Home Care In Central, UT

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, celebrated the naming of the Denbo Center for Humanities and the Arts on April 2. The center is named for alumnus Don Denbo, a former Vol football star, who is dedicated to promoting an education grounded in the humanities.

Part of the College of Arts and Sciences and formerly known as the UT Humanities Center, the Denbo Center will support arts and humanities research and advocate for the essential role of the arts and humanities in the world today. The center promotes interdisciplinary public conversation and research surrounding the academic, social and cultural issues central to human development. Core initiatives of the center include residential fellowships for UT faculty and graduate students; research, travel and publication support through grants, workshops and seminars; and public arts and humanities outreach — building local, regional, national and international partnerships.

“We are proud to be renamed the Denbo Center for Humanities and the Arts and are thrilled by Mr. Denbo’s generous gift, which will allow us to continue our advocacy and support for the arts and the humanities here at UT and in our Volunteer State,” said Amy Elias, director of the center. “With a dedication to the liberal and creative arts and a lifetime spent serving others in various fields, Mr. Denbo exemplifies how the arts and humanities can connect to all fields of endeavor, inspiring everyone to a life of vibrant curiosity and learning.”

Denbo joined Elias, Chancellor Donde Plowman and graduate research assistant Michael Sutherlin in speaking at the naming ceremony. During his remarks, Denbo reinforced his commitment to helping current and future members of the UT community learn to love the benefits of a humanities-based education.

“The deep desire for current and subsequent constituencies of UT to have the benefits of the same education which grounded me in the humanities is the reason my family and I have made this commitment,” said Denbo. “The conviction that this enterprise, now the Denbo Center, will aid in that endeavor is the reward of a life committed to the basics of a classical humanities education.”

Denbo enrolled at UT in the fall of 1967. Having received a classical education, he was already proficient in reading, writing, chemistry, German and French. He could read Hebrew and Aramaic and had taken upper-level courses in Latin and calculus. Denbo set forth on his college career with one mission: to play football for the Volunteers.

During his time at UT, Denbo was an offensive guard on the football team under Coach Doug Dickey. He helped Tennessee to a 28-5-1 record, an SEC title in 1969 and a Sugar Bowl victory in 1970. A Rhodes Scholarship finalist, he was named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll, selected as a National Football Foundation Scholar Athlete and held membership in Phi Beta Kappa.

After graduating from UT in 1971 with a degree in psychology and a minor in history, Denbo went on to earn a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics. He is a founding member of Commercial Insurance Associates, one of the nation’s largest insurance brokers.

In 2018, Denbo was awarded the College of Arts and Sciences’ Dean’s Distinguished Alumnus Award, which recognizes an outstanding alumnus/alumna of the college who has attained extraordinary distinction through a lifetime record of achievement and service.

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The University of Texas at Austin and one of the most well-known cancer treatment centers in the world are partnering to build a new $2.5 billion medical hub geared toward serving Central Texas.

The University of Texas System Board of Regents Chair Kevin Eltife announced Monday plans to create the new facility in partnership with the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the nation’s No. 1 cancer hospital. MD Anderson is part of the university system and has several locations in the Houston area.

“The establishment of the University of Texas at Austin Medical Center, with UT MD Anderson Cancer Center adjacent to a new university hospital and access to all of UT-Austin’s education and research assets, will undoubtedly result in transformative cancer care, provide students at the flagship campus with unmatched experiences, and benefit patients throughout the state and nation for all time,” Eltife said.

Gov. Greg Abbott, who joined Eltife in making the announcement, called the project a transformative move for the state.

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“People from Indiana travel to Houston to get the best cancer care in the world. Similarly, people across Texas travel to Houston to access the best cancer care in our state and country. But rather than having Texans travel to Houston, we will now be bringing the world’s best cancer care to them right here in Central Texas,” Abbott said.

The facility will have two medical towers, one for the cancer center and the other for the new university hospital. It will be located at the current downtown location of UT-Austin’s Frank Erwin Center, formerly a multipurpose facility.

The cancer center will have 150 inpatient beds for treatment, 230 outpatient exam rooms and will include many of the same features as the MD Anderson hospital in Houston, including bone marrow transplantation and multiteam surgery.

