7 Houston-area hospitals receive first doses of COVID-19 vaccine

CORONAVIRUS NEWS

Front-line and health care workers will get the vaccine first. Photo by Dwight C. Andrews/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Four sites in Texas received the COVID-19 vaccine on December 14, part of a rollout of doses being shipped out across the U.S.

Texas received 19,500 doses, with another 250,000 doses being distributed to 109 facilities in Texas this week.

According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, the first four sites to get it were:

MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston
Methodist Dallas Medical Center
Wellness 360 at UT Health San Antonio
UT Health Austin's Dell Medical School

Another 75,000 doses will be delivered on December 15 to 19 sites in Texas:

Houston, Texas Children's Hospital Main
Houston, LBJ Hospital
Houston, CHI St. Luke's Health
Houston, Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center
Houston, Houston Methodist Hospital
Houston, Ben Taub General Hospital
Galveston, University of Texas Medical Branch Hospital
Amarillo, Texas Tech Univ. Health Science Center Amarillo
Corpus Christi, Christus Spohn Health System Shoreline
Dallas, Parkland Hospital
Dallas, UT Southwestern
Edinburg, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance
Edinburg, UT Health RGV Edinburg
El Paso, University Medical Center El Paso
Fort Worth, Texas Health Resources Medical Support
Lubbock, Covenant Medical Center
San Angelo, Shannon Pharmacy
Temple, Baylor Scott and White Medical Center

Health care and front-line workers will receive the vaccine first. Officials are still working out the timeline but the general public is not expected to get the vaccine until spring 2021 at the earliest.

Dr. Paul Klotman, president of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said in a press conference that getting vaccinated is helpful to both individuals and their communities.

"The thing about everyone pitching in, do it for yourself because it will help protect you, but when you get the herd immunity it will help protect people who are unable medically to get the vaccine," Klotman said.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

This week's Houston innovators to know includes Sola Lawal of Nuro, Jose Diaz-Gomez of CHI St. Luke's Health, and Kimberly Baker of UT School of Public Health. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: A key attribute of innovators and inventors is the ability to look forward — to see the need for their innovation and the difference it will make. Each of this week's innovators to know have that skill, whether it's predicting the rise of autonomous vehicles or seeing the future of health care.

Sola Lawal, product operations manager at Nuro

Autonomous vehicle delivery service is driving access to food in Houston’s vulnerable communities

Native Houstonian Sola Lawal is looking into how AI and robotics can help increase access to fresh foods in local food deserts. Photo courtesy of Nuro

Sola Lawal has always found himself back in his hometown of Houston. Now working for artificial intelligence and robotics company, Nuro, he sees the potential Houston has to become a major market for autonomous vehicles.

"I think that autonomous vehicles are going to become an industry in the same way your standard vehicles are," Lawal says."One really strong way the Houston ecosystem and Nuro can partner is essentially building out the ancillary."

Lawal shared more on how Houston and Nuro can work together on this week's episode of the Houston innovators podcast. Read more and stream the episode.

Jose Diaz-Gomez, an anesthesiologist at CHI St. Luke's Health

CHI St. Luke's Health has invested in around 40 of the Butterfly iQ devices that can be used to provide accurate and portable ultrasonography on COVID-19 patients. Photo courtesy of CHI St. Luke's

A new, portable ultrasound device has equipped Jose Diaz-Gomez and his team with a reliable, easy-to-use tool for diagnostics and tracking progress of COVID-19 patients. And this tool will continue to help Diaz-Gomez lead his team of physicians.

"Whatever we will face after the pandemic, many physicians will be able to predict more objectively when a patient is deteriorating from acute respiratory failure," he says. "Without this innovation, we wouldn't have been able to be at higher standards with ultrasonography." Read more.

Kimberly A. Baker, assistant professor at UTHealth School of Public Health

UTHealth School of Public Health launched its Own Every Piece campaign to promote women's health access and education. Photo courtesy of Own Every Piece

It was unnerving to Kimberly Baker that proper sex education wasn't in the curriculum of Texas schools, and women were left without resources for contraceptives. So, along with UTHealth School of Public Health, she launched its Own Every Piece campaign as a way to empower women with information on birth control and ensure access to contraceptive care regardless of age, race, relationship status or socioeconomic status.

