Texas university awards $4 million for groundbreaking Alzheimer’s research

brainy research

The international prize winners include University of Texas alum and associate professor Bess Frost, Ph.D. UT Health San Antonio/Facebook

It’s a bittersweet moment, commending competitive research achievements in Alzheimer’s disease. On June 8, the University of Texas at San Antonio acknowledged some of the top contributions internationally to our collective understanding of how the degenerative disease starts. The Oskar Fischer Prize awards a total of $4 million, divided into gold, silver, and bronze categories.

“Over the past two years, UTSA has worked closely with a broad group of advisers from the scientific, business and public policy realms to evaluate a large number of visionary ideas,” said UTSA College of Sciences Dean David Silva in a press release. “This partnership demonstrates our leadership to further society’s understanding of the causes of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The gold prize ($500,000) goes to four finalists, two of which are in the United States, including one in San Antonio. Italy’s Carlo Abbate, Ph.D., theorizes that Alzheimer’s starts in neural stem cells while new neurons are formed, and Spain’s Estela Area-Gomez, Ph.D., theorizes that it’s a lipid disorder relating to the regulation of cholesterol metabolism. Ralph A. Nixon, Ph.D., M.D., represents Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, and posits that an error in cleaning out waste in the brain leads to a toxic accumulation. Finally, and closest to home representing UTSA, Bess Frost, Ph.D. believes the issue is with DNA restructuring, which causes issues in cell identity and eventually cell death.

Frost’s personal statement through UTSA Health anchors her work to new research in tau, a protein and “a key pathological player in Alzheimer’s disease and other tauopathies.” Her laboratory makes discoveries in fruit flies, and compares those findings to post-mortem human specimens. Now an associate professor, she initially received her bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Texas at Austin.

The silver prize ($400,000) goes to Germany’s Bernd Moosmann, Ph.D. and Canada’s Donald Weaver, M.D. Bronze prize recipients ($300,000) are Sweden’s Gunnar K. Gouras, M.D. and three working in America: Annelise E. Barron, Ph.D. at Stanford University, Varghese John, Ph.D. at University of California, Los Angeles, and Russell Swerdlow, M.D. at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

“Despite a century and tens of billions of dollars spent on Alzheimer’s Disease research, no definitive explanation for a cause has been found,” said Texas businessman James Truchard, whose philanthropic contribution established this prize, in the release. “The Prize’s goal is to bring forth ideas which can create a foundation for future research. While no single entry covered all the major aspects of Alzheimer’s, I believe a combination of these ideas creates a launchpad for future research.”

June is Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month through the Alzheimer's Association, which is organizing a worldwide fundraising day on June 21, “The Longest Day.” It estimates that Alzheimer’s or another dementia is the cause of death in one in three seniors, and more than 11 million people in America are providing care for patients with dementia.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Austin company to bring AI-powered school to The Woodlands

AI education

Austin-based Alpha School, which operates AI-powered private schools, is opening its first Houston-area location in The Woodlands.

The 8,000-square-foot school, scheduled to be ready for the 2026-27 academic year, initially will serve students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Alpha says the school will offer “open workshop spaces and innovative classrooms that support personalized instruction, core academics, leadership development, and real-world life skills.”

Alpha sets aside two hours each school day for the AI-driven, self-paced study of core subjects like math, reading and science. The rest of each school day consists of life-skills workshops focusing on topics such as leadership and financial literacy.

Alpha’s school in The Woodlands has begun accepting applications for the 2026-27 school year. Annual tuition costs $40,000.

“The Woodlands is one of the most dynamic, forward-thinking communities in Texas, and Alpha is proud to bring

an innovative educational model that complements its strong academic foundation,” says Rachel Goodlad, head

of expansion for Alpha.

Founded in 2014, Alpha School combines adaptive technology-driven instruction with immersive life-skills workshops. Its model emphasizes mastery-based learning in core subjects alongside development of communication, critical thinking, financial literacy and leadership skills. It operates more than 15 schools across the country.

Elsewhere in Texas, Alpha operates schools in Austin, Brownsville, Fort Worth and Plano. Alpha also operates 12 Texas Sports Academy campuses in Texas, including locations in Houston, Pearland and Richmond, along with a NextGen Academy esports school in Austin, a school for gifted students in Georgetown, and lower-cost Nova Academy campuses in Austin and Bastrop.

Alpha has fans and critics. While supporters tout students’ high achievement rates, detractors complain about the high tuition and the AI-influenced depersonalization of education.

“Students and our country need to be in relationship with other human beings,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers union, tells The New York Times. “When you have a school that is strictly AI, it is violating that core precept of the human endeavor and of education.”