UT MD Anderson President Peter Pisters said the cancer center will no longer be known as a Houston institution, but a Texas one.

“One institution and now two cities,” he said.

Pisters said MD Anderson in Houston has already served many patients from Central Texas throughout the years, including 5,000 Austin residents as of 2020.

MD Anderson has multiple locations outside the Houston metro area and radiation treatment centers in League City, Sugar Land and Conroe. It established the UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2016.

UT-Austin Dell Medical School Dean Claudia F. Lucchinetti, said the new university hospital will focus on specialized care.

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“We will work alongside our partners to deliver the complex life-saving care that central Texans need right here at home,” she said.

Besides creating new jobs and a new source of revenue in Austin, the proposed medical center is expected to develop new medical technology.

“We won’t be simply building a traditional academic medical center or one that exists on the island,” UT-Austin President Jay Hartzell said at a press conference held Monday. “We have an opportunity that is unique in Texas and only possible in a few places in the world to build an academic medical center that is linked to a top research university and driven by innovations in technology, digital health, data science, artificial intelligence, robotics, material science and more.”

Texas has a history of supporting cancer research with voters approving in 2019 giving millions in grants to Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, a state organization that has become an international leader in the field in less than a decade since its creation.

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Disclosure: Dell, MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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The UT Disability Cultural Center will launch a new disability-focused library by the start of the spring semester, allowing students to check out books and academic resources specific to disability identity and culture — a topic that’s not widely recognized in other libraries.

DCC director Emily Shryock said the library will include novels, poems, biographies and other resources to represent the diversity of disability and wide range of interests students might have, such as checking out books for personal growth or finding sources for Disability Studies courses. The DCC, which launched in January, started a HornRaiser campaign for Disability Access and Belonging Month. Through the campaign, the DCC raised about $300 and received almost 100 book donations for the library.

“When we talk about culture and identity, it has that community aspect to it, which is what we’re trying to build,” Shryock said. “There’s also that identity piece of understanding disability as a central part of who you are, often along with other pieces of your identity, and not as a negative.”

Lira Amari Ramírez, the former president of UT’s Disability Advocacy Student Coalition, said they’re excited to see the library come to fruition after thorough planning by the DCC Advisory Committee. By accessing books that are otherwise hard to find, they said, the UT community can learn about disability through a cultural lens and help combat ableism and stigma.

“Collections depend on the knowledge, bandwidth and lived experiences of the people that create them,” Ramírez, a history and humanities senior, said in an email. “A collection curated by the DCC offers the opportunity to intentionally gather books centering disabled voices.”

Isabella Candanosa, co-founder of the Deaf Culture Alliance at UT, said students without disabilities will also benefit from the library, as reading disability-focused content will help them develop cultural sensitivity and awareness for their careers.

“I encounter misinformation about my community every day, mostly because of well-meaning non-disabled people trying to educate about the disabled experience, not knowing that their information is inaccurate,” Candanosa, a speech, language and hearing sciences senior, said in an email. “Some people aren’t even aware of how many disability advocates are out there trying to educate about our experiences because we are often not offered the same platforms as our non-disabled counterparts.”

Shryock said students will soon be able to check out books on the DCC’s website in addition to browsing book carts at DCC events, like their “disability discussions” program, hosted in the Student Services Building on Wednesday afternoons. The library will eventually find a permanent home in the DCC’s office, she said, which is currently under renovation on the first floor of the SSB. Shryock said the DCC doesn’t have an opening date for its office yet.

“This is not going to be the only campaign that we have,” Shryock said. “We’re still a very new center and building our network, so we were pleased with that amount that will actually get us what we need to take that first step.”

The DCC will use the funding from the campaign to purchase display carts and software to manage online book checkouts, Shryock said. She said she hopes the DCC can continue collecting donations to expand the library selection before its launch next semester.

“(The library) is not just for disabled people or people with disabilities,” Shryock said. “We do want this to be an opportunity for everyone to be able to engage and learn.”

