Houston medical institutions launch $6M kidney research incubator

NIH funding

Houston institutions have landed $6.25 million in NIH funding to launch the HAI-KUH research training program. Photo via UH.

Institutions within Houston’s Texas Medical Center have launched the Houston Area Incubator for Kidney, Urologic and Hematologic Research Training (HAI-KUH) program. The incubator will be backed by $6.25 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health and aims to create a training pipeline for researchers.

HAI-KUH will include 58 investigators from Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, University of Houston, Houston Methodist Research Institute, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Rice University and Texas A&M University Institute of Biosciences and Technology. The program will fund six predoctoral students and six postdoctoral associates. Trainees will receive support in scientific research, professional development and networking.

According to the organizations, Houston has a high burden of kidney diseases, hypertension, sickle cell disease and other nonmalignant hematologic conditions. HAI-KUH will work to improve the health of patients by building a strong scientific workforce that leverages the team's biomedical research resources to develop research skills of students and trainees and prepare them for sustained and impactful careers. The funding comes through the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

The principal investigators of the project include Dr. Alison Bertuch, professor of pediatric oncology and molecular and human genetics at BCM; Peter Doris, professor and director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine Center for Human Genetics at UT Health; and Margaret Goodell, professor and chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Baylor.

“This new award provides unique collaborative training experiences that extend beyond the outstanding kidney, urology, and hematology research going on in the Texas Medical Center,” Doris said in a news release. “In conceiving this award, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases envisioned trainee development across the full spectrum of skills required for professional success.”

Jeffrey Rimer, a professor of Chemical Engineering, is a core investigator on the project and program director at UH. Rimer is known for his breakthroughs in using innovative methods in control crystals to help treat malaria and kidney stones. Other co-investigators include Dr. Wolfgang Winkelmeyer (Baylor), Oleh Pochynyuk (UTHealth), Dr. Rose Khavari (Houston Methodist) and Pamela Wenzel (UT Health).

“This new NIH-sponsored training program will enable us to recruit talented students and postdocs to work on these challenging areas of research,” Rimer added in a release.

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Houston Methodist will rename its department of medicine the Houston Methodist Charles W. Duncan Jr. Department of Medicine. Photo courtesy Houston Methodist.

Houston Methodist receives $25M gift, renames department of medicine

med funding

Houston-based nonprofit The Duncan Fund has awarded a $25 million gift to Houston Methodist's department of medicine to establish new endowed fellowships, streamline complex care and bring artificial intelligence into the fold to develop more personalized treatment plans.

In turn, the health care system announced that it will rename the department the Houston Methodist Charles W. Duncan Jr. Department of Medicine.

“We are deeply appreciative of the Duncan family’s support, which allows us to further programs at the intersection of personalized medicine and preventive health care to benefit our patients,” Dr. Eleftherios Mylonakis, chair of the department and the Charles and Anne Duncan Presidential Distinguished Chair, said in a news release.

The department of medicine is Houston Methodist's largest, and comprises 14 clinical programs, ranging from general medicine to highly specialized care, as well as research and education.

According to Houston Methodist, the latest grant from the Duncan family will:
  • Coordinate complex, multidisciplinary care by hospitalists
  • Implement programs that leverage data and AI to tailor treatments and preventive strategies
  • Establish five endowed fellowships, including a new fellowship for students known as MedTech Innovator

“Our vision is to redefine how care is delivered in our country by creating a national model for true continuity — one that follows the patient across every transition, from home to hospital and back again,” Mylonakis added in the release. “We are also advancing a deeper understanding of health span, shifting from reactive treatment to a proactive, lifelong strategy that maximizes not just how long we live but how well we live.”

The Duncan family has been a longtime supporter of Houston Methodist—and Houston organizations at large. The late Charles Duncan Jr. sat on the system's board for decades, and his son, Charles “Carlos” Duncan III, serves on the Houston Methodist Hospital Foundation Board. Additionally, the family established the Charles and Anne Duncan Scholars Program and endowed chairs in nephrology and endocrinology.

Charles Duncan Jr. is also the namesake behind Rice University's Duncan Residential College and was one of the founders of the Greater Houston Partnership. He served as Secretary of Energy during the Carter Administration.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center was recognized for advancements in electronic functionality, AI and robotics. Photo via mdanderson.org

Houston hospital named among smartest in the nation

hi, tech

Houston hospitals are chock-full of smart people. But they’re also equipped with lots of “smart” technology. In fact, five local hospitals appear on Newsweek’s new list of the world’s best “smart” hospitals.

To compile the list, Newsweek teamed up with data provider Statista to rank the world’s top 330 hospitals for the use of smart technology. The ranking factors were electronic functionality, telemedicine, digital imaging, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics.