"You feel like the campaign is talking to you as a friend, not talking down to you as an authority or in any type of shaming way," says Kimberly A. Baker, assistant professor at UTHealth School of Public Health. One of her favorite areas of the website is the "Find a Clinic" page, connecting teens and adult women to nearby clinics, because "one of the biggest complaints from women is that they didn't know where to go," says Baker. Continue reading.

CHI St. Luke's Health has invested in around 40 of the Butterfly iQ devices that can be used to provide accurate and portable ultrasonography on COVID-19 patients. Photo courtesy of CHI St. Luke's

Houston hospital taps new tech to provide more accurate COVID-19 diagnostics and treatment

hand held

With such a dynamic virus like COVID-19 that affects patients with different levels of severity, the first challenge doctors face when treating infected patients is assessing the situation. CHI St. Luke's Health has been implementing a new technology that allows its physicians better access to that initial diagnosis.

Dr. Jose Diaz-Gomez, an anesthesiologist at CHI St. Luke's Health and ultrasonography expert, says the Butterfly iQ's portable ultrasonography technology has been a key tool in his team's point of care for COVID-19 patients. Over the past few years, ultrasonography equipment has been evolving to be more portable and more accurate. That's what the Butterfly iQ technology provides, and Diaz-Gomez says his team was quick to realize how the technology can help in diagnostics and treatment of coronavirus patients.

A traditional approach to examining a patient's lungs would mean radiography, but Diaz-Gomez says his team saw the opportunity ultrasonography and these new, portable devices had on providing more accurate and timely diagnostics.

"In conditions that are dynamic, you want to have a diagnostic tool that, over time as you're treating a patient, you can see meaningful changes — good or bad," Diaz-Gomez says. "The pandemic has enabled us to use — from the initial care to when they are on the ventilator — ultrasonography to see the changes in the patient's' lungs."

Jose Diaz-Gomez is an anesthesiologist at CHI St. Luke's. Photo courtesy of CHI St. Luke's

The Butterfly iQ device is different from its ultrasound predecessors in that it's built to be more accurate, portable, easy to use, and low cost (even being made available for commercial purchase). According to Diaz-Gomez, he could train someone on the device in just a few hours.

Ahead of the pandemic, CHI St. Luke's had 20 of these devices and now has doubled that initial fleet. Along with the other non-Butterfly iQ ultrasonography devices, Diaz-Gomez's team has access to 70 ultrasonography devices — 80 percent of which are dedicated to COVID-19 patients.

"Our institution was very supportive of bringing a very robust roll-out program for point-of-care ultrasonography during the pandemic," Diaz-Gomez says. "We were able to incorporate 40 ultrasound devices — the Butterfly system. Not only that, we actually implemented a very rigorous infection control process to make sure we do it in a safe manner. You don't want to bring tools that will be another source of transmission from patient to patient."

While this new technology is continuing to make a difference in St. Luke's COVID units, Diaz-Gomez is already looking forward to the difference the devices will make post pandemic.

The device, with its portability, low cost, and ease of use, also has an application for telemedicine and at-home health, and that's something that's exciting for Diaz-Gomez. However, both in his COVID units or in the home setting, the device is only as good as the clinician who's interpreting the images paired with the other diagnostics.

"The integration of ultrasonography with the clinical practice itself — it has to go hand in hand," Diaz-Gomez says. "The clinical decision will depend on that integration."

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Houston humanoid robotics startup inks new deal to deploy its rugged robots

big deal

Houston-based Persona AI announced the expansion of its operations at the Ion and a major milestone in deploying its humanoid robots.

The company will establish a state-of-the-art development center in the prominent corner suite on the first floor of the Ion, and is slated to begin expansion in June.

“We chose the Ion because it’s more than just a building — it’s a thriving innovation ecosystem,” CEO Nicolaus Radford said in a news release. “This is where Houston’s tech future is being built. It’s a convergence point for the people, energy, and ideas that power our mission to redefine human-machine collaboration. For an industrial, AI-driven robotics company, there’s no better place to scale than in the heart of Houston.”

