Much like it has with other infectious diseases in helping develop diagnostic tests, treatments and vaccines, the Texas Biomedical Institute is ramping up its research into monkeypox.

A researcher at Texas Biomed has helped develop the Pfizer and Novavax vaccines and is now working around the clock to help develop boosters, new vaccines and therapies that address new, more threatening variants.

It's sometimes hard for veterans to find jobs where they can use the expertise they acquired in the military. Luckily, the department of defense has a program that helps bridge the gap.

A team of scientists at Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio is doing such important work with the viruses that cause COVID-19 that hundreds of other teams worldwide are requesting to use their research.

SAN ANTONIO – A University of Texas at San Antonio research team wanted to know if the virus that causes COVID-19 could enter the brain. Jenny Hsieh, a professor in the Department of Biology at UTSA, led the research to test the team’s questions. She said researchers took human stem cells and created brain organoids, or tiny brains, in a lab. “Organoids are really small, three-dimensional brain-like tissue grown in a petri dish, and they resemble the developing human brain,” Hsieh said. Hsieh said UTSA researchers collaborated with scientists from the Texas Biomedical Institute, who are growing the live virus.