News and Links

Congratulations to Dr. Bess Frost, the 2020 recipient of the O’Donnell Award in Medicine. The annual award is given by the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, a group of the state’s 300-plus members of the National Academies. Read the story here.

Mengwei Zang, MD, PhD, has received a 2-year R01 research grant from the NIH to support the accumulation of additional data for her research. The award will provide approximately $200,000 a year for 2 years.

The NIA-funded T32 Training Program on Biology of Aging (PI: Nicolas Musi) has been successfully renewed for 5 more years. The focus of the program is on Basic and Translational Geroscience. The Program funds 4 predoctoral and 4 postdoctoral positions. For more information on the program and the application process please email Debra Siller at […]

Sara Espinoza, MD, MSc, an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Barshop Institute, has received a $2.0 million R01 award from the NIH National Institute on Aging for the project “Metformin for Preventing Frailty in High Risk Older Adults”. The major goal of this five-year study, which originated as a SA OAIC […]

Adam Salmon, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Research in the Department of Molecular Medicine and the Barshop Institute, has received a $2.7 million R01 award from the NIH National Institute on Aging to study the role of mTOR inhibition in longevity and aging in a non-human primate. During this five-year study, Dr. Salmon’s lab will […]

Two prestigious grants have been awarded to the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio to support its research into the biology of aging.
One of the awards, a new grant, establishes a Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at the Barshop Institute — one of 15 such centers nationally.

The other grant renews funding for the Barshop Institute’s Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Biology of Aging. Only six such centers were funded across the country this year, health science center officials said.
The recently announced grants, both awarded by the National Institute on Aging, total $7 million over a five-year period. The Barshop Institute is the only aging research center in the country to achieve the distinction of having both a Shock Center and a Pepper Center this year, health science center officials said.

SAN ANTONIO — Local scientists say recent advancements in pharmacology and genetics are bringing us closer to the fountain of youth. Treatments are already being tested in South Texas that could someday extend lifespan by decades or even reverse some of the symptoms of aging.

The most promising treatment right now is a mysterious drug called Rapamycin.

Dr. Dean Kellogg, a UT Medicine and Barshop Institute researcher and clinical doctor working at the San Antonio VA, says he’s been testing the drug on eight people in the San Antonio area.

He says he never imagined just how effective it could be.

“I never really thought I would see a pharmacological agent that can alter the aging process,” said Kellogg. “Rapamycin appears to slow the aging process.”