Community engagement, career development, degree programs and pilot projects among Clinical and Translational Science Award activities

Contact: Will Sansom, 210-567-2579, [email protected]

SAN ANTONIO (Aug. 17, 2023) — The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (also called UT Health San Antonio) and seven regional collaborators will leverage $46 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over the next five to seven years to translate scientific discoveries into therapeutic benefits for human health and well-being.

A key focus will be reducing health disparities among Mexican Americans, active military personnel and veterans.

William L. Henrich, MD, MACP, president of UT Health San Antonio, announced the funding from the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program today. Henrich thanked partners including The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School and College of Pharmacy, The University of Texas at San Antonio and the Texas Biomedical Research Institute for supporting the CTSA application. NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is the awarding agency.

The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, San Antonio Military Health System, South Texas Veterans Health Care System and University Health are additional collaborators. “This is a consortium of talented individuals at significant institutions working together to ensure that, in the future, society will be transformed through clinical advances,” Henrich said.

Sizable impact

UT Health San Antonio, the coordinating center for the South-Central Texas CTSA Program hub, first gained CTSA funding in 2008 and successfully competed for grant renewals in 2013 and 2018. Combining the previous CTSA awards and supplements with the new grants, the cumulative NIH investment in South and Central Texas through the CTSA program is projected to reach $126 million by 2030.

“Translational research has tended to focus on a particular disease, such as diabetes or lupus, and ask specific questions about causes, outcomes or interventions. With this new award, we will ask broader questions about clinical translational science, such as how to push ideas along toward national application in the clinic more quickly and effectively,” said Robert A. Clark, MD, professor of medicine and director of the Institute for Integration of Medicine & Science (IIMS), which administers the CTSA Program hub at UT Health San Antonio and interacts with the regional collaborators.

Removing barriers

“The goal will be to remove barriers that currently hinder the translation of scientific discoveries into new therapies for incurable diseases,” said Robert A. Hromas, MD, FACP, dean of the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio and vice president for medical affairs. “Securing CTSA funding for a fourth time is an extraordinary accomplishment for this team of experts in our region.”

“Translational science is about accelerating innovation to impact health, which will reduce disease and improve health,” said Jennifer Sharpe Potter, PhD, MPH, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and vice president for research, UT Health San Antonio. “After 15 years of continuous funding, the additional seven years of NCATS funding reflects the quality of work conducted at UT Health San Antonio with our partners and collaborators and permits us to explore and develop strategies for the most critical challenges impacting health in South and Central Texas.”

Working side by side with communities

Seeking ways to reduce health disparities is a central theme of the South-Central Texas CTSA Program hub. Community engagement is crucial for this activity.

“We care so deeply about the South Texas community. Our researchers will work side by side with community members to plan future health programs and share scientific innovations in a way that is equitable, culturally tailored, actionable and reflective of local needs. The community voice will be omnipresent as we work together to reduce health disparities and build health equity,” said Amelie G. Ramirez, DrPH, MPH, professor and chair of population health sciences in the Long School of Medicine. She directs the Institute for Health Promotion Research and is associate director of cancer outreach and engagement at the Mays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio.

“This is a unique opportunity to truly engage the community to identify needs and build responsive health research, programs and communications that will make a difference in the lives of South Texans and serve as a model for other communities with large Latino populations,” Ramirez added.

Pilot grants

The Institute for Integration of Medicine & Science has offered pilot project awards since the first CTSA grant in 2008, typically $50,000 for one-year projects. The new expanded grant funding through 2030 will enable larger pilot projects supported over a couple of years at $125,000 to $150,000, said Kenneth M. Hargreaves, DDS, PhD, professor and chair of endodontics in the UT Health San Antonio School of Dentistry.

“These pilot grant awards are critical to developing the next generation of clinical translational scientists in South and Central Texas,” Hargreaves said. “The grants are specifically in the area of clinical translational science and ask how we can get answers more quickly and push ideas forward more effectively.”

Hargreaves, Potter, Ramirez and Clark together form the Multiple Principal Investigator group, which comprises the leadership of the UT Health San Antonio CTSA program.