The highest-ranked Houston hospital is the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, appearing at No. 6. The hospital was recognized for advancements in electronic functionality, AI and robotics.

“MD Anderson has a significant opportunity and a responsibility to our many stakeholders to create a digital ecosystem that promotes collaboration and advances scientific discovery to enhance patient outcomes,” David Jaffray, the cancer center’s chief technology and digital officer, said in a 2021 news release.

“Through our ongoing focus on enabling the use of new technologies to place quantitative data in context for our researchers,” Jaffray added, “we foster cutting-edge oncology data science to inform our cancer discovery research and to accelerate translation of our research findings into benefits for cancer patients.”

Ahead of MD Anderson on the list are:

  1. Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
  2. Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland.
  3. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
  4. Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
  5. Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

Other Houston hospitals on the list are:

  • Houston Methodist Hospital, No. 11.
  • Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, No. 105.
  • Texas Children’s Hospital, No. 197.
  • Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, No. 266.
Houston hospitals got their report cards. Photo by Dwight C. Andrews/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Here's how Houston hospitals stack up when it comes to safety, according to a national study

Best in class

Close to half of the Houston area's general acute-care hospitals are at the top of their class, according to new safety grades assigned to U.S. hospitals. But one hospital in the region is failing on the safety front, the grades show.

In its fall 2019 report card for acute-care hospitals, The Leapfrog Group gives letter grades of A, B, C, D, and F based on the hospitals' ability to shield patients from avoidable errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. The nonprofit represents hundreds of public and private employers that buy healthcare benefits.

In the Houston area, 19 hospitals earned an A, with 14 receiving a B, seven getting a C, one picking up a D and one being slapped with an F.

Chris Skisak, executive director of the Houston Business Coalition on Health, notes that 23 percent of hospitals in the Houston areas saw their Leapfrog grades go up while just 11 percent saw their grades go down. The coalition is a regional leader for The Leapfrog Group.

"Houston-area hospitals do care about their grades," Skisak says, "and going back to 2016, most obtained a higher grade after receiving a lower grade the previous assessment period. Houston is fortunate to have [about] 50 percent of its hospitals earn consistent A grades."

For the first time in at least four years, The Leapfrog Group did hit one Houston-area hospital — Huntsville Memorial Hospital — with an F. On the spring 2019 report card, the hospital received a D. In the fall of 2018, the mark was a C.

Huntsville Memorial Hospital currently is combating what's been described as a "dire financial situation."

In a November 1 statement, the Walker County Hospital District, which owns the Huntsville hospital, said the separate nonprofit entity that runs the hospital — Walker County Hospital Corp. — was beset by monetary woes and was on the verge of declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As a result, the district warned, the hospital might close.

According to The Huntsville Item, a proposed rescue of the hospital would place ownership and management in the hands of a joint venture between the hospital district and Plano-based Community Hospital Corp., a hospital management company. The nonprofit Plano company provides supply-chain services to a Huntsville medical practice, Huntsville Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine PLLC.

In the statement, the district's board says it "remains committed to maintaining a viable hospital for the community and to improving hospital operations and services."

The Leapfrog Group graded a total of 42 hospitals in the Houston area. The nonprofit released its fall 2019 report card on November 7.

Houston-area hospitals that earned an A were:

  • Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital
  • HCA Houston Healthcare Conroe
  • HCA Houston Healthcare West
  • Houston Methodist Hospital
  • Houston Methodist West Hospital
  • Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital
  • Memorial Hermann Southeast
  • Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital
  • Memorial Hermann Northeast, Humble
  • Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital
  • HCA Houston Healthcare Kingwood
  • CHI St. Luke's Health Memorial Livingston
  • Houston Methodist Clear Lake Hospital in Nassau Bay
  • HCA Houston Healthcare Pearland
  • Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital
  • CHI St. Luke's Health The Woodlands Hospital
  • Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital
  • Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital
  • HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake in Webster

Skisak says the Leapfrog report card "is a valuable resource for employers to share with their employees so that they can self-navigate to the safest and highest quality hospitals."

"The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade offers critical patient safety information to consumers, in an easily digestible way, so that they can make informed decisions about where they seek care in the Houston area," he says in a release.

The Leapfrog Group bases its twice-a-year grades for hospital safety on 28 sets of publicly available data from more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals.

Houston, home to the largest medical center in the world, was ranked among the best cities for health care in the country. Photo by Dwight C. Andrews/Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau

Houston recognized among the best hospital cities in the nation

just what the doctor ordered

As home to Texas Medical Center — the world's largest medical complex — it stands to reason that Houston ranks among the country's best cities for health care. A new study bolsters that notion, but it also points out that several health care measures in Houston need some TLC.

