BIRD
A publication of Texas Biomedical Research Institute
Change is here
Take a moment to look at that photo on the previous page. In two years, that overhead view of our campus will be very different; in five years, I guarantee it will be almost unrecognizable.
Since 1941, Texas Biomed has grown and evolved on 200+ acres of ranchland originally owned by our founder Tom Slick, Jr. Meanwhile, the great city of science that Tom envisioned has grown around and with us.
Now, Texas Biomed is undergoing the most dramatic transformation of its 83-year history – modernizing facilities and expanding capacity to deliver on our mission to protect you, your family and the global community from the threat of infectious diseases. This includes our most vulnerable populations in our efforts to enhance the health of everyone.
We have made significant strides in modernizing the campus. In addition to renovations, we have completed the first two new buildings of our 10-year Strategic Plan launched in 2019. The buildings are part of the Animal Care Complex, which will have a significant IMPACT on our nation’s ability to prevent and prepare for pandemic threats, while also raising the bar for animal care.
2024 will be even bigger. By year’s end, we will have invested almost $200 million since I arrived in 2017 to modernize and expand our campus and programs. By 2028, that will grow to $350 million.
This year, we are excited to break ground on our new Animal Health Center, which will enable our extraordinary staff to provide care in state-of-the-art facilities. We are beginning extensive upgrades of our
critical infrastructure – moving power lines underground, installing high-speed fiber internet and modernizing our water and sewer systems to support campus growth. We are installing a microgrid, which will produce and store energy, allowing our critical power systems to remain self-sufficient if the state grid falters.
We are pushing hard to achieve our bold vision as a world leader in infectious disease-related biomedical research. A key part of that vision is our planned centerpiece building: the Global Center for Bioscience (GCB). I hope you will join our efforts to transform, not just our campus, but the way scientific research and education is conducted to benefit all people. We believe in collaborative, team science that transcends disciplines and countries, which will lead to healthier outcomes for everyone. The GCB is being designed as an open, welcoming place that connects our local students and neighbors with our researchers and the global scientific community.
I am hopeful that as you read this edition of TxBiomed magazine, you’ll come away understanding the critical contributions our scientists are making in human health. It’s also important to realize how building a strong community locally and internationally is at the core of everything we do.
For example, this edition’s COVER STORY features our work on bird flu, especially the highly pathogenic strain that appeared in Texas dairy cows for the first time this spring and has infected several people in the U.S. As I write, multiple variants of bird flu are continuing to make headlines, underscoring the importance of the
expertise and facilities Texas Biomed can offer the nation to prepare for pathogens that pose a pandemic threat.
Meanwhile, others are FOCUSing on what pathogens may be lurking in seemingly unlikely places – natural history collections. Only by knowing what is out there, can we adequately prepare.
I am thrilled to introduce you to our new FACULTY recruits. Our team is growing in strategic research areas as we work toward our Strategic Plan goal of doubling our faculty size.
Our education programs have significantly diversified thanks to generous partnerships with leaders such as Valero, H-E-B and the American Cancer Society. We are committed to providing our COMMUNITY learning opportunities and to training the next generation of brilliant scientific problem solvers – the next Einstein or Curie could come through our doors.
We are proud to be part of a strong local network that helped win an influential federal program – an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) hub –placing San Antonio on the national stage with leading biotech regions. Through this program, we are making CONNECTIONS to improve how healthcare solutions are developed and delivered to real patients.
San Antonio’s bioscience sector is unique because we are such a collaborative city, always willing to help each other. We took this spirit to Washington, D.C. as part of the annual SA to DC trip, where city officials and leaders across multiple sectors meet with elected representatives and key agencies. I was pleased to help
As part of the Greater San Antonio Chamber’s SA to DC visit , representatives from Texas Biomed and other San Antonio organizations met with Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., M.P.H., new Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). From left to right: Krista Piferrer, FirstDay Foundation Executive Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations; Dr. Larry Schlesinger; Dr. Marrazzo; Shermeka Hudson, Turner Construction Company Community and Citizenship Manager; Nicole Foy, Texas Biomed Communications Vice President; David Bates, Texas Biomed Board of Trustees Member.
lead this year’s healthcare and bioscience delegation and highlight our strengths.
Finally, we are marking a major milestone. Jamo Rubin, M.D., has served as chair of the Texas Biomed Board of Trustees for the last eight years and in May he passed the baton to Craig Boyan, President of H-E-B. Please read about the IMPACT Dr. Rubin has made during his historic tenure. We are sincerely grateful for his dedication and leadership that has set Texas Biomed on its current trajectory. We are equally lucky to have Mr. Boyan step up to continue the momentum during what will be a period of explosive growth and modernization.
Facilities are expanding. Faculty is expanding. Education programs are expanding. Partnerships with industry, government and academic organizations are expanding. Texas Biomed is full steam ahead.
Of course, we can do none of this without your support. Thank you for helping build on the successes of our past so we can move boldly forward. Like Tom Slick, we are playing the long game and preparing for the next 80 years. Together, we will continue his vision that big ideas, coupled with investments in science and discovery, make the world a safer and healthier place for us all.
In gratitude,
Larry Schlesinger, M.D. President & CEO, Texas Biomed
ZIKA VACCINE SAFE, EFFECTIVE WHEN ADMINISTERED DURING PREGNANCY
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at Texas Biomed, Trudeau Institute and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) evaluated a Zika vaccine candidate during pregnancy in nonhuman primates. Zika virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, poses the greatest risk to pregnant women and developing fetuses by causing miscarriages and severe birth defects. The vaccine candidate, developed at WRAIR, has successfully completed Phase 1 clinical trials in humans. However, clinical trials usually exclude pregnant people, leaving key questions unanswered about vaccination during pregnancy. Previous studies at Texas Biomed showed the vaccine effectively blocks prenatal Zika transmission when given to marmosets prior to pregnancy. The results of this latest study showed the vaccine was also effective when given during pregnancy with no adverse side effects. “This is a giant step forward,” says Texas Biomed Professor Emeritus Jean Patterson, Ph.D. “We have very strong evidence that this vaccine could protect fetal health during the next Zika outbreak.” The study was published in npj Vaccines.
RESEARCHERS PINPOINT MOST LIKELY SOURCE OF HIV REBOUND INFECTION
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) does an excellent job at suppressing HIV to undetectable levels in the blood. However, small amounts of latent virus hide throughout the body and when treatment is stopped, the virus can rebound. “If we can identify the starting point of the virus rebound, we can work on developing treatments that target those tissues and stop the virus from spreading in the first place,” says Texas Biomed Professor Binhua “Julie” Ling, M.D., Ph.D. Working with the nonhuman primate version of HIV, which is called SIV, Dr. Ling and her collaborators used more than 9,000 individually barcoded viruses to track which rebounded first in nonhuman primates within days of stopping ART. They found lymph nodes in the abdomen and groin, as well as the spleen, are the leading sources of rebound infection. Lymph nodes are known reservoirs of HIV and SIV, but there are more than 800 lymph nodes throughout the body. This study, published in Science Translational Medicine, provides evidence for which ones would be best to target with new therapies.
A lymph node containing SIV RNA (red dots), B cell zones (green) and T cell zones (blue).
SCIENTISTS DISCOVER METHOD
EBOLA VIRUS USES TO INFECT CELLS
Ebola virus is sneaky. Texas Biomed Assistant Professor Olena Shtanko, Ph.D., and her colleagues found the deadly virus creates tunnels to move from cell to cell, evading detection by the body and existing treatments. “Our findings suggest that the virus can create its hiding place, hide and then move to new cells and replicate,” Dr. Shtanko says. Specifically, the virus is generating tunneling nanotubes – dynamic connections between cells that allow them to communicate by exchanging particles over relatively long distances. While these structures are known to help promote neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, HIV-1 and influenza, Dr. Shtanko and her team are the first to investigate their role in disseminating Ebola virus. The study, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, shows Ebola virus uses nanotubes to infect new cells even in the presence of treatments meant to stop it. The team
is continuing to investigate this process in detail and if related viruses exploit the same mechanism to spread infection.