Persona AI’s new development center will be located in the suite utilized by the Ion Prototyping Lab, managed by TXRX Labs. The IPL will transition its operations to the expanded TXRX facility in the East End Maker Hub, which will allow the lab to grow its team and meet increased demand.

At the start of the year, Persona AI closed $25 million in pre-seed funding. Earlier this month, the company announced a memorandum of understanding with HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, HD Hyundai Robotic, and Korean manufacturing firm Vazil Company to create and deploy humanoid robots for complex welding tasks in shipyards.

The project will deliver prototype humanoids by the end of 2026, with field testing and full commercial deployment scheduled to begin in 2027.

"As heavy industry faces growing labor constraints—especially in high-risk trades like welding—the need for rugged, autonomous humanoid robots is more urgent than ever,” Radford added in a separate statement. “This partnership with HD Hyundai and Vazil is more than symbolic—deploying to the shipyard is one of the largest real-world proving grounds for Persona's tough, humanoid robots.”

Houston climatech co. to lead one of world's largest carbon capture projects

Big Deal

Houston-based CO2 utilization company HYCO1 has signed a memorandum of understanding with Malaysia LNG Sdn. Bhd., a subsidiary of Petronas, for a carbon capture project in Malaysia, which includes potential utilization and conversion of 1 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The project will be located in Bintulu in Sarawak, Malaysia, where Malaysia LNG is based, according to a news release. Malaysia LNG will supply HYCO1 with an initial 1 million tons per year of raw CO2 for 20 years starting no later than 2030. The CCU plant is expected to be completed by 2029.

"This is very exciting for all stakeholders, including HYCO1, MLNG, and Petronas, and will benefit all Malaysians," HYCO1 CEO Gregory Carr said in the release. "We approached Petronas and MLNG in the hopes of helping them solve their decarbonization needs, and we feel honored to collaborate with MLNG to meet their Net Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050.”

The project will convert CO2 into industrial-grade syngas (a versatile mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen) using HYCO1’s proprietary CUBE Technology. According to the company, its CUBE technology converts nearly 100 percent of CO2 feed at commercial scale.

“Our revolutionary process and catalyst are game changers in decarbonization because not only do we prevent CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere, but we transform it into highly valuable and usable downstream products,” Carr added in the release.

As part of the MoU, the companies will conduct a feasibility study evaluating design alternatives to produce low-carbon syngas.

The companies say the project is expected to “become one of the largest CO2 utilization projects in history.”

HYCO1 also recently announced that it is providing syngas technology to UBE Corp.'s new EV electrolyte plant in New Orleans. Read more here.

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This story originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Texas tops ranking of best states for investors in new report

by the numbers

Texas ranks third on a new list of the best states for investors and startups.

Investment platform BrokerChooser weighed five factors to come up with its ranking:

2024 Google search volume for terms related to investing
Number of investors
Number of businesses receiving investments in 2024
Total amount of capital invested in businesses in 2024
Percentage change in amount of investment from 2019 to 2024

Based on those figures, provided mostly by Crunchbase, Texas sits at No. 3 on the list, behind No. 1 California and No. 2 New York.

Especially noteworthy for Texas is its investment total for 2024: more than $164.5 billion. From 2019 to 2024, the state saw a 440 percent jump in business investments, according to BrokerChooser. The same percentages are 204 percent for California and 396 percent for New York.

“There is definitely development and diversification in the American investment landscape, with impressive growth in areas that used to fly under the radar,” says Adam Nasli, head analyst at BrokerChooser.

According to Crunchbase, funding for Texas startups is off to a strong start in 2025. In the first three months of this year, venture capital investors poured nearly $2.9 billion into Lone Star State companies, Crunchbase data shows. Crunchbase attributes that healthy dollar amount to “enthusiasm around cybersecurity, defense tech, robotics, and de-extincting mammoths.”

During the first quarter of this year, roughly two-thirds of VC funding in Texas went to just five companies, says Crunchbase. Those companies are Austin-based Apptronik, Austin-based Colossal Biosciences, Dallas-based Island, Austin-based NinjaOne, and Austin-based Saronic.

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