Department of Molecular Biosciences, UT Austin

Announcing the recipient of the 2024 Award for Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience...Dr. Jason McLellan. Professor at the University of Texas as Austin and biologist focused on structure-based anti-viral design, including trailblazing innovations for RSV, SARS-CoV-2, Ebola. Congratulations Dr. McLellan. We look forward to celebrating your exceptional contributions.

McLellan The University of Texas at Austin

Persistent Strain of Cholera Defends Itself Against Forces of Change, Scientists Find In a new study, scientists have discovered how a deadly strain of cholera has persisted for more than 60 years.

Thank you to everyone who came out for our MBS Trailblazers of Tomorrow Postdoc Symposium!

Congratulations to all of the 2024 MBS Graduates! Your faculty enjoyed celebrating with you at graduation!!

If you love football, you wouldn't miss the NCAA Championship! If you love to sing, you wouldn't miss the Taylor Swift concert! Since you are a scientist, you wouldn't want to miss our Trailblazer for Tomorrow National Postdoctoral Symposium on May 20th of 2024 in NHB 1.720!

Top Prize Image in Visualizing Science Contest Captures Research Tied to the Sun The college’s Visualizing Science competition finalists include a simulation image of “space weather.”

Dr. Jason McLellan is honored to accept the 2024 Building the Foundation Award from Research!America.
https://www.researchamerica.org/advocacy-awards/2024-advocacy-awards/?sm_guid=Njg3MTM0fDI1NTUzMTcwfC0xfGtnb29kZUByZXNlYXJjaGFtZXJpY2Eub3JnfDY1OTM3NjV8fDB8MHwyMDE1NjcwNTN8OTUzfDB8MHx8NjgwODAzfDA1

Alzheimer’s Drug Fermented With Help From AI and Bacteria Moves Closer to Reality Scientists have harnessed bacteria, biosensors and artificial intelligence and are one step closer to fermenting an Alzheimer's drug.

Cancer Prevention, Screening and Research Programs Expanding With CPRIT Support AUSTIN, Texas — Patients across Texas stand to benefit from expanded breast and lung cancer detection and screening, research on HPV self-testing, and

A new paper by the McLellan Lab & collaborators published in Nature Communications: Prefusion-stabilized SARS-CoV-2 S2-only antigen provides protection against SARS-CoV-2 challenge.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38378768/

Scientists Uncover Technique to Cut Off Cancer’s Fuel Supply The discovery could lead to better treatments for acute myeloid leukemia in vulnerable populations.

McLellan Named Recipient of Award for Achievement in Public Health Jason McLellan has been named the recipient of a Research!America Advocacy Award for his work on COVID-19 vaccines

New research led by Everett Stone, an associate professor of oncology at Dell Medical School and research associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences, finds that a new, bio-inspired drug restores the effectiveness of immune cells in fighting cancer.

Cancer Drug Restores Immune System’s Ability to Fight Tumors Drug candidate developed by Everett Stone and his team is effective in mice with cancers of skin, bladder, blood and colon.

How Amphibious Plants Rewired a Gas Exchange Pathway to Survive in Water Just as humans cannot breathe underwater, the tiny pores of plants can't exchange air underwater. When grown on land, the amphibious plant Rorippa aquatica produces pores called stomata (left); but grown in water, it does not. Credit: Shuka Ikematsu.

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin built a synthetic pipeline for the design and discovery of new antibiotics aided by machine learning, yielding dozens of new drug candidates. Check out the new study in Science Advances:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade0008

—with Department of Molecular Biosciences, UT Austin

New research from the lab of Rasika Harshey reveals a new contributor to antibiotic-resistance in bacteria.

Dense Bacterial Populations Create Mutant Breeding Grounds for Antibiotic Resistance Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a global health threat and killed an estimated 1.27 million people in 2019. The overuse of antibiotic medication is often blamed for creating these deadly pathogens, but now scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have found a new contributor: bacterial swar...

Dr. Jeff Barrick and his students are doing some great work!

UT students trying to save Central Texas bats from infection A group of students from the University of Texas at Austin are participating in an international biology competition known as iGEM.

New research from the Ellington lab could improve drug manufacturing, making it cheaper and more efficient.