The study, conducted by digital health care provider Medbelle, ranks Houston as the ninth best "hospital city" in the United States. Medbelle sifted through data in three categories (health care infrastructure, quality of health care and access to health care) to develop the ranking. Within those categories, Medbelle examined factors like quality of medical education, number of hospital beds, shortage of nurses, efficiency of cancer treatment, and prevalence of mental health specialists.

"Houston is known internationally as the home of one of the best medical communities in the world," the City of Houston declares.

In the Medbelle study, Boston landed at No. 1 in the U.S.; Tokyo took the global crown. At No. 13, Dallas was the only other Texas city to earn a place on the U.S. list.

Medbelle says it compiled the ranking to highlight regional hospital "ecosystems" rather than specific hospitals. The Houston area has more than 85 hospitals.

Houston's hospital ecosystem scored 94.92 out of 100, yet sits in next-to-last place for access to health care (48.83 out of 100), Medbelle notes. Daniel Kolb, co-founder and managing director of Medbelle, says this means that while Houston enjoys one of the best medical infrastructures in the world, a relatively small percentage of people in the region can take advantage of it.

In 2018, nearly 1 in 5 residents of the Houston area (18.6 percent) lacked health insurance, the U.S. Census Bureau says. That's the highest rate of uninsured residents among the country's 25 most populous metro areas. Affordability and availability continue to exacerbate the health insurance predicament in Houston and around the country.

"The single biggest issue in health care for most Americans is that their health costs are growing much faster than their wages are," Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, says in a release. "Costs are prohibitive when workers making $25,000 a year have to shell out $7,000 a year just for their share of family premiums."

For those who can afford medical care, the Houston area boasts some of the best hospitals in the U.S. MD Anderson Cancer Center reigns as the country's top cancer hospital, for instance.

In May, The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit representing large employers in the U.S., assigned its highest grade — "A" — to these nine hospitals in the Houston area:

  • HCA Houston Healthcare (Kingwood)
  • Houston Methodist Hospital
  • Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital
  • Houston Methodist West Hospital
  • Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital
  • Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center
  • Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital
  • Tomball Regional Medical Center
  • West Houston Medical Center

From another perspective, U.S. News & World Report ranks Houston Methodist Hospital as the best hospital in the Houston area, followed by Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, Memorial Hermann Greater Heights Hospital, Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, and Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital.

Meanwhile, Houston-area physicians hold Texas Children's Hospital West Campus in the highest regard among the region's hospitals, trailed by Houston Methodist West Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas Children's Hospital, and Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital.
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Houston medtech startup clears FDA approval for new surgical tool

precision surgery

Houston-based Prana Surgical will soon bring a new electrosurgical tool to operating rooms around the country. The Prana System officially cleared U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval earlier this month.

"Receiving FDA clearance for the Prana System represents a defining milestone for our company," Joanna Nathan, CEO and co-founder of Prana Surgical, said in a news release. "Surgeons today are increasingly focused on achieving precise outcomes while minimizing disruption to healthy tissue. The Prana System was designed to support that shift by integrating targeting and excision into a single, streamlined tool."

Prana Surgical began as Prana Thoracic in 2022. Back then, the company primarily focused on developing screening tools for lung cancer diagnosis. It raised $6 million in series A funding rounds in 2023 and 2024 before transitioning to broader surgical needs in 2025.

The Prana System is a minimally invasive, image-guided, single-use tissue extraction tool designed to retrieve samples without damaging healthy tissue. The tool is still designed with the respiratory system in mind, helping Prana in the fight against lung cancer and other thoracic diseases.

Reducing the impact of tissue extraction via electrosurgery and enhanced image scanning can significantly reduce complications. The Prana System combines localization and tissue-cutting capabilities in one, which keeps surgeons from having to swap out components during a procedure, making for a smoother process. It can core, cut and feel blood vessels on the way toward the intended target, giving surgeons greater control over tissue preservation.

"Electrosurgery is foundational to modern surgery, but there is still opportunity to improve how energy-based tools are applied in minimally invasive settings," Nathan added. "Our goal is to introduce a new class of image-guided surgical tools that enable more precise intervention across a range of procedures."

The company projects sales of $7.5 billion from the Prana System in the United States, estimating that 2.5 million surgical modules will be able to use the new tool. While starting out focused on biopsies, the company plans to evolve the system into other procedures, such as ablation, in the future. It is also planning for a controlled U.S. clinical rollout as it moves toward commercialization

Texas still ranks as No. 1 in U.S. for inbound moves, but growth dips

by the numbers

Texas continues to be the country’s No. 1 magnet for newcomers from other states, giving a boost to the state’s economy. However, Texas’ appeal weakened in 2024 compared with the previous year, due in large part to spiking home prices.