TEXAS BIOMED HELPING ADVANCE MARBURG VACCINE
Texas Biomed researchers are working with Sabin Vaccine Institute to test a vaccine against Marburg virus, which is part of the same filovirus family as Ebola virus and similarly causes hemorrhagic fever that kills up to 90% of those infected. The team ran preclinical tests demonstrating the vaccine’s efficacy, safety and optimal dosage, which are required before testing in humans. Phase 2 clinical trials in volunteers began in late 2023, following outbreaks in Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania that killed 18 out of 25 confirmed cases, with more probable cases. “We have been partnering with Sabin since 2019 and are very excited to see their Marburg vaccine candidate move into phase 2 clinical trials,” says Professor Ricardo Carrion, Jr., Ph.D., the Director of Maximum Containment Contract Research at Texas Biomed. “An effective vaccine is critical to protect people from this deadly virus, especially as we see the frequency of outbreaks increasing in more places.” Texas Biomed’s scientists had previously led the development of the nonhuman primate model for Marburg virus, conducting the foundational studies needed to accurately evaluate therapies and vaccines against the virus in macaques. The work was done in collaboration with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the federal agency that oversees the development of medical countermeasures.
Ebola virus proteins (green) are detected in tunneling nanotubes connecting cells.
Marburg virus particles. Photo courtesy of NIH.
IMMUNOLOGY BRINGING A MATHEMATICAL EYE TO
Professor Vitaly Ganusov, Ph.D., combines math and immunology to investigate two of the world’s leading killers: malaria and tuberculosis (TB).
Recruited from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, he is excited to have joined Texas Biomed and a faculty team so keenly focused on infectious diseases.
“I really like the spirit of the Institute,” Dr. Ganusov says. “There is this drive to solve world problems, find cures and understand how things work. I want to be part of that. Let’s solve these problems. Let’s help humanity in the best way possible.”
In his Theoretical Immunology Lab, Dr. Ganusov is using mathematical models and other computational biology tools to understand biological processes of infection and immunity and to identify potential diagnostics and treatments.
Dr. Ganusov, who holds a Ph.D. in biology from Emory University and another in physical and mathematical sciences from the Institute of Biophysics in Russia, relishes bringing the logic of math and physics to help explain the complexity of biological systems.
Specifically, he studies how Mycobacteria tuberculosis, the bacteria causing TB, disseminate from the lungs to other parts of the body, such as lymph nodes, spleen, liver and bone marrow.
“How exactly do the bacteria go outside of the lungs? What are the pathways and cells involved?” he asks.
Answers to those questions could help lead to better therapies to stop the spread of TB throughout the body and control infection.
Similarly, Dr. Ganusov analyzes how malaria parasites physically move from the initial site of infection in the skin to blood vessels and then to the liver. His goal is to find ways to interrupt the process. As part of the research, he uses microscopy to observe how T cells respond to infected cells in mice in real time.
“We ask the question: are the T cells running towards the infection or do they just walk around and bump into it? And the answer so far is: they walk around,” he says.
Findings like these can help scientists define the limits on the number and quality of T cells a successful malaria vaccine will need to induce.
In addition to making observations, Dr. Ganusov wants to be able to predict what will happen using well-crafted mathematical models. Having such precise tools could potentially predict if a medicine will work or fail under different conditions. Biological systems are so complex that it is challenging to create models that are simple enough to work and still be accurate. This is the space where Dr. Ganusov thrives.
“The ultimate goal of any science is to become not just descriptive, but more quantitative, more predictive,” he says.
SEARCHING FOR THERAPIES IN THE SMALL & UNCONVENTIONAL
Associate Professor Shouxiong Huang, Ph.D., specializes in the small and unusual parts of the human immune system, with a singular goal propelling his research.
“We want to find new cellular and molecular targets to help fight diseases, such as tuberculosis and cancer,” says Dr. Huang, who joined Texas Biomed this year.
Specifically, Dr. Huang studies metabolites – molecules smaller than proteins that assist a wide array of functions throughout the body. For example, without metabolites, certain immune cells would not be triggered to recognize specific pathogens, a necessary step to fight infection. Many B vitamins and hormones also fall into the metabolite category.
Scientists have been studying metabolites for more than 100 years. But it wasn’t until highly sensitive mass spectrometers became available within the last 30 years or so that metabolites could be efficiently analyzed, with hundreds to thousands of the molecules present in a single sample.
“Mass spectrometers allow us to study which metabolite interacts with a protein or DNA and influences a biological process,” Dr. Huang says. “We are learning how metabolites play very important roles in many different processes.”
Dr. Huang also studies a group of T cells that don’t behave like most other T cells. Usually, T cells, a type of white blood cell, need weeks to begin fighting an infection. Unconventional T cells, on the other hand, respond within days.
While conventional T cells are unique to individuals based on their past illnesses, unconventional T cells appear similar across populations.
“I am working to identify specific metabolites that can activate unconventional T cells to fight infections,” Dr. Huang says. “Because these cells are conserved across populations, we hypothesize that activating them
could work as an alternative to combine with other immunotherapies and help fight different bugs.”
Dr. Huang’s interest in science was influenced by his family. His father and the five generations before him were all traditional medicine doctors. Planning to follow in their footsteps, he attended the Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. However, he became fascinated studying how herbal medicines worked on the molecular and cellular levels – showing exactly how they interacted with the body.
“Herbal medicine metabolites are some of the most complex structures to study,” he says. “Pharmaceuticals, you know exactly what is in them. But in mixtures of plants with immune regulatory effects, there are so many different compounds and many are unknown.”
He went on to earn a Ph.D. in molecular microbiology and immunology from the Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine at The Ohio State University. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School. After 10 years working and teaching at the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Huang is excited to join Texas Biomed.
“The last few years, I have been more focused on developing basic technology and ways to detect functional responses of small molecules and T cells,” Dr. Huang says. “Texas Biomed has a research environment that supports translational studies and innovation.”
FACULTY
KATHRYN SHELTON WELCOME ATTENDING VETERINARIAN
Wearing many hats comes naturally to Kathryn Shelton, D.V.M., Ph.D., DACLAM. This is a strength she’ll tap into as she joins Texas Biomed and Southwest National Primate Research Center with not one, not two, but three official roles: Associate Director for Veterinary Resources, Institute Attending Veterinarian and Associate Professor.
As Attending Veterinarian, she will oversee the Institute’s animal care program, which encompasses more than 2,600 nonhuman primates and 1,800 rodents. As Associate Director, she will help manage the people who care for the animals – about 150 staff members, including animal caretakers, veterinary technicians and veterinarians.
“As leaders in animal care and welfare, we want to continue to raise the bar on best practices,” says Dr. Shelton. “To do that, we have to take care of our team members and ensure their needs are met, so that they in turn can provide the best care for the animals.”
As Associate Professor, Dr. Shelton will pursue independent research. She is particularly interested in studying how the immune system influences susceptibility to disease and responses to preventative measures like vaccines, and how environmental factors shape these interactions.
“I am especially intrigued by early life events and potential long-term effects on the immune system,” she says.
Prior to joining Texas Biomed, Dr. Shelton spent 10 years at the Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson
Cancer Center. While there, she enjoyed caring for a wide variety of lab animals and collaborating with researchers across many different studies.
Dr. Shelton’s love of animals runs deep. She is a selfdescribed horse person but does not play favorites when it comes to caring for animals. After attending veterinary school at the University of Georgia, she worked as a small animal veterinary clinician for three years. While rewarding, she realized she missed research.
“I really want to be on the cutting edge of knowledge,” she says. “To me, that is the most exciting place to be, when you are trying to answer questions that the answer is fundamentally unknown.”
She pursued a dual degree program in lab animal medicine and a Ph.D. in molecular pathology at Wake Forest University. It was there that she got the taste for juggling multiple research jobs at once.
“I’d be pipetting in the lab, running my experiment, get a page on my pager and have to run across campus to check on a pig,” she recalls. “I remember thinking ‘This is crazy’, but I liked it.”
She passed the lab animal medicine board certification test, becoming a Diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (DACLAM), and has been combining her passion for veterinary care and research ever since. She is excited to bring that passion to a national primate center where she can support even more research and join Texas Biomed as it implements its strategic plan for growth.
“Texas Biomed has a strong vision for the future and is in a time of change,” she says. “I am excited to be a part of that.”
STANTON GRAY WELCOME COLONY ADMINISTRATOR
Throughout his 23-year career, Stanton Gray, D.V.M., Ph.D., DACLAM, has sought to improve animal and human health as a veterinarian, colony manager and researcher. Combining both animal care and independent research is often a challenge. Each role requires high levels of dedication, time and energy, and it is rare to find job structures that provide support and protected time for both.