Alpha co-founder MacKenzie Price, a podcaster and social media influencer, doesn’t share Weingarten’s views.

“Parents and teachers: We need to embrace this change,” Price wrote after President Trump signed an executive order promoting AI in schools.

The Times notes that Alpha doesn’t employ AI as a tutor or a supplement. Rather, the newspaper says, AI is “the school’s primary educational driver to move students through academic content.”

Houston space tech co. lands $175M and more innovation news to know

Trending News

Editor's note: The top Houston innovation news for the month includes major fundraising rounds for two Houston scaleups and local inductees into the National Academy of Inventors. Here are the five most-read InnovationMap headlines from March 1-15, 2026:

1. Intuitive Machines secures $175M equity investment to fuel growth

Intuitive Machines has landed a $175 million investment as it looks secure satellite deals and develop space-based data centers. Photo courtesy Intuitive Machines.

Houston-based space infrastructure and services company Intuitive Machines has secured a $175 million equity investment from unidentified institutional investors. The investors received shares of Class A stock in exchange for their funding. Publicly held Intuitive Machines (Nasdaq: LUNR) says it plans to use the capital to help build revenue and invest in technology, including communications and data-processing networks. Continue reading.

2. Houston e-commerce giant Cart.com raises $180M, surpasses $1B in funding

Cart.com has raised $180 million to scale its logistics network, expand AI capabilities and develop workflow automation tools. Photo courtesy of Cart.com

Houston-based commerce and logistics platform Cart.com has raised $180 million in growth capital from private equity firm Springcoast Partners, pushing the startup past the $1 billion funding mark since its founding in 2020. Cart.com says it will use the capital to scale its logistics network, expand AI capabilities and develop workflow automation tools. Continue reading.

3. Houston leads Texas with 7 new National Academy of Inventors senior members

The University of Houston has more faculty named to this year’s senior member class of the National Academy of Inventors than any other Texas institution. Photos courtesy UH.

The University of Houston is now home to seven new senior members of the National Academy of Inventors. According to UH, its seven new members represent the largest group from any single Texas institution this year, bringing the university's total senior member count to 46. Continue reading.

4. Booming Houston suburb launches innovation grant to attract startups

The City of Sugar Land is putting money on the table to support startups that relocate jobs to southwest Houston. Photo via Getty Images.

Think you’ve got a burgeoning startup? Consider moving it to southwest Houston. The City of Sugar Land announced the Sugar Land Starts Innovation Fund to support companies that move jobs to the area. Continue reading.

5. 6+ can't-miss Houston business and innovation events in March

From CERAWeek to H-Town Roundup, here's what not to miss this month and how to register. Photo courtesy of CERAWeek

March brings the return of some of Houston’s signature innovation events, plus insightful talks and celebrations in honor of Women's History Month. Here’s what not to miss and how to register. Continue reading.

Houston researcher secures $1.7M to develop drug for aggressive form of breast cancer

cancer research

A University of Houston researcher has joined a $3.2 million effort to develop a new drug designed to attack a cancer-driving protein commonly found in triple-negative breast cancer.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is one of the most difficult-to-treat forms of cancer and accounts for 10 percent to 15 percent of all breast cancer cases. The disease gets its name because tumors associated with it test negative for estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and excess HER2 protein, making it difficult to target. Due to this, TNBC is often treated with general chemotherapy, which can come with negative side effects and drug resistance, according to UH.

UH College of Pharmacy research associate professor Wei Wang is developing a drug that can target the disease more specifically. The drug will target MDM2, a protein often overproduced in TNBC that also contributes to faster tumor growth.

Wang is working on a team led by Wei Li, director of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Pharmacy’s Drug Discovery Center. She has received $1.7 million to support the research.

Wang and UH professor of pharmacology and toxicology Ruiwen Zhang have discovered a compound that can break down MDM2. In early laboratory models, the compound has shown the ability to shrink tumors.

Wang and Zhang will focus on understanding how the treatment works and monitoring its effectiveness in models that closely mirror human disease.

“We will study how the drug targets MDM2 and evaluate the most promising drug candidates to determine effective dosing, understand how the drug behaves in the body, compare it with existing treatments and assess early safety,” Wang said in a news release.

Li’s team at the University of Tennessee will be working on the chemistry and drug design end of the project.

“This work could lead to an entirely new class of therapies for triple-negative breast cancer,” Li added in the release. “We’re hopeful that by directly removing the MDM2 protein from cancer cells, we can help more patients respond to treatment regardless of their tumor type.”

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