An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by self-storage platform StorageCafe shows Texas saw net interstate migration of 76,000 people in 2024. Texas’ net interstate migration dropped nearly 50 percent from 2023, according to the analysis. Net migration refers to the number of incoming residents minus the number of outgoing residents.

California remained the top source of newcomers for Texas, sending nearly 77,000 residents to the Lone Star State in 2024, the analysis says. Florida ranked second, followed by New York, Colorado and Illinois.

“These trends reveal Texas’ continued pull from both high-cost coastal markets and other large Sun Belt states, resulting in a mix of affordability-driven and job-driven relocation,” StorageCafe says.

Putting a damper on the influx of new residents: a roughly 124 percent surge in Texas home prices over the past decade, according to StorageCafe.

“While the state remains significantly more affordable than California, its top feeder state, the once-wide pricing gap has narrowed,” says StorageCafe. “For many movers, Texas is still a relative bargain, but no longer an undisputed one.”

Nonetheless, Texas keeps attracting young, highly educated people, which bodes well for the state’s long-term economic outlook, StorageCafe says. More than half of new arrivals to Texas in 2024 held at least a bachelor’s degree, and the age of newcomers averaged 32.

Where are most of these young, highly educated newcomers settling?

Lloyd Potter, former Texas state demographer, tells StorageCafe that population growth in Texas is happening most rapidly in suburban “ring counties” at the expense of slowing growth in urban cores. Ring counties are on the outskirts of major metro areas.

“Many people are moving from urban cores to suburban rings seeking lower costs, newer housing, better schools, and more space,” Potter says. “Typically, a move to a suburban county will be within commuting or hybrid‑commuting distance of major metro economies.”

Artemis II makes historic call to space station with help from Houston Mission Control

History in the making

Still aglow from their triumphant lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts made more history Tuesday, April 7: calling their friends aboard the International Space Station hundreds of thousands of miles away as they headed home from the moon.

It was the first moonship-to-spaceship radio linkup ever. NASA's Apollo crews had no off-the-planet company back in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humanity set sail for deep space.

"We have been waiting for this like you can’t imagine,” Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman called out.

For Christina Koch on Artemis II and Jessica Meir aboard the space station, it marked a joyous space reunion despite being 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) apart. The two teamed up for the world's first all-female spacewalk in 2019 outside the orbiting lab.

Koch told her “astro-sister” that she'd hoped to meet up with her again in space “but I never thought it would be like this — it's amazing.”

“I'm so happy that we are back in space together,” Meir replied, “even if we are a few miles apart.”

Houston's Mission Control arranged the cosmic chitchat between the four lunar travelers and the space station's three NASA and one French residents.

Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it.”

“It just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive,” she told the space station crew. “The specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized” when viewing the home planet from the moon.

By late Tuesday afternoon, the Artemis II astronauts had beamed back more than 50 gigabytes' worth of pictures and other data from the previous day's lunar rendezvous, which set a new distance record for humanity. The highlight: an Earthset photo reminiscent of Apollo 8's Earthrise shot from 1968.

"While they are inspirational and, I think, allow all of us to really feel a little bit of what they were feeling, there's also a lot of science hidden inside of those images," said Mission Control's lead lunar scientist Kelsey Young. “The conversations and the science lessons learned are just beginning."

During a debriefing with Young, the astronauts recounted how they spotted a cascade of pinpricks of light on the lunar surface from impacting cosmic debris. The flashes lasted mere milliseconds and coincided by chance with Monday evening's total solar eclipse.

Young said it was too soon to know whether the crew witnessed an actual meteor shower or more random, run-of-the-mill micrometeoroid hits. Either way, there were “audible screams of delight” in the science operations center, she said.

Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it.”

“It just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive,” she told the space station crew. “The specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized” when viewing the home planet from the moon.

The first lunar explorers since Apollo 17 in 1972, Wiseman and his crew are aiming for a splashdown off the San Diego coast on Friday to wrap up the nearly 10-day test flight. The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha left port Tuesday for the target zone.

It sets the stage for next year's Artemis III, a lunar lander docking demo in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will follow in 2028 with two astronauts attempting to land near the lunar south pole.

As for the Orion capsule’s pesky potty, Mission Control assured the astronauts that no maintenance was required Tuesday. The toilet has been on-and-off limits to the crew ever since last week’s launch, prompting them to rely on a backup bag-and-funnel system for urinating.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told the crew following the lunar flyby Monday night: “We definitely have to fix some of the plumbing” ahead of the next Artemis mission. Engineers suspect a clogged filter in the overboard flushing system.

Aside from the toilet and other relatively minor matters, the mission has gone well, Isaacman noted at a news conference Tuesday, “but I'll breathe easier when we get through reentry and everybody's under chutes and in the water.”

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