He has found his sweet spot at Texas Biomed and Southwest National Primate Research Center, where he will dedicate one-third of his time to research and twothirds to managing the center’s three breeding colonies of baboons, rhesus macaques and marmosets.
“This is what I’ve been working towards and hoping for,” says Dr. Gray, who recently began as both Associate Professor and Colony Administrator. “I am thankful I didn’t have to choose one path or the other.”
Dr. Gray’s expertise lies in working with pedigreed nonhuman primate colonies that have been carefully studied over generations. He uses detailed genetic information to investigate how genetic variation influences diseases like obesity and cancer. Teasing apart genetic factors from environmental influences or epigenetics –changes to the genome that occur throughout life – is difficult. But with nonhuman primates, it becomes possible to get answers that benefit both animals and humans.
“Pedigreed nonhuman primate colonies have this unique ability to answer questions about complex genetic diseases,” Dr. Gray says. “They can answer questions about how genetics contribute to disease risk in ways that you can’t easily answer with human studies.”
Dr. Gray studied zoology and population genetics at the University of Oklahoma and veterinary medicine
at Oklahoma State University. After a few years in private practice, he decided to go back into research.
“I had the fire in my belly to do research,” he says. “I really enjoy the creativity to pose questions that have not been answered and work toward a better understanding.”
He completed his Ph.D. in molecular pathology at Wake Forest University. Before joining Texas Biomed, he managed a colony of 1,000 rhesus macaques at the Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He also researched conditions that affect both humans and macaques, including colon cancer.
Specifically, he and collaborators Eduardo VilarSanchez, M.D., Ph.D., at MD Anderson and Jeff Rogers, Ph.D., at Baylor School of Medicine, are developing an anti-cancer vaccine that could help reduce colon cancer risk for people with Lynch syndrome. This genetic disease involves mutations in “mismatch repair genes,” which normally repair mistakes that occur during DNA replication. The mutations result in nonfunctional proteins which inhibit that repair function and are linked with extremely high rates of colon cancer, as well as other forms of cancer.
Colon cancer is also the most common form of cancer in rhesus macaques. Dr. Gray is seeking to understand if mutations in mismatch repair genes in macaques cause colon cancer through the same or similar pathways as people. If so, rhesus macaques would make excellent models for studying the disease and potential interventions for both humans and animals.
The Collaborator
Associate Professor Smita Kulkarni, Ph.D., relishes the diverse opportunities for collaboration at Texas Biomed.
Dr. Kulkarni seeks to understand how pathogens like HIV, SARS-CoV-2, Ebola virus and tuberculosis manipulate sections of the human genome to their advantage. Unlocking those secrets can provide the knowledge needed to develop more effective therapies.
“Texas Biomed is a unique place that can support this type of research – a fundamental interest in regulatory RNAs but in very high containment diseases,” says Dr. Kulkarni, who was promoted to Associate Professor this year. “This work can only be done in a few places.”
Specifically, she teams up with colleagues to untangle how pathogens interact with noncoding RNA – vast sections of the human genome that do not directly code for proteins but regulate the genes that do. The noncoding regions account for 98 percent of the human genome, so there is a lot of ground to cover.
“We are still discovering genes that we did not know existed because noncoding RNA composition is different in every cell type and changes with stress, stimulation or infection,” Dr. Kulkarni says.
She shares her expertise in noncoding RNA and CRISPR gene editing with others who excel at studying bacteria and viruses in high biosafety level labs. This multidisciplinary, team-science approach increases the potential for making impactful discoveries.
“I have been able to diversify my research and work on diseases at Texas Biomed that I would not otherwise,” she says.
Since joining Texas Biomed in 2016, Dr. Kulkarni has also grown as a principal investigator. She credits training programs at Texas Biomed for helping her learn how to run a lab and improve her grant writing skills. She now serves in mentorship roles and especially enjoys working with up-and-coming scientists early in their careers.
“I always learn more from them than I think they learn from me,” she says. “I provide techniques that help them push their research into new areas, but they are the next generation and have the most up-to-date perspectives.”
Texas Biomed is growing with the goal of doubling the size of its faculty by 2030. Explore our unique environment for collaboration.
txbiomed.org/careers
SAN ANTONIO HELPS SECURE
$2.5 BILLION NATIONAL BIOTECH HUB IN TEXAS
In a major win by local biotech industry leaders, the new federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has established one of its primary hubs in Texas. The Customer Experience Hub will draw together partners from across the nation to strengthen the way research is translated into healthcare solutions.
Being headquartered in Texas is a “game-changer for San Antonio,” says Texas Biomed President/CEO Larry Schlesinger, M.D. It opens doors for increased federal research dollars and new collaborations and bolsters the city’s reputation in healthcare and bioscience innovation on the national stage.
“This puts San Antonio in the same league as the coastal biotech hot spots,” Dr. Schlesinger says. “It will bring unprecedented opportunities to the state and region through the way the hub is set up to generate high-impact science with real-world applications.”
The decision to headquarter one of three ARPA-H hubs in Texas came after significant advocacy efforts led by BioMedSA, the organization dedicated to growing the area’s bioscience and healthcare sectors. Texas Biomed was a key partner in helping make the case that the state is ideally positioned to anchor the hub’s activities.
San Antonio has a robust bioscience industry with a history of collaboration. The city boasts the largest military medical presence in the nation, which has helped the science and healthcare industry become the leading local economic generator, with $44 billion in annual impact, according to the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.
We like to call ourselves Military City USA, but we’re also very much the City of Science and Health.
— Heather Hanson, BioMedSA President
“We like to call ourselves Military City USA, but we’re also very much the City of Science and Health,” says Heather Hanson, President of BioMedSA.
ARPA-H is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and National Institutes of Health with an independent $2.5 billion budget and unique operating structure to disperse funds quickly.
CONTINUED, page 13
Texas Biomed’s Applied Science and Innovation team transforms research into reality. With our global partners, we bring science to life.
txbiomed.org/applied-science-and-innovation
The overarching goal is to invest in high-risk, high-reward technologies and treatments and bring them to market faster than traditional research and commercial processes achieve on their own. ARPA-H is organized into hubs that connect with other partners as supporting “spokes.” The central hub is in Washington, D.C., a second hub is in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Customer Experience Hub is at Pegasus Park in Dallas, with San Antonio, Austin and Houston as essential participating spokes.
The Texas hub will drive a human-centered approach to developing and testing new medicines, technologies or programs by involving real people early in the process and ensuring clinical trials reach more diverse and representative groups of patients. By doing so, the program aims to establish trust with communities, improve access to healthcare solutions and ultimately, increase adoption rates of new innovations.
BioMedSA pitched a lengthy proposal to bring the hub to Texas that many local organizations helped craft, including Texas Biomed, UT Health San Antonio, BioBridge Global, Southwest Research Institute, University of Texas at San Antonio, the military and others.
“San Antonio had the most speakers at the in-person proposal pitch event, so the Customer Experience Hub was definitely something that local industry leaders were very excited about and engaged in,” Hanson says. “That’s because San Antonio has the research foundation and the population that is critical to ARPA-H accomplishing its mission.”
Greater Boston area
Washington, D.C.
ARPA-H Biotech Hubs
Three centers form the nationwide network set up to strengthen how research translates to healthcare solutions.
San Antonio has one of the largest Hispanic populations in the U.S., which faces unique health challenges. Systems and opportunities already exist to study the health equity and disparity issues that affect the 1 million Hispanics who live here. Significant research and work have been done in the region to address some issues, providing a solid blueprint for ARPA-H grant applicants to follow.
“Whoever is awarded a grant through the program has to keep the customer in mind throughout the process,” Hanson says, “from solicitation announcement all the way through funded project and the outcomes of that.”
Organizations, entrepreneurs and individual researchers from across the nation and even internationally can submit proposals to ARPA-H programs for consideration, typically around key focus areas that ARPA-H identifies. Several proposals from the San Antonio region, including from Texas Biomed, have been submitted. Hanson hinted at the potential for groundbreaking initiatives that could further elevate the city’s healthcare and bioscience ecosystem.
“I will say that several of the proposals are very collaborative,” Hanson says. “Organizations in San Antonio are coming together to propose big things and coordinating with organizations in other regions across the country. Any time that happens it is raising visibility of the overall healthcare and bioscience ecosystem here, so it’s always a really good thing.”
San Antonio/Austin Houston Dallas
BIRD FLU A race against evolution
Professor Luis
and Staff Scientist Ahmed
review test results for the presence of bird flu while wearing protective equipment required for biosafety level-3 laboratories.
