By THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL BRANCH

Five University of Texas Medical Branch School of Nursing faculty members recently received Excellence in Nursing Awards from the Good Samaritan Foundation. A Gold Medal was presented to Thomas Mendez. Yolanda Davila received a Silver Medal, and Bronze Medals were presented to Maureen Wilder, Jacque Svoboda and Rebeka Watson-Campbell. The purpose of the Good Samaritan Foundation Excellence in Nursing Awards is to recognize those nurses who are leaders at the bedside offering extraordinary and compassionate care and service.


UTMB has another student regent

Justin Drake, a student in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, has been appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott as the student regent for the University of Texas System for a term expiring on May 31, 2016.
Drake is pursuing a doctorate of biochemistry and molecular biology with a concentration in computational biophysics. He received a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
This is the second time in the last five years that a UTMB student has held this prestigious position.

Paessler named to NIH review panel

Dr. Slobodan Paessler, a professor in the department of pathology, has been appointed by the National Institutes of Health as a member of the Virology B Study Section, Center for Scientific Review for a term beginning July 1 and ending June 30, 2021. In this role, he will review grant applications submitted to the NIH, make recommendations on the applications to the NIH national advisory council and survey the status of research in their fields of science.
Paessler was chosen because of his demonstrated competence and achievement in his scientific discipline.

Garcia-Blanco on team that explains Dengue

Dr. Mariano Garcia-Blanco is an integral member of a collaborative group that is the first to explain the mechanisms that the Dengue virus has developed to optimize its ability to cause outbreaks as it travels across the globe.
The investigators examined differences between the Dengue strain most commonly seen historically in Puerto Rico and a new, more potent form of the virus that was first isolated when a serious Dengue outbreak occurred in 1994.
These differences were the key to figuring out why this outbreak occurred.
The findings were published in Science.

Inside UTMB is compiled by the communications department at the University of Texas Medical Branch.