild. Therefore, most cases go unrecognized because few individuals have the classic chipmunk face or suffer complications like testicular swelling or brain inflammation that trigger diagnostic investigations.

  • With science, we can fight viruses and be safe doing so

    Most people have never seen a case of measles, mumps or rubella nor have they seen the side effects of these viruses because our vaccination rates are high, writes Dr. Sally Robinson in her regular column.

  • Do hard things to improve your health

    Undergoing physical and mental stimulation that creates the stress response in the brain for a short period of time (minutes to hours) has been shown to improve physical, mental and emotional health. “Do hard things,” Dr. Samuel Mathis writes. “Do something that will challenge you.”

  • Pecans are a good treat — in moderation, that is

    A recent study from the “Journal of Nutrition” showed that the addition of pecans can dramatically improve your cholesterol levels. Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel discuss the benefits in their Medical Discovery News column. This doesn’t mean, however, that you should eat that extra piece of pecan pie.