Martinez-Sobrido, Ph.D., (left)
Mostafa Elsayed, Ph.D., (right)
Texas Biomed researchers are working on vaccines, antivirals and other therapies to protect people from highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses.
Ahmed Mostafa Elsayed, Ph.D., was in the lab when the news broke: highly pathogenic avian influenza was infecting dairy cows and a farmworker in Texas.
The headlines on April 1 caught his attention for two reasons: one, bird flu had never been detected in cows before; and two, he had just begun studying that strain of bird flu, H5N1, in a biosafety level-3 (BSL-3) lab at Texas Biomed.
“We had been working for a year to get all the approvals and licenses and had started our studies literally the week before,” recalls Dr. Elsayed, who is a Staff Scientist in the lab of Professor Luis Martinez-Sobrido, Ph.D.
That groundwork meant Texas Biomed was uniquely positioned to immediately respond to the unfolding outbreak, which caused initial concern about potential threats to human health, the nation’s milk supply and U.S. farm and cattle industries.
Dr. Martinez-Sobrido, an expert in influenza and other emerging viruses, quickly convened his team to discuss how the news would shift their H5N1 research plan. The scope of work –developing genetic-based tools and animal models and using those to evaluate the effectiveness of existing antivirals, antibodies and vaccines – remained the same. All they needed to do was add in the specific H5N1 strain from Texas and prioritize which questions to study first.
“We are thinking about what are the most important things that we need to do right now,” says Dr. Martinez-Sobrido. “Although there is not a concern of a pandemic yet, it is important to be prepared.”
THE CLOCK IS TICKING
That’s the good news: currently, H5N1 is not transmitted easily between people so the overall public health threat is low. However, since this H5N1 variant first emerged in Europe in 2020, it has spread rapidly through wild birds around the world and killed millions of chickens, which is why it is classified as “highly pathogenic avian influenza.” It was first detected in North America in late 2021, leading to multiple poultry outbreaks in 2022. Meanwhile, it has also spread to a wide variety of mammals – foxes, raccoons, skunks, opossums, mink, coyotes, mountain lions, black bears, grizzly bears, polar bears, seals, sea lions, cats, dogs – the list goes on. And now, for the first time ever recorded, cows.
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) variants are so named because they are very deadly in chickens.
“This is strange,” says Dr. Elsayed, who has studied avian influenza viruses for 16 years. “This virus can infect such a wide variety of hosts and it seems like every few weeks, it is showing up in a new species. That is why Dr. Martinez-Sobrido and I started talking in early 2023 that it would be important to study.”
Wild waterfowl and migratory birds are natural reservoirs for avian influenza viruses. Most do not typically get sick and the viruses evolve slowly in those birds. But when bird flu transmits to a new species, evolution speeds up. The viruses are working to adapt to their new hosts. Each time is a possible step closer to transforming into an upper respiratory infection that can be easily passed from person to person.
Since 1996, H5N1 has caused fewer than 900 human infections worldwide. Symptoms can range from mild to severe. The fatality rate has been high: more than
E BIRD FLU ORIGINS
Wild aquatic birds and waterfowl are natural reservoirs of avian influenza viruses, including gulls, ducks, terns, geese, swans and shorebirds.
• Detected in +100 wild bird species
• Typically, asymptomatic infection
50 percent. As of publication, a few people in the U.S. have shown mild signs of infection and recovered, following interactions with infected farm animals.
Avian influenza viruses are part of the same family of influenza A viruses that cause seasonal flu. However, influenza A viruses have a large number of different subtypes that the human immune system has never encountered. That is why avian flu has the potential to rapidly spread among people with no built-up defenses and potentially cause a pandemic.
“With a mortality rate of 50 percent – we would be talking about a different level of pandemic,” Dr. Elsayed says. “Right now, we are in low risk of pandemic, but to move to higher risk could happen in a matter of two or three weeks. We must be prepared.”
GETTING AHEAD OF THE VIRUS
To be able to study highly pathogenic avian influenza requires specialized, high-containment BSL-3 laboratories, as well as clearance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as part of the Federal Select Agent Program.
Texas Biomed applied to work on highly pathogenic avian influenza strains in 2023, receiving approval in the fall. Dr. Elsayed, working with Anthony Wang, Ph.D., Director of Texas Biomed’s Environmental Health and Safety, spent the better part of a year developing the required protocols, getting them approved and setting up the lab. After final review by regulators, he was ready to commence studies in March – a few weeks before the headlines hit.
The foresight and hard work positioned Texas Biomed as part of an elite group of labs with clearance to study H5N1 and other highly pathogenic variants.
“We can’t just start any time we want,” stresses Dr. Martinez-Sobrido. “We had to have the select agent BSL-3 laboratory set up, reviewed and approved. Now, we are on the front lines with our facilities to work on highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses.”
COORDINATED RESPONSE
Since H5N1 appeared in dairy cattle – and has been detected in herds throughout the U.S. – Dr. MartinezSobrido and Dr. Elsayed have been on weekly calls at 7 a.m. with federal agencies and other scientists to discuss what different teams are working on and the latest updates. The calls are coordinated by the Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (CEIRR). Launched in 2021 by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, CEIRR is an international, multidisciplinary network of researchers studying key aspects of influenza and other pathogens with potential to cause pandemics.
“H5N1 is a clear example of how the network is helping share information quickly in response to an
Late March: First-ever report of H5N1 occurring in cows.
evolving situation and coordinate research efforts,” says Dr. Martinez-Sobrido.
He and his team did what they do best – getting to work on tools needed to study the virus and potential preventions and treatments. At the top of the list is evaluating existing antiviral medications to see if they work against this H5N1 variant.
“Antivirals are the first line of defense that we’re going to have if this virus starts circulating in humans and we have not been vaccinated,” Dr. MartinezSobrido says.
After suiting up in full-body suits, head covers, boots, gloves and turning on their air-purifying respirators, Dr. Elsayed and Dr. Martinez-Sobrido are ready to enter the BSL-3 lab.
Antivirals are the first line of defense that we’re going to have if this virus starts circulating in humans and we have not been vaccinated.
— Dr. Luis Martinez-Sobrido
The team will also study, in collaboration with James Kobie, Ph.D., at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, if antibodies developed in their lab and existing vaccine candidates work against the virus. There is no approved bird flu vaccine, but the CDC has stockpiles of precursor materials – called candidate vaccine viruses (CVVs) – that could be manufactured into vaccines if the need arises. It appears two of those would provide protection against the current H5N1 variant if it were to begin spreading person-to-person.
“It would take time, unfortunately, to produce the vaccine and to have everybody vaccinated,” Dr. Martinez-Sobrido says. “Antivirals and antibodies could help treat people who become sick until vaccines are available.”
VIRUS EXPERTS
Dr. Martinez-Sobrido’s group is especially skilled at generating viruses in the lab using advanced techniques called reverse genetics. They use the synthesized viruses
Candidate vaccine viruses (CVVs) are versions of influenza viruses that manufacturers then use to produce flu vaccines. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its partners routinely develop CVVs for seasonal flu shots, as well as for a variety of bird and swine flus that have pandemic potential. Texas Biomed is working with the CDC to generate CVVs, including for H5N1 bird flu. Generating CVVs is a complex process that must follow strict protocols since the material can ultimately end up as part of vaccines given to people. The process is even more challenging for highly pathogenic avian influenzas like H5N1. Researchers must synthesize versions of the virus that are far milder than the original, to the point they no longer cause severe illness or death in chickens, while stimulating an effective immune response in people. CVVs are thoroughly tested to ensure they are safe and effective against the targeted strains. The CDC distributes CVVs to vaccine manufacturers for additional testing and possible vaccine production to prepare for potential outbreaks or pandemics.
E MAKINGS OF A FLU SHOT
to test if treatments are effective and to ask key questions about how the virus works.
“There is a lot we do not know about this virus,” says Dr. Elsayed. “What makes it different from other avian influenza strains? How is it able to infect so many species? How does it spread?”
The team makes versions of the virus that glow, or fluoresce, so they can visually see if the virus is present or not in a sample. This saves a lot of time and resources when testing antivirals and antibodies –rather than having to run genetic-based tests to check if the virus is present in a sample, they can simply look to see if there are any glowing specs of virus.
They first study H5N1 in cells in Petri dishes. They are also developing protocols to study the virus in animal models.
