Why choose UTMB Health?

UTMB Health offers innovative care provided with compassion and that is nationally recognized. We embrace a Best Care philosophy, which means that UTMB is committed to making sure each patient receives the right care for the best possible results.

UTMB Health remains committed to expanding access to advanced care on our Galveston, League City, Clear Lake and Angleton Danbury campuses and at more than 90 primary and specialty care clinics in Southeast Texas.

No matter where you enter the UTMB Health network, our providers, clinics and hospitals are seamlessly connected to one another.

Because we are an academic medical center, physicians share knowledge, the most advanced treatment options and leading-edge research – to bring you the benefits of academic medicine close to home.

Map of Texas with UTMB Health clinics marked

More reasons to choose UTMB Health:

Picture of Paula Villarreal fifth year PhD student and F99/K00 Grant recipient

UTMB Doctoral Student Receives NCI Award for AI-Driven Early Oral Cancer Detection Research

Paula Villarreal is only the second University of Texas Medical Branch doctoral student to be awarded the F99/K00 Grant, and the first to receive it specifically under the National Cancer Institute’s Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition grant.

The F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award, designed to encourage and retain outstanding graduate students with potential for independent research careers, provides funding to support Ph.D. candidates in completing their dissertation research (F99 phase) and facilitates their transition into mentored postdoctoral research positions (K00 phase). With a focus on cancer research, the award helps talented students secure successful postdoctoral appointments with the intent to become independent researchers. Only 24 researchers were funded in this round of awards, and Villarreal is the only Hispanic female recipient.

“My dissertation focuses on early oral cancer detection,” Villarreal, who is entering the fifth year of her PhD program, said. “I’m currently investigating how to non-invasively detect early cancer changes in oral mucosa.”

Part of her work involves using a unique imaging device that examines a large area of mucosa and then switches to 3D, microscopic modality noninvasively. This allows clinicians to make better assessments and guides them to better target biopsy locations. 

“The problem is cancer grows inward,” Villarreal said. “By the time they see it outwardly, it’s too advanced. If we can guide clinicians to these early changes, they can monitor it and we can save lives.”

The NCI grant required Villarreal to think about how she could transition to post-doctoral work. 

“You have to imagine it out, probably the hardest part of putting this grant together, but it also pushed me to think ahead and structure my career path as a principal investigator,” Villarreal said of the award, which supports up to two years of doctoral research and then four years of post-doctoral research.

Villarreal plans to strengthen her skills in the artificial intelligence domain, envisioning tools that allow dentists, ear, nose and throat specialists, and pathologists to use collected data to find patterns that would help in diagnosis and treatment. This could include biomarkers, metabolic changes, patient demographics and clinical notes. 

“I am grateful to my mentors Dr. Gracie Vargas and Dr. Heidi Spratt, as well as Dr. Melinda Sheffield-Moore, among others, who helped me get this award,” Villarreal said.

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