Scientists Hijack Bacteria To Ease Drug Manufacturing ​For more affordable, sustainable drug options than we have today, the medication we take to treat high blood pressure, pain or memory loss may one day come from engineered bacteria, cultured in a vat like yogurt. And thanks to a new bacterial tool developed by scientists at The University of Texa...

Another proud moment for the Department of Molecular Biosciences, UT Austin!

Jason McLellan Named Finalist for Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists University of Texas at Austin molecular biosciences professor Jason McLellan was selected as a finalist for the 2022 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists.

Sanchita Bhadra, a research scientist in the Department of Molecular Biosciences and the lab of Andy Ellington, has developed a process that could revolutionize the way laboratories, hospitals and medical clinics in low-resource and remote locations get the components they need.

Dried Bacteria Could Revolutionize Testing, Laboratory Science When you think of the type of labs driving biomedical discoveries, you may envision beakers and test tubes filled with a rainbow of chemicals, where much of the magic of scientific experimentation takes place. However, those chemicals are expensive. Pure forms can be difficult to manufacture, ship a...

We are celebrating 2022 👩🏾‍🔬👩‍🔬👩🏻‍🔬👩🏼‍🔬👩🏿‍🔬
See our diverse faculty members.

Did you know last year’s Visualizing Science winning image was from UT Molecular Biosciences? Let’s see if we can make two years in a row! Submit your science images at txsci.net/vissci for a chance at the $1000 first prize!

We’re very proud of Dr. Torii!

Keiko Torii Receives Asahi Prize University of Texas at Austin professor of molecular biosciences Keiko Torii has won the Asahi Prize from the Asahi Shimbun Foundation in recognition of her breakthroughs on growth control of plants and the development mechanism of stomata.

Happy to report that molecular biosciences researchers feature heavily in this round-up of the top 16 science stories of 2021 from the College of Natural Sciences, UT Austin!

Texas Science Stories that Wowed Us in 2021 While for many 2021 may have felt like it lasted a few years, it was in fact just 12 months—and University of Texas at Austin scientists and researchers managed to pack a ton of new discoveries into that time. From the furthest reaches of the cosmos to the depths of the ocean and from the tiniest ...

Professor Shelley Payne, Director of the LaMontagne Center for Infectious Disease at UT, recently discussed the Omicron variant with Healthline.

The Omicron Variant and COVID-19 Reinfection Risk: What We Know Preliminary results from lab studies were released this week showing that the Omicron coronavirus variant is able to evade some of the protection against infection offered by COVID-19 vaccines.

We’re proud to announce that our own Dr. Jason McLellan has been awarded the 2022 Edith and Peter O'Donnell Award in Medicine from The Academy of Medicine, Engineering & Science of Texas (TAMEST)!

More at txsci.net/3yf9Gwg

TAMEST 2022 O'Donnell Award in Medicine: Jason McLellan, Ph.D. Jason McLellan, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Biosciences at The University of Texas at Austin, is the recipient of the 2022 Edith and ...

Protein Puzzles
MBS Assistant Professor David Taylor's HornRaiser project

Protein Puzzles App Help HornRaiser raise $30,000 for the project: Protein Puzzles App. Your gift will make a difference!

Our own Dr. Jason McLellan helped design a key part of several COVID-19 vaccines. Now he and his colleagues are using the same approach to tackle another disease with high mortality and no approved treatments: Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever.

Breakthrough in Fight on Tick-Borne CCHF Virus is Latest Use of New Strategy Against Diseases A 3D atomic map, or structure, of the Gc protein (red and yellow) bound to two antibodies (green, blue and white) produced by a recovered patient. The Gc protein is a key molecule on the surface of the CCHF virus enabling it to infect cells. Credit: Akaash Mishra/University of Texas at Austin Using....

We’re very proud of Dr. Janice Fischer for winning a University of Texas System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award! Not only is she one of our professors, she is also the director for the Biology Instructional Office at The University of Texas at Austin.

Molecular Biosciences Professor Honored for Outstanding Teaching Janice Fischer, professor of molecular biosciences and director of the Biology Instructional Office at The University of Texas at Austin, has won a UT System Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award.