All of this is done in the safety of the select agent BSL-3. There are strict regulations on air flow, the handling of materials, disinfection procedures and who can access the lab. To enter, researchers must be fully suited up in a white Tyvek suit, head covers, shoe covers and two sets of gloves. They also wear a battery-powered air-purifying respirator that completely covers the head and face and filters particles out of the air. BSL-3 is the level of lab required to study pathogens that can spread through air, but that do not require the highest-level lab, BSL-4, because there are some treatments available. Pathogens commonly studied in BSL-3 labs include HIV, SARS-CoV-2 and the bacteria that causes tuberculosis.
WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
Thankfully, initial indications show existing candidate vaccines and antivirals will work against this H5N1. But influenza viruses are notorious for continuing to evolve – that’s why seasonal flu vaccines must be updated every year. Likewise, it is vital to develop an array of effective therapies and vaccines that can be readily adapted as bird flu shifts and changes.
“Our ultimate goal is a universal vaccine that can protect against many different influenza strains by targeting just the right section of the virus that cannot mutate,” Dr. Martinez-Sobrido says.
Researchers at Texas Biomed have developed glowing reporter H5N1 viruses to make it easy to visually spot the virus. Here, the green glowing spots indicate the virus is present. The researchers can use the reporter viruses when testing antivirals, antibodies or other treatments. If treatments are very effective, there should be no green specs left in the dish.
Without the legwork to get the facilities set up and the approvals and the clearance, Texas Biomed would not be in the position to contribute to these solutions. This requires sustained investment, which is always the challenge, notes Dr. Martinez-Sobrido. Often researchers are not funded to work on viruses with pandemic potential until there is an outbreak. That approach costs lives.
He pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers knew a coronavirus could cause a pandemic, but funding to fully develop therapies and vaccines did not begin to flow freely until there was a public health emergency. While the vaccine rollout was the fastest in human history, it was still not fast enough. More than 3 million people had died before the first shots were given and the death toll has since eclipsed 7 million.
Bird flu is a reminder that we can’t get complacent. It’s also a chance – a window of opportunity – to do it differently and actually be prepared.
E MANY MAMMALS
H5N1 has spilled over sporadically into a wide range of species, including foxes, raccoons, skunks, mink, bears, mountain lions, seals, sea lions, otters, cats and dogs.
PATHOGENS IN MUSEUM VAULTS PROSPECTING FOR
Postdoctoral researcher Egie Enabulele, Ph.D., works with tiny samples of mammal tissue from museums in the lab at Texas Biomed. FOCUS
Texas Biomed researchers suspect natural history collections have something to tell us about the next pandemic.
Bats, rodents, birds, deer and other preserved museum specimens could hold clues about the next pandemic-causing pathogen. Rather than waiting for the next pandemic to take the world by surprise, researchers at Texas Biomed are developing genetic-based tools to investigate collections and see what might be lurking.
“Forever, we’ve been talking about how museums are a good repository for pathogen information, but the challenge has been how to go about getting that in a reasonable way,” says Roy “Neal” Platt II, Ph.D., a Staff Scientist in the lab of Professor Tim Anderson, Ph.D.
Museum specimens have been collected for hundreds of years and are catalogued with locations and dates. Small animals are often dried, but can also be frozen or chemically preserved whole, with tiny tissue samples extracted and frozen separately. This vast archive of biodiversity can tell scientists about the animals as well as the bacteria, viruses and parasites they carried. While
If you really want to study zoonotic pathogens, museums are a very good place to start.
— Dr. Egie Enabulele
not all pose a threat to people, more than 60 percent of pathogens that infect people are zoonotic – they start in animals and jump.
“If you really want to study zoonotic pathogens, museums are a very good place to start,” says Egie Enabulele, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Anderson’s lab.
Drawers of bat specimens in the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology collection. Photo by Dale Austin, University of Michigan.
Sequencing the DNA of museum specimens reveals which animals are natural hosts or carriers of which pathogens and may help scientists discover new species of infectious organisms. The “where and when” the specimens were collected matters, too. Scientists can combine all these data points to gain a better picture of how widespread pathogens are, where they have been circulating and how that has changed over time, especially related to climate and habitat changes.
Specific changes can provide insight about how pathogens evolve and the potential for spread in people. With specimens collected more recently, within the last 30 years or so, findings can be extrapolated to current wildlife populations and inform wildlife management and public health strategies.
However, looking through museums for any and all potential pathogen threats poses an almost insurmountable challenge, requiring a monumental amount of time, money and tissue samples. Advancements in genetic sequencing in recent years are bringing costs down, and now, Dr. Platt and Dr. Enabulele have developed a clever solution to address the other challenges: a genetic tool designed to extract a wide range of pathogen DNA from a tiny tissue sample.
Instead of looking for one specific bug at a time –think of an at-home COVID-19 test which is designed to detect only SARS-CoV-2 – they designed a test that could detect broad groups of bacteria, fungi and parasites at the same time.
Dr. Enabulele and Dr. Platt talk with their principal investigator, Professor Tim Anderson, Ph.D., (center) who notes that this project looking at zoonotic pathogens that may be all around us was conceived before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“This was our attempt to try to go about getting that information in a relatively cheap, efficient way,” says Dr. Platt.
HOW IT WORKS
Dr. Platt identified short snippets of DNA sequences shared amongst major groups of mammalian parasites, including bacteria, fungi, helminths (parasitic worms) and protozoans (single-celled parasites, such as malaria). Based on those sequences, he designed DNA-based probes for each of those pathogen groups and then combined them into one “assay,” or test. When one of the 80,000 probes matches a similar sequence in a sample, it binds to it. Those matches are extracted from the rest of the sample and then genetically sequenced.
A key issue they had to address: how do you detect additional pathogens you don’t even know exist?
The probes are designed with flexibility in mind, binding to DNA sequences that are up to 12 percent “off-target” or different, which could be variations of pathogens not discovered before.
This entire process would be very difficult to do with traditional PCR genetic sequencing, which works best with identifying DNA or RNA sequences that are an exact match.
“You’d have to have 1,600 PCR reactions to do what we’re able to do in a single tube,” Dr. Platt says.
A SPEC OF TISSUE
Dr. Platt and Dr. Enabulele worked with collaborators at several museums, including those at Texas Tech University, the University of Michigan, Chicago State University and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, to gather a wide range of mammal tissue to analyze for pathogen DNA and demonstrate the versatility of the test.
The amount of tissue that museums send for this type of work is tiny – literally, the size of a grain of rice, a pen tip or a broken piece of mechanical pencil lead. And yet, that is all Dr. Enabulele needs to begin processing samples in the lab, making this approach relatively noninvasive to extract valuable information from preserved specimens. A key concern with museum
Staff Scientist Roy “Neal” Platt II, Ph.D., leads the bioinformatics side of the project, developing genetics-based tools to find pathogen DNA in museum samples and analyzing the data.
samples is how well DNA is preserved. The probes in this test are very short genetic sequences, so even if DNA has degraded into small fragments, the test still works.
“No matter how old the samples are, we can still fish something out,” says Dr. Enabulele.
When they ran their tests, the team made a few unexpected discoveries around a bacteria called Bartonella, which can cause rare diseases, including cat-scratch disease. It is transmitted from pets to people via lice, causing rash, swollen lymph nodes and fever, but usually resolves on its own.
The researchers found the bacteria was widespread, showing up in 36 of 38 specimens tested, including rodents, bats, porcupines, armadillos and deer. They detected several Bartonella species that were not included in the assay, but are known to science, thanks to the flexibility of the test. They also detected a Bartonella species in a museum sample collected in 2009, which was surprising because that species was “discovered” in 2018.
“What we’ll be calling new to science today is already in the museum hiding somewhere,”
Dr. Enabulele says.
BEFORE THE PANDEMIC
Dr. Platt and Dr. Enabulele have been working on the project since 2019. It originally began with an interest to search for parasitic worms called schistosomes in museum samples. But Dr. Anderson asked them: “Why stop there? Why not find out what else those animals were infected with?” They broadened their scope and won a Texas Biomedical Forum pilot grant
at the end of 2019 to begin the work, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“The pandemic underscores just how critical this type of work is,” Dr. Anderson says. “It is important to know what pathogens are all around us to determine which could be the next big thing.”
Rather than a mad dash to figure out where a disease comes from every time a new one emerges, it would be helpful to have an established baseline of what’s out there and which animals are natural hosts. This information could empower public health officials – working with collaborators across disciplines like wildlife biology, environmental science and biomedical research in a “One Health” approach – to stay ahead of potential problems before they spread.
