News & Success Stories

UTSA COVID-19 Technology Licensing Guidelines

April 28th, 2020
For UTSA innovations that can be rapidly deployed and made widely available to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, UTSA endorses both of the following technology licensing guidelines established by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) and the consortium led by Stanford University.

‘A Long Time Coming’: Eastside Life Science Hub VelocityTX Set for February Launch

January 16th, 2020
In the works for more than two years, the Texas Research and Technology Foundation’s East Side incubator, known as VelocityTX, for life science startups is slated to open in February, according to the leadership behind the project.

Located in the former Merchants Ice building on East Houston Street, the building will house VelocityTX’s incubator program, a startup accelerator for Latin-American technology businesses looking to establish a North American presence, and space for education.

Researchers awarded $1.2M to study effects of AR-based medical training

January 13th, 2020
Researchers from the University of California Irvine (UCI) School of Medicine have received $1.2 million to study the potential psychological impact of augmented reality (AR) medical simulation training.

The two-year Assessment of the Psychological and Physiological Effects of Augmented Reality (APPEAR) study began in December 2019. The research team, through a partnership with Chenega Healthcare Services and MedCognition, will focus on how various AR prototypes for medical training affect the students using them.

Anson Ong elected fellow, biomaterials science and engineering

January 14th, 2020
Anson Ong, associate dean of administration and graduate programs in UTSA’s College of Engineering, has been elected to the International College of Fellows of Biomaterials Science and Engineering. He will be recognized at the World Biomaterials Congress in Glasgow in May.

UTSA Knowledge Enterprise closes out a successful year

January 22nd, 2020
Focused on driving San Antonio’s knowledge economy, UTSA’s Office of the Vice President for Research, Economic Development and Knowledge Enterprise closed out the year with economic growth increasing, research activity on campus thriving and research expenditures for fiscal year 2019 reaching an all-time high.

Bizios named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors

December 5th, 2019
Rena Bizios, Lutcher Brown Chair and professor of biomedical engineering at UTSA, has been elected a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

The honor recognizes Bizios for demonstrating a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.

Innovation Awards celebrate UTSA research and discovery

November 13th, 2019
UTSA’s Office of Commercialization and Innovation honored faculty, staff and student achievements on Tuesday at the university’s seventh annual Innovation Awards. The event celebrated 42 members of the research community for their contribution and the successful commercialization of novel ideas and inventions.

Can our muscles stay young even as we get old?

November 6th, 2019
We lose muscle as we get older. Period. No matter how much we exercise or diet, age-related muscle loss is a fact of life. Our strength typically tops out around age 35 and then starts to decline—slowly, at first, but accelerating in our later years.

UTSA to unlock the power of sulfur in future drug design

November 19th, 2019
Organosulfur compounds are widely present in our bodies and the natural environment. They are found in onions, shallots and even cauliflower. Medical research finds that when consumed, they can protect against cancer, heart disease and even diabetes. There is also evidence of these compounds’ antiviral and antibacterial uses. About a quarter of all pharmaceutical drugs currently use OSCs.

Engineering students to display innovations at Tech Symposium

November 25th, 2019
Seniors in UTSA’s College of Engineering will this week present their innovative student projects and research at the Tech Symposium. The event will showcase engineering senior design projects, which are the culmination of engineering undergraduate studies. The projects enable all engineering students in their senior year to apply the knowledge and skills accumulated throughout the program to design, develop and implement innovative and relevant engineering products.

Researcher studies osteoporotic bone fractures to rethink treatment

October 30th, 2019
About half of all women in the U.S. will suffer a bone fracture due to osteoporosis. For women, the incidence of this condition is greater than that of heart attack, stroke and breast cancer combined. Now, researchers at UTSA have received multimillion-dollar funding to reexamine bone mineral density, a measure of bone fracture risks, and another critical component in bone known as proteoglycans.

CPS Energy supports clean energy and grid cybersecurity research at UTSA

September 18th, 2019
Beginning in the Fall of 2019, faculty members at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) will conduct research to enhance green power generation and smart grid security. Through the strategic alliance between the Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute (TSERI) at UTSA and CPS Energy, three new projects totaling approximately $750,000 will focus on improving grid security and resilience, solar energy generation and more efficient technology for power generation.

