Texas Medical Center

Rice bioengineer Isaac Hilton

Trailblazing Rice bioengineer is turning cells into disease fighters

Rice University bioengineer Isaac Hilton has been awarded an NIH Trailblazer Award to create synthetic circular DNA that can be used to reprogram cells as disease fighters.

bone

Rice, Baylor win defense grant to advance metastasis study

Rice University chemist Han Xiao and biologist Xiang Zhang at Baylor College of Medicine have won a $2.3 million Department of Defense grant to expand their efforts to halt bone cancer metastasis.

Sample trajectories of the paths traveled by fluorescently tagged Myxococcus xanthus cells that were aggregating in mounds. The trajectories are superimposed on a fluorescent image in which the aggregates appear white. (Image courtesy of C. Cotter/UGA)

When many act as one, data-driven models can reveal key behaviors

Data science approaches can reveal subtle clues about the origins of such collective behaviors as aggregation of bacteria.

Jacob Robinson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and a core faculty member of Rice's Neuroengineering Initiative, discussed research with U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (middle) and his wife, Tara Crenshaw(left), during a tour of neuroengineering research laboratories following Rep. Crenshaw's third annual Healthcare Innovation Summit July 23 at Rice's BioScience Research Collaborative.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw hosts health care summit, tours neuroengineering labs

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (left), R-Texas, hosted his third annual Healthcare Innovation Summit July 23 at Rice University's BioScience Research Collaborative (BRC) in conjunction with the university's Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering.

Graduate student Madison Royse demonstrates a laboratory setup for testing blood flow through 3D-printed hydrogel scaffolds for tissue engineering.

Rice team creating insulin-producing implant for Type 1 diabetes

Rice University bioengineers are using 3D printing and smart biomaterials to create an insulin-producing implant for Type 1 diabetics.

Scientists at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine are using pClick conjugation to create therapeutic antibodies that target bone cancers. The conjugate incorporates bisphosphonate molecules that bind to the bone hydroxyapatite matrix. (Credit: Baylor College of Medicine/Rice University)

Drug doubles down on bone cancer, metastasis

Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine develop an antibody conjugate called BonTarg that delivers drugs to bone tumors and inhibits metastasis.

Aerial image of the Texas Medical Center with the ENRICH office logo

Six Rice-TMC research teams earn seed grants

Rice's Educational and Research Initiatives for Collaborative Health has announced six seed grants for research collaborations between faculty from Rice and the Texas Medical Center.

Freshwater Hydra vulgaris, this one modified with green fluorescent proteins, is the focus of a study at Rice University that aims to define the connections between neurons and muscles that drive programmed behaviors in living animals. (Credit: Robinson Lab/Rice University)

Keck backs Rice bid to ‘build a brain’

A $1 million Keck Foundation grant will support work by Jacob Robinson to understand neural pathways.

Genome sequence data on a screen.

RAMBO speeds searches on huge DNA databases

Rice computer scientists are sending RAMBO to rescue genomic researchers who sometimes wait days or weeks for search results from enormous DNA databases.

silicone breast implants with rough and smooth surfaces

Study examines how breast implant surfaces affect immune response

Rice University bioengineers collaborated on a six-year study that systematically analyzed how the surface architecture of silicone breast implants influences adverse side effects.

Andrew Schaefer

NIH supports mathematical optimization of tumor treatment

A new strategy to reduce the side effects suffered by patients undergoing treatment for head and neck cancers now has the support of the National Institutes of Health.

A microcolony of Methylorubrum extorquens that survives by consuming methanol also produces formaldehyde as a necessary, but toxic, byproduct. Scientists at the University of Idaho and Rice University discovered the microbe also produces a sensor protein, EfgA, that keeps the toxin in check to protect the organism. Photo by Nkrumah Grant/University of Idaho

Bacteria have sensors to shut toxin down

Researchers at Rice University and the University of Idaho helped identify a protein that senses and binds to formaldehyde to tell cells that toxic formaldehyde is building up.

Crohn's Researcher

Engineered organism could diagnose Crohn's disease flareups

Rice University researchers have engineered a bacterium capable of diagnosing a human disease, a milestone in the field of synthetic biology.

CREST

Feds back probe of understudied gut nervous system

Rice University neurobiologist Rosa Uribe has won a five-year, $2 million R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how the enteric nervous system develops.

Photo of fresh vegetables and a sensor from a continuous glucose monitor

Wearable glucose monitors shed light on progression of Type 2 diabetes in Hispanic/Latino adults

In one of the first studies of its kind, medical and engineering researchers have shown wearable devices that continuously monitor blood sugar provide new insights into the progression of Type 2 diabetes among at-risk Hispanic/Latino adults.