“COVID really showed us that this reactionary approach doesn’t work well,” says Cody Thompson, Ph.D., Mammal Collections Manager and Associate Research Scientist at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, who collaborated on the project. “We need to be better at forecasting and understanding how things are changing in the environment around us. Museums, as the global archive of flora and fauna, can help provide a deep history of how pathogens have moved around the planet.”
The team published their research about the pathogen DNA test in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. In the future, the researchers would like to work with collaborators to make the test even more efficient and sensitive.
“It is easy to imagine this being scaled up and then once you have the data, the sky’s the limit,”
Dr. Platt says.
MEET SANDY SMITH
HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING CENTER SITE ENGINEER
andy Smith doesn’t “sit and do nothing” well.
“I guess I’m the type of person that if my plumbing breaks, I’ll fix it. How do I fix it? Let me go on YouTube. It’s not that I’m cheap, I just like challenges,” Smith says.
She’ll build a shed or install an automatic gate – even if it means jackhammering rock or cutting concrete to do it. She’ll learn to paint or learn to fish. She’ll play with her dogs and travel the world with her friends and family. She might be convinced to sit on the beach, but only to watch her 34-year-old son play volleyball.
It’s that “can’t stop, won’t stop” attitude that she brings to Texas Biomed and overseeing the most powerful computers on campus – the High-Performance Computing Center (HPCC) – which is the physical backbone enabling the most advanced data analyses at the Institute to occur in record time.
“It’s fun having the fastest computers on campus,” she says. “There is never a dull moment.”
The HPCC has undergone a major upgrade in the past few years. Twelve state-of-the-art servers replace and outperform the old system, which consisted of 303 servers that were state-of-the-art in their day… 10 years ago. Each of the new servers has massive power (192 processors) and memory (1 terabyte) that, when all linked together, perform large, complex data analyses incredibly fast. The servers are accompanied by a huge 1.5 petabyte data storage system – that is big enough to store all the movies and shows on Netflix 10 times over – plus a separate backup system to ensure nothing gets lost.
“It is all about supporting the scientists and ensuring they have the resources they need,” Smith says. “You
can’t win the Indy 500 without a fast car. We have the Lamborghini of servers now.”
There are about 30 scientists on campus who require this level of computing power to do their work, and another 60 of their collaborators around the world who are granted special, secure permission to use the HPCC.
“Sandy has been extremely dedicated in helping us preserve the confidentiality and security surrounding the Strong Heart Study data, which is the longest running study of heart disease in American Indians,” says Professor Shelley Cole, Ph.D. “She helps us maintain a separate, secure server for the data, which allows us to meet strict security requirements from the National Institutes of Health and our partners, while also providing a resource for approved collaborators to access and use the data.”
The HPCC servers are housed in tall, black racks in a special room in the IT building, complete with dedicated air conditioning, ventilated floors, backup power and non-water-based fire suppression systems. Backup power is very important. Jobs running on the servers often include analyzing large genetic datasets that can take anywhere from a few minutes to 30 days to complete. Any power outage or reboot could cause scientists to lose weeks’ worth of work.
“Now with the new generator and backup power system, there is no interruption, not even the slightest blip,” Smith says.
Smith oversees the physical servers and ensures the software on them is running correctly, as well as helps users with any issues. She regularly analyzes how the HPCC will need to expand to keep up with technology and competitors. Part of her work involves installing new
data analysis programs onto the servers for scientists. Often, they are open source, which means the software’s code is shared freely and can be modified.
“The challenge is working with open-source programs to make sure they fit into our system and do not break anything else,” Smith says. “With open source, there is no customer service line to call and ask: ‘Hey can you help me with this?’ You’re learning as you go, every day.”
Smith grew up in Lackawanna, New York, a small city on Lake Erie. She enlisted in the Air Force right out of high school, scoring well on the aptitude exams and landing in the intelligence career field. As a Defense Command Communications Countermeasures Specialist, she monitored airwaves for security violations, listening to two conversations at a time, one in each ear, for personnel divulging classified information.
“I can still do that very easily talking to you and listen to the people next to me,” she says.
Later, she was assigned to the Air Force Computer Emergency Response Team, looking for computer vulnerabilities. Another interesting task was when everyone went home for the night, the team would go through offices trying to gain access to computers as if they were the bad guys. A common violation: finding passwords written down under keyboards.
You can’t win the Indy 500 without a fast car. We have the Lamborghini of servers now.
— Sandy Smith, HPCC Site Engineer
“I met a lot of great people,” Smith says. “There were only 192 people doing what I did in the world, so we all know one another. They are like my family.”
After serving for 10 years, Smith was medically discharged. She became a system administrator at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) – Texas Biomed’s nearby sister institute. She enjoyed working with scientists to develop computer systems for selfdriving cars and implement computer-based video systems in ambulances to connect physicians with emergency medical technicians.
She joined Texas Biomed in 2010 as a Unix administrator for the genetics department. Unix is an operating system that forgoes the pretty windows and folders that most of us are used to – instead Smith interfaces with a black screen and single command lines to do her work. Now, she is proud to support scientists all across Texas Biomed and their collaborators, including those analyzing preclinical test data about the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine when it was under development.
“If we didn’t have the servers, that testing would have never been done as quick as it was,” she says. “We are frontline.”
NEW EDUCATION PROGRAMS EXPAND OPPORTUNITIES FOR
HANDS-ON LEARNING
Texas Biomed is expanding its education programs to train and inspire the next generation of scientists in partnership with Valero, H-E-B and the American Cancer Society. The distinct programs provide unique opportunities for students at key stages of educational development, from high school to post graduate.
The Valero Young Scientists Program at Texas Biomed, is a four-week, immersive experience for high school students in the San Antonio area.
Each summer, 40 local students will explore different career pathways as they interact with researchers, graduate students and teachers at Texas Biomed. They will conduct experiments in a specially designated learning lab, developing foundational skills such as interpreting scientific data. They will also work on presentation, communication and networking skills.
“Valero is helping make lasting change in San Antonio by investing in students, teachers and parents,” says Rosemary Riggs, Ph.D., Texas Biomed’s Director of Education Outreach Programs. “We are thrilled to launch this program and set students up for success as they explore the many diverse careers available in the biosciences.”
Parents and guardians will be involved through virtual sessions about available STEM careers and university programs. They will also be invited to participate in a final showcase where students present their summer projects.
Texas Biomed has a very active K-12 education outreach program and teacher training program, and students are regular visitors to the campus. However, this is the first time the Institute has been able to offer hands-on training for rising juniors and seniors. The education team is excited to involve students who do not normally have access to such opportunities.
H-E-B INVESTS BIG
H-E-B is also investing in Texas Biomed’s current and future education programs and facilities. The Texas-based grocery company provided $2 million to support Texas Biomed’s college-level internship program and the future Center for Science Education, which is part of the planned Global Center for Bioscience.
Texas Biomed offers paid summer internships for students currently in college in three areas: infectious disease research, veterinary care and scientific administration. The H-E-B gift will specifically allow more research faculty to offer internships in their labs.
“Texas Biomed is doing critical work to protect us from infectious diseases and to educate the next generation of scientists, right here in our own community,” says Craig Boyan, President of H-E-B and Chair of the Texas Biomed Board of Trustees.
“H-E-B is pleased to support student experiences at Texas Biomed and help make the Center for Science Education a reality.”
The Center for Science Education is planned as part of the future Global Center for Bioscience,
Texas Biomed is doing critical work to protect us from infectious diseases and to educate the next generation of scientists, right here in our own community.
— Craig Boyan, H-E-B President & Texas Biomed Board of Trustees Chair
which will be the new “front door” of Texas Biomed. The new complex will reflect the Institute’s spirit of collaboration and innovation, with classrooms and laboratories dedicated for training and workshops. It will enable scientists to connect with students and teachers, as well as area residents and organizations around issues of global health, disease prevention and the importance of research – especially as it relates to underserved and disproportionately affected populations.
CONTINUED, page 29
The future Global Center for Bioscience will include a Center for Science Education to provide dedicated lab and classroom space for trainings and workshops. Rendering by Flad Architects.
DIVERSITY IN CANCER RESEARCH
Also launching this year is a new training fellowship for recent college graduates sponsored by the American Cancer Society.
