4 million for study with personalized phage therapy
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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 11-Jun-2026 14:15 ET (11-Jun-2026 18:15 GMT/UTC)
Experimental drug NU-9 shows promise in clearing toxic proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases. Scientists tested NU-9 in a pre-symptomatic animal model of Alzheimer’s disease. Drug dramatically reduced brain changes that emerge near the disease’s onset. Researchers have hope that NU-9 could act as a potential prophylaxis to prevent Alzheimer's symptoms from appearing.
The University of Texas at San Antonio has received a $7 million gift commitment from longtime philanthropic supporter and former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre and his wife Linda Whitacre to advance research, student success and athletics.
The Whitacres have made a transformational $5 million commitment to honor the late William L. Henrich, MD, former president of UT Health San Antonio, whose visionary leadership and unwavering compassion shaped the university for more than a decade.
The gift will advance the institution’s nationally recognized expertise in metabolic health — an area of research and clinical care that includes diabetes, obesity and related conditions that profoundly affect longevity and quality of life. This investment will fuel groundbreaking discovery aimed at confronting the region’s diabetes crisis, where one in six South Texans lives with the disease, and will further strengthen UT Health San Antonio’s role as a leader in improving health outcomes for the communities it serves.
An additional $2 million commitment from the Whitacres will support the Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design and UTSA Athletics.
Proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTACs) are molecules that can eliminate disease-causing proteins, but developing them is often slow and complex, limiting how quickly new candidates can be tested. Now, researchers from Tokyo University of Science have developed a three-step "click chemistry" assembly line that rapidly builds functional PROTACs from simple building blocks. The resulting molecules successfully degraded a target protein in cells, paving the way for faster, more flexible development of protein-targeting therapeutics.
Ultrashort laser pulses - that are shorter than a millionth of a millionth of a second -have transformed fundamental science, engineering and medicine. Despite this, their ultrashort duration has made them elusive and difficult to measure. About ten years ago, researchers from Lund University and Porto University introduced a tool for measuring pulse duration of ultrafast lasers. The same team has now achieved a breakthrough that enables the measurement of individual laser pulses across a wider parameter range in a more compact setup.