Important partners

The inclusion of UT Austin, UTSA and Texas Biomed into the South-Central Texas CTSA Program hub is critical because their combined record of NIH grant support moved up the funding level by about $1 million a year compared with the amount that UT Health San Antonio would otherwise have received, Clark said.

“These partners provide input to our leadership and in some cases serve as co-leaders of one or another of the CTSA components,” Clark said. “They also are a source of talented students and junior faculty for the training and career development portions of the CTSA.”

The South-Central Texas hub recently received notice of T32 training grant funding and a K12 Mentored Career Development Award. These NCATS grants will enhance the hub’s educational offerings.

Degree programs

The Institute for Integration of Medicine & Science also runs a pair of degree programs in concert with UT Health San Antonio’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. These are the Master of Science in Clinical Investigation (MSCI) program and the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Translational Science program. Shorter, topic-related certificates are offered through the MSCI program, including in cancer prevention and data science.

The community engagement function includes translational advisory boards, which are county-level groups of stakeholders who meet monthly or quarterly to discuss unmet local health needs. The CTSA Program hub also supports practice-based research networks in which research questions emanate from observations made in physician, dentist and other practitioner offices.

About 60 biomedical research institutions across the nation currently receive CTSA funding. “We are glad to be part of NCATS’ vision for how the health and well-being of America can be improved through translational science and community engagement,” Hromas said.

Unique in Texas

UT Health San Antonio is currently the only academic medical center in Texas to have each of these recognitions: 1) Clinical and Translational Science Award, 2) National Institute on Aging-designated Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases in collaboration with UT Rio Grande Valley), and 3) National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center (Mays Cancer Center, home to UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson).

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio), a primary driver for San Antonio’s $44.1 billion health care and biosciences sector, is the largest academic research institution in South Texas with an annual research portfolio of more than $360 million. Driving substantial economic impact with its six professional schools, a diverse workforce of 7,900, an annual operating budget of $1.23 billion and clinical practices that provide 2.6 million patient visits each year, UT Health San Antonio plans to add more than 1,500 higher-wage jobs over the next five years to serve San Antonio, Bexar County and South Texas. To learn about the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit UTHealthSA.org.

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AUSTIN, Texas — Central Texans are in for a treat this weekend as a rare celestial annular solar eclipse passes through the state.

Your best chance to catch a glimpse will be Saturday morning.

The University of Texas-Austin campus is just one place where you can catch some of the upcoming annular solar eclipse.

Austin is outside of the path of annularity, meaning we won’t get the full “ring of fire” effect but there will still be tons of fun with science and nature to be had at the event being held there.

“These like natural phenomena are just always cool to like think about and look out for,” said UT student Beto An.

Unlike the less rare lunar eclipse, the solar eclipse happens when the moon blocks the sun and it can be viewed from earth, depending on where you’re at.

It won’t block the entire face of the sun, so that’s where the ring comes in.

On Saturday, some of Central Texas will get to see that full effect.

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“If you go just a little bit south of us, actually San Antonio is kinda in a great spot – they are gonna get the annular and “ring of fire” effect, and they’ll have it for about I think four minutes almost,” said UT-Austin Department of Astronomy and Natural Sciences professor Keely Finkelstein.

That doesn’t mean the annular solar eclipse will skip Austin entirely. Experts say we’ll still get to see an almost glowing crescent shape, instead of the full ring.

“We’ll get close to about 90%, and so when we kinda reach that peak maximum, we’ll see kind of a thin little crescent of the sun, if you’re viewing it safely with eclipse glasses and viewers,” said Finkelstein.

In Central Texas, you can expect to see the eclipse beginning around 10:23a.m., peaking at about 11:54 a.m. and ending at 1:33 p.m.

“Back home, with my friends, I always like try to catch the eclipses or any cool astronomy event, and I’m looking forward to seeing this one, too,” said UT student Arya Grayeli.

The UT Astronomy and College of Natural Sciences’ event Saturday will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will include interactive demos, a moonwalk and solar free eclipse glasses.

Experts say here in Central Texas we get really lucky, because not only will we get to experience Saturday’s solar eclipse, but in just less than six months, we’ll also be able to fully view a total eclipse, where the sun will be completely covered.