The American Cancer Society Post Baccalaureate Fellows Program at Texas Biomed is a two-year program for recent graduates interested in cancer and infectious disease research. The fellows are individuals typically underrepresented in the scientific workforce – first-generation college graduates, those from economically-disadvantaged backgrounds and/or other groups underrepresented in the cancer research field, such as Black, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander.
The American Cancer Society started the fellowship program to help increase diversity in the scientific workforce, capitalizing on longstanding research showing the benefits of having scientists from diverse backgrounds and life experiences, including improving the quality of research, building public trust and enhancing global competitiveness.
“Diverse perspectives in research are needed to help overcome inequities in cancer prevention, treatment and care,” says Ellie Daniels, M.D., M.P.H., Senior Vice President for the American Cancer Society Center for Diversity in Cancer Research Training.
“We are pleased to bring this fellowship program to Texas Biomed and work to fill a critical gap in the workforce development pipeline.”
Fellows must have recently earned a science, technology, engineering, math or healthcare-related degree and be interested in pursuing a doctoral degree in biomedical science, data science, population health, public health or a health profession.
“Fellows will be fully immersed in the research environment at Texas Biomed, where they will work on cancer research projects, build their skills and develop as scientists before applying to graduate programs,” says Crystal Bolden-Rush, Ph.D., the Institute’s Director of Research Education.
Texas Biomed joins a small group of institutes offering the fellowship and provides the unique chance to train at the intersection of cancer and infectious diseases. More and more evidence demonstrates that infections can lead to cancer, while cancer treatments suppress the immune system and increase susceptibility to infection. The links between cancer and infectious diseases is understudied and ripe for innovative research.
“Our education team is strategically building out training opportunities at all stages of the research education pipeline, from high school, to college, to post-graduate,” says Texas Biomed President/CEO Larry Schlesinger, M.D. “The Institute is passionate about training the next generation and building the bioscience workforce in San Antonio.”
Rosemary
Ph.D. Director, Education Outreach Programs
Riggs,
Crystal Bolden-Rush, Ph.D. Director, Research Education
Beatriz “Bea” Guajardo, M.Ed. Education Outreach Specialist
Hannah Shuffett Education Outreach Specialist
TEXAS BIOMED EDUCATION TEAM
REALIZED BOLD VISION
After a historic three terms, Board of Trustees Chair Jamo Rubin passes the leadership baton.
After weeks of discussions and negotiations, Jamo Rubin, M.D., was face-to-face with Larry Schlesinger, M.D. It was late 2016 and Dr. Rubin and wife Stacey had flown to Columbus to try to convince Dr. Schlesinger, then at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and his wife Judy to move to San Antonio.
It had been a long year for Dr. Rubin. He’d become Chairman of the Texas Biomed Board of Trustees amid a
leadership change that spring. His first order of business – even before the national search that ultimately landed Dr. Schlesinger as President & CEO – was to set up a makeshift office in a campus conference room and begin taking stock of where the Institute was and where it should be heading. He was committed to plotting a course for success. For nearly a year, he analyzed finances and facilities and consulted with board members, Institute leaders and team members.
Dr. Rubin, an anesthesiologist-turned-entrepreneur, repeatedly found himself dogged by a key question throughout those months: Why weren’t more global companies, stakeholders and philanthropists clamoring to work with Texas Biomed? No place like it exists in the realm of U.S. biomedical research, with its combination of high containment labs, a national primate center and an independent, nonprofit structure.
“I just couldn’t understand it – it blew my mind,” Dr. Rubin says. “With the right resources, I knew we could run circles around everybody. So a vision began to form. The one thing missing was the right partner at the top.”
Jamo Rubin, M.D., has led the Texas Biomed Board of Trustees through a historic time, believing strongly in the Institute’s potential as a world leader in biomedical research.
Dr. Schlesinger was not an obvious choice, Dr. Rubin acknowledges.
“Larry didn’t have the profile on paper – he’d never been in business and I knew we needed to begin operating more like one,” he says. “He was an academic running a big research institute in a gigantic, bureaucratic facility.”
But that night in Ohio over dinner, Dr. Schlesinger, a physician-scientist and prolific scholar specializing in tuberculosis and lung biology, talked about what Texas Biomed could and should be. The Institute would need to prioritize its strengths in infectious disease research. It must establish an applied science unit to develop and move solutions from the lab bench to patients’ bedsides. After all, Dr. Schlesinger told Dr. Rubin, it’s a matter of when – not if – the next pandemic will strike. A place like Texas Biomed should be a global leader for infectious disease preparedness and response.
Dr. Schlesinger agreed to the job with a key stipulation: that Dr. Rubin serve another term as Chair so they could partner with the Board and Institute on a bold new course for Texas Biomed.
Dr. Rubin would eventually end up extending into a third term and serve a full eight years as Chair. He led the Board through the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis and has also seen a key part of his vision realized: international companies such as Pfizer, Regeneron,
Craig Boyan, Dr. Rubin and Dr. Schlesinger following the official passing of the gavel at the Spring Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees.
Gilead and Moderna partnering with Texas Biomed on lifesaving therapies and vaccines.
This summer, Dr. Rubin steps down and becomes Vice Chair as Craig Boyan, President of grocery giant H-E-B, the state’s largest private employer, assumes the Chair position.
“I have so much respect for Jamo’s unwavering commitment to Texas Biomed, which made him stay on knowing we had so much more to accomplish,” Dr. Schlesinger says. “He didn’t want to allow any of the momentum to stall. This is what he does – he uses his skills to help move organizations to the next level.”
With Boyan’s professional track record of overseeing explosive statewide and international business growth and Dr. Rubin’s medical background and entrepreneurial mindset, the Board is in great hands, Dr. Schlesinger says.
Boyan joked that he’s ready to “carry Jamo’s bags” and continue leading the Board through its next growth phase.
This is what he does – he uses his skills to help move
organizations to the next level.
—
Dr. Larry Schlesinger
“I am honored to be Jamo’s successor and I’m proud of what he has accomplished,” he says. “He has helped strengthen Texas Biomed by bringing in great talent and empowering the Board in new and innovative ways. I will do my best to carry on his legacy.”
The Institute is about midway through the Strategic Plan that the Board approved in 2018 and launched the following year. Under the plan, by 2030 Texas Biomed will have – among other things – doubled the number
of faculty and strategically redesigned the campus for modern, multidisciplinary science and innovation.
In just the last seven years, the Institute has already seen recruitment of 20 faculty; significant expansion of its scientific pursuits; tripling of its annual revenues; the diversification of its funding portfolio; the construction of key capital projects, buildings and infrastructure; and the growth of a new Applied Science and Innovation unit that’s expanding contract research and commercialization.
The plan incorporates much of the early conversations between Dr. Rubin and Dr. Schlesinger about the Institute prioritizing infectious disease work while building a more nimble, entrepreneurial culture.
Looking back, the timing of Texas Biomed’s repositioning and the creation of the Strategic Plan right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit proved to be remarkable foresight and underscored the Institute’s potential for global impact, Dr. Rubin says.
THE IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP
Richard T. “Dick” Schlosberg III (19442024) joined the Texas Biomed Board of Trustees in 2010 and served as Chair from 2013 to 2016. Well known for his generosity and common-sense approach to getting things done, his steadfast leadership helped set Texas Biomed on its current course of success. Texas Biomed leaders and board members gathered with family to honor his legacy with a memorial on campus.
He says he will never forget the intense mobilization that began in March 2020. As Texas Biomed scientists and labs began working around the clock, the Board quickly put out an appeal to help underwrite early vaccine development work. In just over one week, $5 million was raised from trustees, longtime Institute supporters and other area foundations and donors.
Less than a year later, as lockdowns persisted and schools remained virtual, Dr. Rubin took part as a volunteer physician at a massive vaccine clinic at the downtown Alamodome.
“I’ll never be able to explain the surreal sense of pride I experienced,” he says. “There I was, sitting underneath a handwritten ‘Pfizer’ sign, giving the vaccine that Texas Biomed literally helped bring to market. Then fast-forward to today and we are known as one of the most nimble infectious disease research organizations in the world. So that vision I saw before Larry came? Here it is. It happened. This is exactly what we said we were wanting to build.”
Members of Dick Schlosberg’s family with the memorial: brother Robert Schlosberg, daughter-in-law Kelly Schlosberg, son Richard Schlosberg, wife Kathy Schlosberg, daughter Deborah Herczeg and son-in-law Joe Herczeg.