Researchers to share innovations at Think Science and Discovery Day

August 8th, 2019
This weekend, the San Antonio community will get an up-close and hands-on look at some of the innovative research underway at UTSA at Think Science and Discovery Day. Presented by Texas Public Radio, the interactive exhibit will showcase some of the exciting scientific work and discoveries happening in San Antonio, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 10 in the Feik Family Rotunda at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

UTSA adds Master of Science in Biomedical Technology Commercialization

August 29th, 2019
The College of Engineering and College of Business at UTSA are collaborating to offer a joint Master of Science degree program in Biomedical Technology Commercialization, beginning in the Spring 2020 semester.

“With advances in biomedical technologies and the need to have diverse and interdisciplinary knowledge for commercialization of developed technologies and devices, this program is highly attractive to students who have an undergraduate degree in engineering, sciences, or business,” says Anson Ong, associate dean of Administration and Graduate Studies for the UTSA College of Engineering.

VPREDKE seeds innovation with $430,000 in funding to UTSA faculty

July 2nd, 2019
The UTSA Office of the Vice President for Research, Economic Development, and Knowledge Enterprise (VPREDKE) offers a variety of internal funding, specifically seed grants, to support and expand the knowledge enterprise. These awards are given annually to faculty members to explore new areas of research, expand scholarly works, work out new ideas, create new collaborations either in different or complementary fields, or obtain preliminary data and results that can be cited in applications for extramural funding, all to enhance the breadth of scholarly and creative activity on campus.

UTSA professor Francis Yoshimoto designs protein blockers to fight obesity and heart disease

July 10th, 2019
Almost four in 10 adult Americans are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What’s more alarming is that in the past two decades alone, in states such as Texas, the share of obesity among residents has tripled. If left unchecked, obesity can even lead to more serious problems including high blood pressure and deadly strokes.

UTSA contributes to UT System’s top 5 spot in the world for U.S. patents granted

June 26th, 2019
Once again, The University of Texas System (UT System) earned a top spot on the Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patents for 2018 and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) played a key role in the designation. UT System was ranked fifth this year and was the highest-ranked Texas institution on the list. Rounding out the top five rankings were the University of California System, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.

UTSA develops systems to construct power islands and live off the grid

June 13th, 2019
More than 3400 lightning strikes and damaging winds interrupted power to approximately 57,000 residents in San Antonio, TX on June 6, 2019. On the same weekend, California’s largest utility warned tens of thousands of people that they should prepare for extended blackouts due to extreme fire risk. Researchers at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) have proposed the development of islanded structures or homes that operate independently on solar microgrids without the need to tap into the central power grid.

San Antonio researchers check synthetic version of capsaicin — the heat in chile peppers — for cancer-killing effects

June 9th, 2019
It’s known for giving chile peppers their spice, causing a burning sensation in any tissue it comes in contact with. But the properties of capsaicin could have a deeper significance. The relationship between pain and capsazepine, a synthetic version of the naturally occurring compound, was what led San Antonio researchers to study whether it could be used to combat oral and other types of cancer.

UTSA spinout receives global honor for innovation

April 15th, 2019
Leaptran, a spinout from The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), has been designated a Smart 50 awardee. Organized in partnership with Smart Cities Connect (SCC), SCC Foundation and US Ignite, the annual Smart 50 Awards honor the world’s most innovative and influential smart cities projects. Leaptran CEO Jeff Xu accepted the award this month at the annual SCC Spring Conference & Expo in Denver.

“There is an increasing need for optimizing energy use in buildings, but every building has different equipment and energy needs. This award recognizes that Leaptran has created an adaptive product that solves this incredibly complex problem, which then saves businesses significant money,” says Christine Burke, director of the UTSA Office of Commercialization and Innovation.

Bernard Arulanandam inducted into National Academy of Inventors

April 9th, 2019
As a new Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Bernard Arulanandam, Jane and Roland Blumberg Professor in Biology at UTSA and the university’s interim vice president for research, economic development, and knowledge enterprise, will be inducted this week into this exclusive group. The honor recognizes Arulanandam for demonstrating a prolific spirit of innovation in creating and facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.

UTSA harnesses spin of electrons to power tech devices

April 3rd, 2019
Building on the Air Force’s need to develop tech devices that require minimal charging in the field, the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is using principles in quantum science and engineering to build a graphene-based logic device. This new technology will improve the energy efficiency of battery-dependent devices from cell phones to computers.

