UTMB’s Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center has received a $3.4 million grant from the National Institute on Aging enabling the center to continue its mission to improve the physical function and independence of older adults – Incoming UTMB physician assistant students received their white coats and took their professional oath in a ceremony last week. The program is part of UTMB’s School of Health Professions – Sterile processing is the lasts department to move into the new Clinical Services wing, which joins John Sealy Hospital and the new Jennie Sealy Hospital. The department had been in temporary quarters since Hurricane Ike – UTMB’s Dr. Karen D. Wagner, interim chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, is the president –elect of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry – Gracie Vargas, associate professor in the department of neuroscience and cell biology, has received a grant for more than $862,000 from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas to develop a novel optical imaging approach for identifying early head and neck cancer and treatable pre-cancers.