MD Anderson has tapped an innovative new company to improve the efficacy of cancer treatments. Photo via mdanderson.org

The sad reality is that not every cancer responds to medication, but a new collaboration is taking steps to close the gaps for scores of patients who were previously left without a clear solution.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Nexo Therapeutics announced last week that they are collaborating, a move that could lead to the discovery of therapies that could work for patients with limited treatment options.

The Colorado- and Massachusetts-based company joins forces with Houston’s cancer-fighting powerhouse after emerging from stealth with a $60 million series A.

“For many cancer patients, there are no therapies that target the fundamental drivers of their disease,” says Nexo’s founder and CEO, Andrew Phillips, in a press release. He goes on to say that the company’s innovations in covalent chemistry and chemical biology, along with cancer biology and medical chemistry allows it to advance novel therapies.

But in order to get the drugs that Nexo creates onto the market, it is taking advantage of MD Anderson’s first-rate translational research and expertise in drug development. Specifically, Nexo will work with MD Anderson’s TRACTION (Translational Research to AdvanCe Therapeutics and Innovation in ONcology) platform. The pairing will allow the two bodies to accelerate the development of small-molecule therapies through drug-enabling studies.

“Together with Nexo’s innovative platform, our integrated approach to translational research and drug development is poised to design and rapidly advance novel therapies against high priority oncology targets,” says Tim Heffernan vice president of Oncology Research for TRACTION at MD Anderson, in a press release. “This collaboration highlights our commitment to advancing innovative new medicines that address critical unmet needs for our patients.”

TRACTION is part of MD Anderson’s Therapeutics Discovery Division. It combines a team of doctors, researchers, and drug development specialists to bring therapies from discovery to clinical trials. TRACTION researchers will work with Nexo to identify cancers that might be susceptible to their treatments, then find strategies to target them, and finally use biomarkers to help optimize patient selection.

Nexo will help to provide funding to support this research and will retain rights to programs under the collaboration, and will take sole responsibility for development, manufacturing, and commercialization. Meanwhile, MD Anderson may receive royalties and future payments based on milestones as they are obtained. But the real reward will be treating patients who were previously low on options.

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Rice University MBA programs rank among top 5 in prestigious annual report

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Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business MBA programs have been ranked among the top five in the country again in The Princeton Review’s 2025 Best Business Schools rankings.

The university's MBA program in finance earned a No. 3 ranking, climbing up two spots from its 2024 ranking. Finance MBA programs at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business and New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business were the only ones to outrank Rice, claiming No. 2 and No. 1 spots, respectively.

Rice's online MBA program was ranked No. 5, compared to No. 4 last year. Indiana University's Bloomington Kelley School of Business' online program claimed the top spot.

“These rankings reflect the commitment of our faculty and staff, the drive and talent of our students and the strong support of our alumni and partners,” Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business, said in a news release. “They are exceptional honors but also reminders — not just of our top-tier programs and world-class faculty and students but of our broader impact on the future of business education.”

Rice also ranked at No. 6 for “greatest resources for minority students."

The Princeton Review’s 2025 business school rankings are based on data from surveys of administrators at 244 business schools as well as surveys of 22,800 students enrolled in the schools’ MBA programs during the previous three academic years.

"The schools that made our lists for 2025 share four characteristics that inform our criteria for designating them as 'best': excellent academics, robust experiential learning components, outstanding career services, and positive feedback about them from enrolled students we surveyed," Rob Franek, The Princeton Review's editor-in-chief, said in a press release. "No b-school is best overall or best for all students, but to all students considering earning an MBA, we highly recommend these b-schools and salute them for their impressive programs."

Rice's finance program has ranked in the top 10 for eight consecutive years, and its online MBA has ranked in the top five for four years.

Rice and the University of Houston also claimed top marks on the Princeton Review's entrepreneurship rankings. Rice ranks as No. 1 on the Top 50 Entrepreneurship: Grad list, and the University of Houston ranked No. 1 on Top 50 Entrepreneurship: Ugrad. Read more here.

Houston named ‘star’ metro for artificial intelligence in new report

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A new report declares Houston one of the country’s 28 “star” hubs for artificial intelligence.

The Houston metro area appears at No. 16 in the Brookings Institution’s ranking of metros that are AI “stars.” The metro areas earned star status based on data from three AI buckets: talent, innovation and adoption. Only two places, the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, made Brookings’ “superstar” list.

According to Brookings, the Houston area had 11,369 job postings in 2024 that sought candidates with AI skills, 210 AI startups (based on Crunchbase data from 2014 to 2024), and 113 venture capital deals for AI startups (based on PitchBook data from 2023 to 2024).

A number of developments are boosting Houston’s AI profile, such as:

Brookings also named Texas’s three other major metros as AI stars:

  • No. 11 Austin
  • No. 13 Dallas-Fort Worth
  • No. 40 San Antonio

Brookings said star metros like Houston “are bridging the gap” between the two superstar regions and the rest of the country. In 2025, the 28 star metros made up 46 percent of the country’s metro-area employment but 54 percent of AI job postings. Across the 28 metros, the number of AI job postings soared 139 percent between 2018 and 2025, according to Brookings.

Around the country, dozens of metros fell into three other categories on Brookings’ AI list: “emerging centers” (14 metros), “focused movers” (29 metros) and “nascent adopters” (79 metros).