UTSA engineers are using spintronics, the study of an electron’s intrinsic quantum mechanical property called spin, to allow low-power operation with a possible application in quantum computing.

UTSA professors develop software to improve how companies train their data analysts

April 1st, 2019
H. Paul LeBlanc III, UTSA professor and chair of the UTSA Department of Communication, has been awarded a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help him further his research and market software that reduces the time corporations and organizations use to train data and analytics employees.

LeBlanc first introduced his prototype at the 11th Annual Innovations in Online Learning Conference in San Antonio in 2015. The project captured the attention of the UTSA Office of Commercialization and Innovation, which sponsored LeBlanc and his team, Leslie Doss, lecturer in the UTSA College of Business, and David Cortez ’16, UTSA communication graduate student, to travel to the Southwest Regional I-Corps workshop in Houston last summer.

UTSA chemist Banglin Chen receives prestigious Humboldt Research Award

March 25th, 2019
Banglin Chen, a highly prolific chemistry researcher at UTSA, has been awarded the distinguished Humboldt Research Award. The award recognizes a researcher’s entire achievements to date and is granted to academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories and insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline, and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future.

Chen, the Dean’s Distinguished Chair Professor of Chemistry, arrived at UTSA in 2009 and credits the warm weather, tenure position and a beautiful city of San Antonio as convincing his family to make the move.

UTSA engineers develop inexpensive, smart stop sign to improve driver safety

March 6th, 2019
It’s dark on the backroad as a motorist speeds toward the intersection. Up ahead, the stop sign blends with the night and in seconds a deadly crash occurs. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, more than half of all roadway fatalities occur on rural roads. Now engineers at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) are building and testing a low-cost, self-powered thermal system that will detect vehicles, improve the visibility of stop signs and prevent deaths.

This Houston biotech company hopes to one day fix your aging muscles

March 6th, 2019
Stan Watowich’s conversation flits with ease from restaurants to solving the homeless crisis. His active mind has made him a serial inventor. But the founder and current CEO of Ridgeline Therapeutics, a spin-off company of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston where he is an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, also has a razor-sharp focus when it comes to discussing his research. He wants to make it clear that he is not going to cure aging.

UTSA Year in Review, No. 1: UTSA enters Guinness World Records with smallest medical robot

December 31st, 2018
It can’t be seen with a human eye. It doesn’t look anything like C-3PO or R2-D2, or even BB-8. But, nevertheless, it is a robot (all 120nm of it) and its creators from The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) are now world record holders in the Guinness World Records for creating the Smallest Medical Robot.

The series of nanorobots was created by Soutik Betal during his doctoral research in Electrical Engineering under the guidance of professors Ruyan Guo and Amar S. Bhalla in the UTSA Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and they could one day lead to huge medical advancements.

UTSA honors researchers with Innovation Awards

December 5th, 2018
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Office of Commercialization and Innovation (OCI) honored original faculty, staff and student achievements at the university’s sixth annual Innovation Awards today. Forty-two members of the research community were celebrated for their contribution and the successful commercialization of novel ideas and inventions.

The culmination of the awards was the selection of John Quarles, UTSA associate professor of computer science as the 2018 Innovator of the Year. The award is based on a number of factors including technology disclosures, patent filings, issued patents, licenses, and overall innovation and ideation.

UTSA discovers how to make plastics cheaper and less energy intensive

October 25th, 2018
Researchers at UTSA have discovered a filtering material that may reduce the environmental cost of manufacturing plastic. The discovery was created by Libo Li, Ruibiao Lin, both post-doctoral students, and Professor Banglin Chen, Dean’s Distinguished Chair Professor of Chemistry and Microsoft President’s Endowed Professor at UTSA, along with other scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and China’s Taiyuan University of Technology. The scientific advance can extract the key ingredient in the most common form of plastic from a mixture of other chemicals – while consuming far less energy than usual.

UTSA professor’s creation could unmask malware attacks

October 1st, 2018
They still don’t know how long they had been planning the attack. Either way, the hackers with several strokes of a keyboard, unleashed a malware that hijacked the City of Atlanta’s computer systems. Mayor Keisha Laice Bottoms at the time called it a “hostage situation.” Sam Sam, the group thought to be the masterminds behind the attack, now demanded thousands of dollars in bitcoins or they would continue to freeze access to databases and cripple key departments in the city.

