Petrie Dish

A UT San Antonio Health Science Center researcher has found that people with resilient immune systems can live 15 years longer than those who don't, but what is immune resilience? How do you know if your immune system is lagging? Can you get some of those years back?

A San Antonio researcher is working on a drug that could treat Ewing sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma without lifelong side effects. It would be the first new treatment option for these childhood cancers in 30 years.

Malaria kills more than half a million people a year, and an effective vaccine has been elusive. But a San Antonio malaria researcher and her team have discovered a vulnerability in the malaria parasite's method of avoiding the human immune system that may make all the difference.

Petrie Dish host Bonnie Petrie sits down with Public Health Watch reporter Raquel Torres to talk about her story on the Alzheimer's crisis in the Rio Grande Valley, as well as a $3 billion proposal to fund Alzheimer's research in Texas that won't go forward unless Texans say yes at the polls in November.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men and the five year survival rate is 97%.

UT Health San Antonio Speech-Language Pathology program graduate students are helping local kids at risk for developing a language disorder through a program called LAUNCH. Angela Kennedy, SLP-D, CCC-SLP, is the director of clinical education and an assistant professor for the Speech-Language Pathology program in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

An anti-aging medication called rapamycin seems to work better in female mice than in males, and it's the only one studied as part of the National Institute of Aging's Interventions Testing Program to do so. Most of the medications singled out for their effectiveness in a recent review only work in male mice.

Once eradicated in the United States, a maggot that feeds on living, warm-blooded animals is inching back toward Texas. It may cross the Southern border before the end of the year. Petrie Dish host Bonnie Petrie talks with Sonja L. Swiger, Ph.D., from the Texas A&M University Department of Entomology and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension about the screwworm, the threat it poses to animals and humans, and what can be done to minimize the damage.

If you’re experiencing chronic pain, adjusting your diet might help.

The UT Health San Antonio professor who is leading an effort to increase the number of South Texas teens who are vaccinated against the human papillomavirus hopes to see cervical cancer eliminated in the United States in her lifetime.

Loneliness and social isolation can make you as sick as obesity or 15 cigarettes a day.

TRC4 is a collaborative at UT Health San Antonio in partnership with the Department of Defense and the entire UT System to address an urgent need for improved trauma care both on the battlefield and at home.

Occupational therapy can help people with mental illness resume meaningful activities in their lives and create strategies that will improve their overall health. A San Antonio OT has developed a program she hopes will help people with a mental illness and type 2 diabetes achieve better control over their disease.

The Medicaid cuts add up to nearly a trillion dollars over ten years, and 12 million people could lose access to health care. Medicare also faces deep reductions in spending, even though it's not slashed in this legislation. It insures the elderly, and it may lose half a trillion dollars to sequestration. KFF Health News DC correspondent Julie Rovner told Bonnie Petrie that no one will be unaffected.

Be Well Texas is revolutionizing how substance use disorder is treated in Texas.

A UT Health San Antonio researcher confirms that how magnesium gets into immune system cells can determine whether they fight oral cancer or support tumor growth. The discovery offers hope for new ways to prevent and treat the disease.

At the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the brain bank is accepting deposits.

HHS Secretary Kennedy's decision to purge all 17 members of the CDC vaccine advisory board concerns public health experts. Some fear a new board will change vaccine recommendations, leading to reduced access for all and a surge in vaccine-preventable diseases.

Human immunity wanes as we age, but what if it could be restored? A UT Health San Antonio researcher who studies the thymus has confirmed that a certain protein can restore its size and function in mice, leading to a larger and more diverse T cell population that more closely resembles the T cells of youth.

If you’re in your 40s or 50s, there may be something you can do right now to fight Alzheimer’s disease. It involves Omega 3 fatty acids—the good stuff in fatty fish and fish oil, which has been linked to lower rates of dementia for a while.

Tinnitus is the number one service-connected disability within the Veterans Administration, and for those with PTSD, it can cause significant distress. A UT Health San Antonio researcher who suffers from chronic tinnitus is studying the connection between the two and how to improve treatment.

When people think about things they can do to stay healthy, they don’t think about their teeth nearly enough.

Mosquito season has begun in earnest, and until November, there is an increased risk for mosquito-borne illnesses, including dengue fever. CDC has urged U.S. doctors to watch for dengue, particularly in people who've traveled to countries where the virus is endemic. But several states, including Texas, have reported locally acquired cases of dengue over the last fifteen years.

