UT Health San Antonio | Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

Academics

T32 Feature: 2025-2026 Integrated Graduate Training Program in Neuroscience 

Integrated Graduate Training Program in Neuroscience Principle Investigator: Dr. David Morilak Funding Source: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke The GSBS would like to acknowledge and celebrate the students who were appointed to the Integrated Graduate...
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Congratulations to Laurence Maeyens for winning the AGE Poster Pitch Award!

Written By: Gina Jenkins Laurence Maeyens, a PhD student in Biology of Aging, won the Poster Pitch Award, along with a cash prize, at the 2025 American Aging Association meeting in Anchorage, Alaska in July. His winning poster, titled “Timing of castration modulates its...
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A Look Back at My Time at UT Health San Antonio

Written by Jacob Essif I started my career at UT Health San Antonio as a research assistant in the lab of Dr. Daruka Mahadevan, after the lab relocated from the University of Arizona to the well-regarded UT Health San Antonio. I joined UT Health in January of 2020, and right as I...
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2025 GSBS Hooding Speakers Announced: Caitlyn Fastenau and Dr. Jodie Gray

The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences is pleased to announce the 2025 Hooding Ceremony Speakers. The student speaker will be Caitlyn Fastenau, an IBMS Student in the Biology of Aging Discipline. Dr. Jodie Gray, a 2020 graduate of the Radiological Sciences PhD Program, will...
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Students

Peer mentoring program offers comfort, community for incoming graduate students

Ishita Tarnekar was a bit scared and overwhelmed as an international student starting her doctoral program at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 2024. But not for long. Thanks to the school’s Transition Peer Mentor Program for masters and doctoral students, she got her...
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Esteban Castro Reflects on BIO International Conference and SMDP Scholar Journey

Every year, hundreds of graduate students across the nation apply for the prestigious Scientist Mentoring and Diversity Program (SMDP), a one-year initiative program that pairs graduate students and early-career researchers with industry mentors. The program offers a week-long...
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GSBS Students Showcase the Future of Biotech at Nucleate Texas Demo Day

On Friday, May 30, Nucleate Texas hosted Nucleate Demo Day at the Buena Vista Theater on the UTSA Downtown Campus. Nucleate is a student-led nonprofit organization focused on helping academic trainees become founders and translate world-class research into impactful life science...
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Spotlight on GSBS Presidential Ambassador: Erik Marchant

Since 1988, the Presidential Ambassador Scholars program recognizes outstanding students from each of the UT Health schools who embody the University’s mission through their leadership, service, and academic excellence.  Selected by their deans from nominated candidates, the...
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Faculty

Research Mentoring Academy provides faculty mentors opportunities to hone their skills

  Anibal Diogenes, DDS, PhD, knows a thing or two about good mentorship. After all, he has mentored dozens of students at the university and received the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) Mentor of the Year award in 2022. “I’m a product of [strong mentorship]...
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UT Health San Antonio researcher earns grant to study how the brain’s immune cells might actually contribute to Alzheimer’s

A researcher with the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Health San Antonio has received a two-year, $402,500 grant award from the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund to study how microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells, paradoxically might...
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From Discovery to Diagnosis: How UT San Antonio Researchers Are Transforming Endometriosis Care

In November 2024, Forbes Magazine featured Hera Biotech in an article titled “No More Invasive Tests: Hera Biotech’s Endometriosis Solution,” spotlighting a team working to change how one of the most misunderstood women’s health issues. Among the company’s founders were two of UT...
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Wasmuth named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Freeman Hrabowski Scholar

Elizabeth Wasmuth, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology of the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine and co-director of the cryo-EM facility at The University of Texas at San Antonio, has been selected by the Howard Hughes...
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Alumni

Purpose Reimagined: Alum and cancer survivor is using research to pay it forward

Every child has aspirations of what they want to be when they grow up, whether it be a firefighter, police officer or astronaut. For Derek Rodriguez ’23, that dream was to be a medical doctor. And when at the age of eight he was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer in...
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GSBS Alumnus, John Michael Briceño, Is Bringing Warmth and Hope to the Andes

John Michael Briceño, a 2013 graduate of UT Health San Antonio’s Master’s in Radiological Sciences program, has spent the past decade building a career as a medical physicist in radiation oncology, a field that is deeply rooted in service, compassion, and improving lives. Beyond...
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2025 GSBS Hooding Speakers Announced: Caitlyn Fastenau and Dr. Jodie Gray

The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences is pleased to announce the 2025 Hooding Ceremony Speakers. The student speaker will be Caitlyn Fastenau, an IBMS Student in the Biology of Aging Discipline. Dr. Jodie Gray, a 2020 graduate of the Radiological Sciences PhD Program, will...
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Mukund Bhandari, PhD

Alumni Reflections: Mukund Bhandari, Ph.D.

Name: Mukund Bhandari Program: PhD in IBMS, Cell Biology, Genetics, and Molecular Medicine Graduation: 2024 Dissertation Title: “Benchmarking Mouse Contamination Removing Protocols in Patient-Derived Xenografts Genomic Profiling” Mentor Name: Siyuan Zheng, PhD Please tell me...
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Community

Dr. David Weiss: Reflections on Science, Change and Preparing Students for What’s Next

When Dr. Weiss reflects on his time at UT Health San Antonio, his perspective is shaped first and foremost by science. He speaks often about how science has changed, how rapidly it continues to evolve, and what that evolution demands of institutions responsible for preparing the...
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Candidacy Ceremony Means More Than a New White Coat

On Friday, September 30, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences honored 52 students from across Biomedical Engineering, Nursing Science, Health Sciences, Translational Science, Integrated Biomedical Sciences, Medical Physics, Radiological Sciences, and the South Texas Medical...
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Volunteer Extraordinaire and Student Leader, Sara Gaiser, Creates New Service Organization

Have you seen the Lab RATS at UT Health? No, not the rodents in research laboratories. These Lab RATS are something entirely different. Lab Researchers with Ambition to Serve (Lab RATS) is a UT Health student organization that focuses on volunteer service around San Antonio and...
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Highlights from the November Student Government Association (SGA) Meeting

The Student Government Association is the recognized forum of student opinion of UT Health San Antonio. It is comprised of student representatives from all six schools. The GSBS SGA representatives are Jacob Essif (essif@livemail.uthscsa.edu), Lacey Sell...
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