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Almost 400,000 square feet of space in various buildings
is dedicated to research. Recent additions include the Medical Research
Building, an 11-story laboratory building housing several centers, institutes,
and departments, a dedicated structural biology building housing
state-of-the-art NMR equipment, and a Shriners Burns Hospital and Research
Institute, one of 5 in the US devoted to clinical care of burned children and
research on burns and wound healing.
Research faculty, students, and postdoctoral trainees at
UTMB have ready access to cutting-edge equipment and technologies. UTMB's 20
basic biomedical and clinical academic departments all have faculty conducting
funded research.
The Office of the Associate Vice President for Research
liaisons with funding agencies, identifies funding sources for faculty and
students, and assists researchers in preparing and submitting grant
applications. This office also maintains a catalog of research expertise listing
all UTMB faculty and their areas of expertise as well as a compendium of all
research core facilities on campus available to help researchers. Examples of
core facilities include those providing transgenic animals, analysis and
synthesis of proteins or nucleic acids, image analysis, nude mice, DNA
sequencing, NMR analysis, cell sorting, X-ray crystallography, in situ
hybridization, morphometric analysis, gene cloning, and many others.
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Research by the faculty at all four schools at UTMB
attracted external funding (grants and contracts) of almost $60 million in 1997.
Total research expenditures by the institution totaled about $80 million.
Intramural funding provided for research by the institution include departmental
funds, but the Small Grants Program and the John Sealy Memorial Endowment Fund
constitute the major source of internal grant support for faculty.
The latter fund, established in the late 1980's by the
Sealy & Smith Foundation with matching funds from UTMB, now approaches a corpus
of $70 million. Interest earned from the fund's principal provides research
grants totaling over $1 million/year to UTMB researchers. The endowment fund
also has been used to establish 6 Sealy centers of excellence at UTMB in the
areas of Molecular Science, Molecular Cardiology, Oncology & Hematology,
Structural Biology, Aging and Vaccine Development. Establishment of these
centers has attracted some of the most outstanding research scientists in the
country to UTMB.
Numerous other sources of support for research exist at
UTMB. Centennial centers for Tropical Medicine and Environmental Toxicology were
established in 1991 on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Medical
Branch. Two long-standing institutes, the Institute for Medical Humanities, with
scholars studying biomedical issues related to ethics, history, and literature,
and the Marine Biomedical Institute, with neuroscientists studying
marine-related topics and models, are state supported entities which are
research intensive.
Special support provided by the state for almost 20 years
supports research on interferons. The McLaughlin Fund represents an endowment
that supports approximately 10 predoctoral and 10 postdoctoral fellows per year
in the area of infection and immunity; stipends for the predoctoral students is
generous and exceeds the standard GSBS stipend at UTMB.
GSBS faculty and students participate in several
externally-funded training grants (Toxicology, Tropical Medicine, Neurobiology,
and Drug Abuse) that provide stipend support for predoctoral fellows conducting
research at UTMB as part of their degree requirements or for postdoctoral
fellows obtaining additional training prior to obtaining a professional
position.
Applications for a training grants in other areas, e.g.
structural biology are under development.
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Each year UTMB hosts the National Student Research Forum ;
this is the only major national scientific meeting conducted by students. Each
year a group of directors consisting of 2 medical students and 2 graduate
students plan and host the meeting.
The 3 day meeting hosts medical students, graduate
students, and postdoctoral fellows from institutions across the US who come to
UTMB to present their research findings.
Keynote speakers address the attendees, and social events
and excursions to local attractions complement the scientific program.
Each department and center at UTMB hosts a seminar series
which bring outstanding visiting scientists to UTMB throughout the year to give
lectures and research seminars to faculty and students. This important academic
activity provides insight into cutting-edge investigations in progress at other
research institutions, corporations, or federal agencies in the US and
throughout the world.
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