A newly constructed center for studying and treating diseases of the brain will open in San Antonio at the end of the year. The Center for Brain Health could revolutionize how we understand disorders like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS.

In the final installment of this three-part series, Bonnie Petrie and reporter Robin Berghaus go from an isolated stretch of desert along the Rio Grande, where wild peyote grows, to the exuberant rooms at SXSW, where they consider the future of psychedelics-as-medicine, and back to the hallowed halls of the Texas Legislature, where the future of the so-called Ibogaine Bill is uncertain.

A digital tool that uses artificial intelligence to analyze speech patterns could help doctors detect dementia in patients when other signs and symptoms are not perceptible.

A San Antonio collaborative is developing treatments for antibiotic-resistant infections using viruses known as phages. The effort is urgent as infections that don't respond to antibiotics are projected to kill 39 million people by 2050.

Petrie Dish host Bonnie Petrie has a wide-ranging conversation with the executive director of the Autism Society of Texas as Robert Kennedy's HHS focuses on the rise in autism diagnoses.

Blood flow restriction ahead of surgery could be key.

A San Antonio researcher hopes to dispel myths about who is at risk for eating disorders while studying the interaction between binge eating disorder and food insecurity in older Hispanic women.

The Centers for Disease Control recently buried a warning about the potential for more measles outbreaks and the need for people to get vaccinated, according to a new report from ProPublica.

David Morilak, PhD, a professor of pharmacology and director of the Center for Biomedical Neuroscience at UT Health San Antonio, studies rats in an effort to understand the characteristics of stressful events that can lead to PTSD in humans.

A cutting-edge technology and an exciting recent hire hint at exciting developments in the future of precision medicine in the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

Adam Salmon, PhD, studies aging in marmosets. He and his team recently concluded that an immunosuppressant called rapamycin extends the lifespan of marmosets. This has significant implications for the study of aging in humans.

A medication that appears to preserve brain function after a stroke will soon go into human trials. The San Antonio researcher who discovered the medication's potential more than two decades ago is still leading the team.

People with concussions get checked out pretty thoroughly by their doctors, but for some, there are cognitive changes and deficits that doctors don’t pick up.

Patients have been leaving the United States to try psychedelic therapies to treat their depression, PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and substance use disorders. With so many patients finding relief, why do psychedelic therapies mostly remain illegal in the U.S., and how do psychedelics actually work?

Oral squamous cell carcinoma kills about half of the people who get it, and there have been no new treatments developed for half a century. A UT Health San Antonio dentist has developed a novel drug that may offer these patients a better chance at survival.

Host Bonnie Petrie talks with Dr. Jason Bowling about the other two diseases in the MMR vaccine, mumps and rubella.

Pelvic health disorders can disrupt women's quality of life. The conditions might be considered common and inevitable, but they should not be ignored.

Host Bonnie Petrie and reporter Robin Berghaus explore the potential of psychedelic medication as a treatment for mental health diagnoses like depression and PTSD, particularly for use in the veteran population.

A San Antonio researcher is working on a drug that could treat Ewing sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma without lifelong side effects. It would be the first new treatment option for these childhood cancers in 30 years.

An outbreak of measles in West Texas has infected nearly 100 people, most of them unvaccinated children. Dr. Peter Hotez says the ecosystem that led to the elimination of measles in the United States in 2000 has changed as vaccination rates fall, and there will likely be more breakthrough outbreaks of all vaccine-preventable infections.

More than six-million American adults are experiencing heart failure right now.

Host Bonnie Petrie speaks with Cherise Rohr-Allegrini, CEO of the San Antonio AIDS Foundation.

A new technique for delivering radiation to glioblastoma brain tumors may allow doctors to use much higher doses while preserving healthy brain tissue. UT Health San Antonio's Andrew Brenner, MD, PhD, says this may give patients more time.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that would withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization. Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina and TPR's Bonnie Petrie talk about whether Trump's concerns are valid and what the U.S. could lose if it leaves.

Pelvic health disorders can disrupt women's quality of life. The conditions might be considered common and inevitable, but they should not be ignored.

A San Antonio sleep disorder and PTSD researcher uses cognitive behavioral therapy to reduce the frequency and intensity of nightmares.

Plants-2-Plate is a six-month program that helps people adopt a whole food, plant-based diet.