President’s Message

Accelerating Brain Research to Improve Treatment

Scientists and clinicians at the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute improved care for patients with neurodegenerative diseases and injuries this past year through innovative research in areas such as regenerative medicine, biomarker identification, and personalized therapy.

• Welcome to the future of brain science
• Extensive screening effort identifies genes behind sleep disorder
• Regenerating hope for spinal cord injuries
• The future of depression treatment – in a drop of blood
• Saving Ryan: A story of hope, persistence, and medical ingenuity
• Epilepsy facility enhances ability to diagnose, treat seizures
• UTSW leads groundbreaking effort to monitor youth concussions

Making Inroads Against Cancer

Armed with the latest technology, UT Southwestern oncologists and scientists are taking aim at cancer by using the world’s best radiation oncology machinery, developing innovative nanoparticle-based immunotherapies, and investigating new diagnostic tools based on bioinformatics.

• Fighting cancer with the world's best radiation oncology treatments
• It's all in the numbers: Bioinformatics computer model predicts most aggressive forms of lung cancers
• Illuminating cancer: New pH threshold sensor improves cancer surgery
• Cyclotron-produced radiotracer enables cancer metabolism imaging
• Nanoparticle vaccine shows promise as cancer immunotherapy

Achieving Breakthroughs in Heart, Transplant Medicine

Heart and transplant medicine specialists are pushing the envelope to achieve new breakthroughs in patient care, from investigating ways to potentially one day regenerate heart muscle in humans to tackling the toughest surgical cases by using innovative, challenging techniques.

• A minimally traumatizing surgery for a maximum-risk heart
• UTSW study calls out differences in heart disease for women
• Check out these tests – they may save your life
• First heart-liver transplant at UTSW saves singer's life
• Low oxygen: The potential key to heart regeneration
• A cancer drug with unique heart regenerative potential
• Putting a mechanical pump to the regenerative test

Positioning UT Southwestern for the Future

UT Southwestern continued to expand this past year, breaking ground on an addition to the William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital as part of an $875 million facilities improvement project, while also increasing the size and scope of its clinical, educational, and research programs.

• Southwestern Health Resources evolves, joins ACO to offer next generation of coordinated, quality care
• Population health turns lens on the continuum of care in North Texas
• Clerkship phase gives medical students earlier patient care exposure
• Clements University Hospital, West Campus expand to meet needs
• UTSW earns 'Best Hospital' rating
• UTSW Monty and Tex Moncrief Medical Center at Fort Worth opens
• UTSW's community-based care initiative grows
• Innovation, personal touch hallmarks of new Radiation Oncology building

Advancing Science and Medicine

Exceptional scientific achievements this past year included discovery of a link between obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, identification of a gene that limits the desire to drink alcohol, and solution of 3-D protein structures using advanced microscopy

• A national effort to understand acute liver failure – two decades and 3,000 study participants later
• Unraveling the mysteries behind America’s No. 1 cause of acute liver failure
• Obesity amplifies genetic risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease
• Zeroing in on a gene that limits the desire to drink alcohol
• Using 3-D weapons of science to fight infectious diseases
• Searching for chinks in pathogens’ armor
• About technology development
• Potential treatment for fatal, incurable kidney disease being developed