ANIMAL CARE COMPLEX CELEBRATING THE NEW
First buildings of comprehensive campaign complete with more on the way
The first major capital construction project envisioned under Texas Biomed’s 10-year Strategic Plan to modernize the campus and increase biomedical research capacity is complete, and plans are underway for further expansion this year.
The Animal Care Complex (ACC) at Texas Biomed’s Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) encompasses new state-of-the-art housing and health facilities for nonhuman primates. Two finished buildings provide nearly 50,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor housing space, and represent the first of several planned phases designed to support science through compassionate and ethical care of animals necessary in research.
The complex strategically positions Texas Biomed during an ongoing national primate shortage that was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s when China shut its doors to all exports of research animals, severely impacting the U.S. supply chain and hindering the preclinical process of testing treatments and vaccines before human clinical trials.
“The ACC is playing a critical role in strengthening the nation’s ability to respond to future pandemics by allowing us to grow our colonies,” says SNPRC Director Corinna Ross, Ph.D. Once the initial phases
are fully built out, the ACC will provide space for more than 800 primates, increasing SNPRC’s total population to about 3,500. The site provides options for further expansion in the future.
Nonhuman primates are the gold standard models for studying human health and disease and evaluating the safety and efficacy of new therapies and vaccines. As one of the seven federally-designated National Primate Research Centers, SNPRC is on the front lines of conducting research that benefits both humans and animals.
“The ACC advances our mission to support lifesaving research and provide the absolute best animal care,” Dr. Ross says. “The new facilities incorporate decades of experience and research in our fields, and it has been gratifying to observe animals explore the space and the many features specifically designed for them.”
Over the past several years, the Texas Biomed facilities team and SNPRC care and behavior staff worked closely with design, engineering and construction partners Flad Architects, AEI Engineering, SpawGlass and Pape-Dawson to turn the ACC vision into reality.
“Our animal care staff are extremely dedicated and passionate,” says Matt Majors, Vice President,
CONTINUED, page 35
Photo courtesy of SpawGlass
PRIDE & PROGRESS RIBBON CUTTING
Aribbon cutting ceremony was held in December 2023 to celebrate the completion of the two ACC buildings and thank supporters, including the National Institutes of Health and the Economic Development Agency, which provided a $4 million grant to kick-start the project. Generous funding for infrastructure supporting the project and other campus updates came from federal American Rescue Plan Act funds designated by the San Antonio City Council and Bexar County Commissioners Court.
Supporters and honorees helped celebrate as the ribbon was cut along with Texas Biomed leaders and board members.
Top photo from left to right: Dr. Akudo Anyanwu, Bobby Cavender, Linda and Ed Whitacre, Margie and Bill Klesse, Dr. Corinna Ross, Dr. Larry Schlesinger, Dr. Jamo Rubin, Patrick Mays, Marsha Shields, Robert Peche and Judge Peter Sakai. Bottom left: Dr. Ross addresses attendees. Bottom right: Al and Nimet Rajwani and Jessie and Richard Kardys.
A heartfelt thank you to our generous donors of the Animal Care Complex
Biglari Foundation
The Brown Foundation, Inc.
Robert M. Cavender
Elizabeth Huth Coates
Charitable Foundation
Albert Dickson
Linda Dugger
Joe Haynes
Lyda Hill Philanthropies
Ashley Hixon
Colby Holzhaus
John Howe, III, M.D.
Carolyn Labatt
Mabee Foundation
Mays Family Foundation
McCombs Foundation
Nancy Moorman
The John M. O’Quinn Foundation
Al and Nimet Rajwani
RWM Foundation
Slick Enterprises, Inc.
Operations. “The ACC buildings match that dedication with top-of-the-line materials and amenities that maximize comfort and safety for both animals and their caretakers.”
While most animal housing is built specifically for one species, the new ACC buildings can accommodate multiple species, including smaller rhesus macaques and larger baboons. Spacious indoor and even larger outdoor enclosures are modular to allow for varying social group sizes. The ceiling height provides ample space for climbing and easy access for caretakers. Species-appropriate features include perches, climbing structures and overhead walkways. Misting fans and indoor spaces will help keep animals cool during the summer, while heated floors and garage doors that can
be closed to keep heat in will ensure comfort during winter months.
“Bringing these buildings online is vital for Texas Biomed and SNPRC to continue serving as leaders in biomedical research and animal care,” says Texas Biomed President/CEO Larry Schlesinger, M.D.
“We are excited to press on and continue the next phases of construction as we realize our bold vision for the future.”
Texas Biomed will break ground this year on the ACC’s Animal Health Center, which will incorporate veterinary care facilities, pathology labs and a central hub for animal care staff. Plans for the third housing facility are being finalized, incorporating lessons learned from construction of the first two buildings.
Stand4Science Awards
During the December ceremony, the Institute paid tribute to philanthropic supporters who have shown steadfast dedication to Texas Biomed’s mission of eradicating infection and advancing health. Bill and Margie Klesse, the Mays Family Foundation, the McCombs Family, and Ed and Linda Whitacre were presented with Texas Biomed’s Stand4Science Awards.
Stand4Science Honorees were presented with bespoke glass statuettes by former Development Vice President Akudo Anyanwu, M.D., President/CEO Larry Schlesinger, M.D., and Capital Campaign Chair/Trustee Bobby Cavender. Honorees from top left: Marsha Shields accepting on behalf of the McCombs Family, Ed and Linda Whitacre, Bill and Margie Klesse, and Patrick Mays, accepting on behalf of the Mays Family Foundation.
GRATITUDE
RECORD-BREAKING
SUPPORT
The Texas Biomedical Forum’s fundraising efforts are well underway for the current season. The philanthropic group has set the bar high, having made a record-breaking donation of more than $862,000 this past fall.
The Forum, founded in 1970, is dedicated to raising awareness and financial support for Texas Biomed. Fundraising comes through membership, educational and social events, including one of San Antonio’s most anticipated events of the year: The Forum Gala held each May at The Argyle.
“We are thrilled that our efforts resulted in our largest donation to date and that we are powering the innovative research at Texas Biomed, which ultimately helps keep our families and families around the world safe and healthy,” says Emilie Petty, The Forum’s 2022-2023 President, who passed the leadership role to Rebecca Nathan for 2023-2024.
Funds from The Forum primarily support early phase research. Pilot grants enable researchers to pursue exciting new ideas, collect initial results and then use that data to apply for larger grants. Each year, Texas Biomed scientists submit applications for Forum grants, which are reviewed and awarded internally. Grants
Members of The Forum leadership present a check to Texas Biomed President/CEO Larry Schlesinger, M.D., and former Vice President for Development Akudo Anyanwu, M.D.
First row: Joannah Pickett, Akudo Anyanwu, Larry Schlesinger, Emilie Petty, Gloria Dilley, Triana Grossman.
Second row: Rebecca Nathan, Jayme Russell, Adrianna Grossman, Christina Ketabchi, Elaine Vornsand, Lauren Biegler, Carolina Lewis, Bonnie Muecke.
have helped fund a wide range of health and infectious disease research, such as aging, tuberculosis, malaria and COVID-19.
This year, pilot grants were awarded to:
• Staff Scientist Anna Allué Guardia, Ph.D., to work on a new type of vaccine for tuberculosis, a disease that is one of the leading killers worldwide.
• Staff Scientist Israel Guerrero-Arguero, Ph.D., to study Chikungunya virus, a mosquito-borne pathogen that causes rash, high fever, neurological symptoms and incapacitating joint pain that can persist for years. He will generate a version of the virus that fluoresces to easily observe the virus in cells and new animal models.
• Assistant Professor Olena Shtanko, Ph.D., to study the interplay between Ebola virus infection and mitochondria, the energy-producing organelle of cells.
• Associate Professor Smita Kulkarni, Ph.D., to study the role of long noncoding RNAs in Ebola virus infection in collaboration with Dr. Shtanko. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are large RNAs that do not directly translate into proteins but regulate expression of protein-coding genes.
• Professor Luis Martinez-Sobrido, Ph.D., to work on developing a live attenuated vaccine for a group of deadly arenaviruses that cause hemorrhagic fever in humans, such as Lassa virus.
Texas Biomed thanks The Forum for its dedication and generous fundraising efforts, which are an essential part of the research process.
Under the microscope: SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is observed in green in mouse lung tissue using a high-powered microscope in the Texas Biomed Microscopy Core. This particular type of mouse model, K18-hACE2, is designed to express the human receptor ACE2 (shown in red), which is the receptor SARS-CoV-2 uses to enter cells.
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