Information management teams caught off guard as to when the infiltration occurred now scrambled to contain the damage. Atlanta, a major global transportation hub, became a victim of one of the largest ransomware attacks in a U.S. city within a matter of moments.

UTSA researchers develop tools to prepare for chemical attacks

September 10th, 2018
It was morning in Khan Sheikhoun, a small rural town in the north of Syria. Residents went about their lives when up above jets crossed the skies. Suddenly, a deadly plume of sarin gas descended upon the people. The mortal cloud spread about six miles wide and asphyxiated more than 80 residents while injuring close to 600 more.

On that day, April 4, 2017, that town became known as the site of the most violent chemical attack in recent history. And while many in the international community were horrified by the incident, a group of UTSA researchers wasted no time to learn how to protect others from a similar fate.

San Antonio Startup Making Noise-Reducing Tech for Babies Adds $1.3M

September 13th, 2018
Invictus Medical, which develops products for newborn babies, and says it added almost $1.3 million in new funding to continue developing a device that aims to help create a quiet, peaceful environment for infants in neonatal intensive care units.

Invictus plans to use the new funding to bring the technology to the point of commercialization after further testing of the device, which detects sound waves from ambient noise and generates an oppositional wave of its own to change the noise that would come into an incubator, according to Invictus CEO George Hutchinson.

UTSA researcher receives $1.9 million HHS grant to develop anti-fungal vaccine

July 23rd, 2018
Chiung-Yu Hung, assistant professor of biology at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), has received a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to support her efforts to create a vaccine for fungal infections.

Unlike bacteria or viruses, there is currently no vaccine available for any type of fungal infection. Fungi are more complex organisms, containing far more components, which makes developing an effective vaccine to battle them much more difficult than efforts to combat a virus or bacterial infection..

The Key to A Clean Energy Economy? Incubators, Deals, & Attention

June 28th, 2018
Businesses and individual consumers are increasingly tapping into solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources, in part thanks to the scientists and engineers who are developing new and more efficient ways of utilizing these energy sources.

Renewables accounted for about 11 percent of overall energy consumption in the U.S. in 2017, up from 9.9 percent two years earlier, according to the Energy Information Administration. Cities across the country, including San Antonio, are trying to benefit from the burgeoning “new energy” economy, hoping to draw benefits like investment capital and jobs that come from more businesses opting to use renewable energy..

UTSA researchers create method that can quickly and accurately detect infections

June 11th, 2018
A new study by Waldemar Gorski, professor and chair of the UTSA Department of Chemistry, and Stanton McHardy, associate professor of research in chemistry and director of the UTSA Center for Innovative Drug Discovery, describes a method that could show quickly and accurately whether a person has been infected with harmful bacteria or other pathogens. Additionally, this new method shows the exact severity of infection in a person.

This new study was also covered by the Rivard Report and the article can be viewed here.

San Antonio Startup Leaptran Develops Machine-Learning Energy Tech

March 26th, 2018
A pair of San Antonio researchers have created a startup that aims to reduce the cost of energy consumption for commercial buildings using solar power and machine learning technology.

Called Leaptran, the young startup plans to help commercial building owners, such as at a university or warehouse, use solar panels to soak up and store energy in batteries for potential future use. The company says its software can help the building owner predict how much power the building will use and when—based on data analytics of previous usage—which is especially useful when utilities face high levels of power consumption and charge higher rates. Leaptran’s co-founders believe the businesses or owners of the commercial buildings can then switch their power usage from the utility to the energy saved and stored in its batteries.

Q&A: Lyle Hood, UTSA Department of Mechanical Engineering

March 6th, 2018
Lyle Hood is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He specializes in designing innovative medical devices.

Among his designs are a laser needle for treating cancer that can do the work of both a cutting-edge surgical needle and a medical laser, giving it the ability to eradicate cancerous tumors while also delivering chemotherapy drugs.

UTSA researchers want to teach computers to learn like humans

March 5th, 2018
A new study by Paul Rad, assistant director of the UTSA Open Cloud Institute, and Nicole Beebe, Melvin Lachman Distinguished Professor in Entrepreneurship and director of the UTSA Cyber Center for Security and Analytics, describes a new cloud-based learning platform for artificial intelligence (A.I.) that teaches machines to learn like humans.

This new study was also covered by Newsweek and the article can be viewed here.