A Houston-based software startup received a multimillion-dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health for its work within neurophysiology. Getty Images

Armed with a nearly $3.8 million federal grant, a Houston startup aims to boost neuroscience research around the world.

Vathes LLC, a developer of data management software that collaborates with neuroscience research labs in North America and Europe, recently received the $3.78 million grant from the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). That initiative is part of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Vathes says the NIH funding will enable the startup to ramp up its DataJoint Pipelines for Neurophysiology project. The project aims to make open-source software for data science and engineering available to researchers who specialize in neurophysiology, a branch of neuroscience that looks at how the nervous system functions. The pipeline project holds the promise of benefiting research in areas like autism, Alzheimer's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease).

The project's principal investigator is Dimitri Yatsenko, vice president of research and development at Vathes. Technologically speaking, neuroscientists are playing catch-up with their counterparts in fields like astrophysics, genomics, and bioinformatics, according to Yatsenko.

Neuroscience "is undergoing a fast transformation in terms of moving toward much more data-centric, data-intensive, computation-intensive, and collaborative projects," Yatsenko says. This means that neuroscientists are "now finding themselves having to quickly adapt to an environment," he adds, "where they have to share big data and computations with their collaborators in very dynamic settings and perform them in a very fluid way."

Yatsenko says the NIH-funded project will help smaller research groups tap into the technical expertise of larger research labs.

Vathes' DataJoint Neuro platform and services, which help create so-called DataJoint pipelines, enable neuroscientists to streamline, analyze, and visualize complex data. Among its customers are Princeton University's Neuroscience Institute and Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute. The federally funded project will empower smaller labs to capitalize on existing DataJoint pipelines as ready-to-go turnkey packages, Yatsenko says.

In essence, Vathes' technology acts as a translator. Big research labs collect data in databases that can vary by computer language and platform. Through the Vathes setup, that data can be incorporated by a lab of any size into algorithmic, machine learning, and artificial intelligence mechanisms, regardless of the computer language or platform.

Edgar Walker, CEO of Vathes, says this simplifies the construction and use of databases, giving scientists "more room to focus on the logic of their data pipeline rather than on the physical implementation of it."

Founded in 2016, Vathes is housed at the Texas Medical Center's Innovation Institute. It employs 10 people. The startup previously received a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Yatsenko says the project backed by the $3.78 million NIH grant will propel the startup's growth, as it "gives us a big window of opportunity" to provide tools and services that support the startup's open-source software.

"As the NIH and other funding agencies are shifting a lot of their focus to collaborative projects that are distributed among multiple institutions," Walker says, "we've established a reputation as the company that can facilitate such research, be efficient, and actually be cost-effective as well, and make the projects very smooth."

"We expect to continue to grow this business at the same exponential rate," he adds. "We'll keep our fingers crossed and see how things go."


CEO Edgar Walker (left) and Dimitri Yatsenko, vice president of research and development, lead Houston-based Vathes. Photos courtesy of Vathes

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Texas is the 4th hardest working state in America, report finds

Ranking It

It's no secret that Texans are hardworking people. To align with the Labor Day holiday, a new WalletHub study asserts that the Lone Star State is one of the five most hardworking states in America for 2025.

The report ranked Texas the fourth most hardworking state this year, indicating that its residents are working harder than ever after the state fell into seventh place in 2024. Texas previously ranked No. 4 in 2019 and 2020, slipped into No. 5 in 2021 and 2022, then continued falling into sixth place in 2023. But now the state is making its way back to the top of the list.

WalletHub's analysts compared all 50 states based on "direct" and "indirect" work factors. The six "direct" work factors included each state's average workweek hours, employment rates, the share of households where no adults work, the share of workers leaving vacation time unused, and other data. The four "indirect" work factors consisted of workers' average commute times, the share of workers with multiple jobs, the annual volunteer hours per resident, and the average leisure time spent per day.

North Dakota landed on top as the most hardworking state in America for 2025 for another year in a row, earning a score of 66.17 points out of a possible 100. For comparison, Texas ranked No. 4 with 57.06 points. Alaska (No. 2), South Dakota (No. 3), and Hawaii (No. 5) round out the top five hardest working states.

Across the study's two main categories, Texas ranked No. 5 in the "direct" work factors ranking, and earned a respectable No. 18 rank for its "indirect" work factors.

Broken down further, Texans have the second-longest average workweek hours in America, and they have the 12th best average commute times. Texans have the 6th lowest amount of average leisure time spent per day, the report also found.

According to the study's findings, many Americans nationwide won't take the chance to not work as hard when presented with the opportunity. A 2024 Sorbet PTO report found 33 percent of Americans' paid time off was left unused in 2023.

"While leaving vacation time on the table may seem strange to some people, there are plenty of reasons why workers choose to do so," the report's author wrote. "Some fear that if they take time off they will look less dedicated to the job than other employees, risking a layoff. Others worry about falling behind on their work or are concerned that the normal workflow will not be able to function without them."

The top 10 hardest working states are:

  • No. 1 – North Dakota
  • No. 2 – Alaska
  • No. 3 – South Dakota
  • No. 4 – Texas
  • No. 5 – Hawaii
  • No. 6 – Virginia
  • No. 7 – New Hampshire
  • No. 8 – Wyoming
  • No. 9 – Maryland
  • No. 10 – Nebraska
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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston femtech co. debuts new lactation and wellness pods

mom pod

Houston-based femtech company Work&, previously known as Work&Mother, has introduced new products in recent months aimed at supporting working mothers and the overall health of all employees.

The company's new Lactation Pod and Hybrid Pod serve as dual-use lactation and wellness spaces to meet employer demand, the company shared in a news release. The compact pods offer flexible design options that can serve permanent offices and nearly all commercial spaces.

They feature a fully compliant lactation station while also offering wellness functionalities that can support meditation, mental health, telehealth and prayer. In line with Work&'s other spaces, the pods utilize the Work& scheduling platform, which prioritizes lactation bookings to help employers comply with the PUMP Act.

“This isn’t about perks,” Jules Lairson, Work& co-founder and COO, said in the release. “It’s about meeting people where they are—with dignity and intentional design. That includes the mother returning to work, the employee managing anxiety, and everyone in between.”

According to the company, several Fortune 500 companies are already using the pods, and Work& has plans to grow the products' reach.

Earlier this year, Work& introduced its first employee wellness space at MetroNational’s Memorial City Plazas, representing Work&'s shift to offer an array of holistic health and wellness solutions for landlords and tenants.

The company, founded in 2017 by Lairson and CEO Abbey Donnell, was initially focused on outfitting commercial buildings with lactation accommodations for working parents. While Work& still offers these services through its Work&Mother branch, the addition of its Work&Wellbeing arm allowed the company to also address the broader wellness needs of all employees.

The company rebranded as Work& earlier this year.