Fort Bend is now a COVID-19 vaccine hub. Photo by Matthew T. Carroll/Getty Images

A major Houston suburb is the newest major COVID-19 vaccine hub in the region. Fort Bend County has received an additional 8,000 vaccines, county judge KP George announced on February 9 at a press conference.

That means the county is officially an vaccine hub and will receive regular doses of inoculations, George added. Registration is available at the Fort Bend County website.

During the news conference, George said Fort Bend County had been officially designated as a vaccine hub, meaning the county will now be receiving regular doses of the vaccine.

In keeping with statewide mandates, vaccinations are open to those who are in phases 1A or 1B, although those in the next phases will be eligible at a later date, according to the press conference.

This news comes as the Greater Houston area has seen the emergence of the South African COVID-19 variant, as well as two mutations of the UK strain, as CultureMap previously reported.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has also ordered a mega vaccine site in the Houston area that promises to deliver some 5,000 to 6,000 inoculations per day. Houston has also received thousands of new vaccines this week.

Meanwhile, for now, COVID hospitalizations are seeing a downturn, according to reports.

For more information on Fort Bend County vaccinations, visit www.fbchealth.org or call 832-471-1373.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

On Twitter, Elon Musk voiced his frustrations with California leadership. Meanwhile in Texas, local leaders said come on over. Photo via Tesla.com

Could Tesla come to Texas? Houston-area leaders extend an invite

had it with cali

Tech mogul Elon Musk has had it with local California leadership regarding their COVID-19 restrictions and their effect on operations at Tesla's facilities.

Musk took to Twitter to express himself, and floated the idea of moving to Texas or Nevada. On Saturday, May 9, Musk, who founded Tesla as well as SpaceX, threatened to pull the company's factory and headquarters out of California in an escalating spat with local officials who have stopped the company from reopening its electric vehicle factory.

An order in the six-county San Francisco Bay Area forced Tesla to close a plant starting March 23 to help prevent the virus' spread. Musk took umbrage with the order being extended until the end of May.

"Frankly, this is the final straw," Musk tweeted. "Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately."

Thus, much like Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner invited Amazon to open new digs in the Houston area, Fort Bend County Judge KP George seized on the opportunity and urged Tesla to make its way to Texas, CultureMap news partner ABC13 reports.

George penned a letter to Musk and posted it to Twitter, noting that Fort Bend County is the best location for Musk to bring his offices. The letter highlights several reasons George believes Fort Bend would be the most suitable location for his offices, as well as the number of jobs it would bring to residents in the community. It describes Fort Bend as "a unique place."

"I understand you have become frustrated with the climate in your current location as we all fight this collective invisible enemy," wrote George. "However, I think your company would greatly benefit from learning about Fort Bend County as your search for a suitable location continues."

Not to be outdone, Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña also chimed in on Twitter, welcoming Tesla to the Houston area.

No word on a Musk response to the two local officials.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Greentown Labs names Lawson Gow as its new Houston leader

head of hou

Greentown Labs has named Lawson Gow as its Head of Houston.

Gow is the founder of The Cannon, a coworking space with seven locations in the Houston area, with additional partner spaces. He also recently served as managing partner at Houston-based investment and advisory firm Helium Capital. Gow is the son of David Gow, founder of Energy Capital's parent company, Gow Media.

According to Greentown, Gow will "enhance the founder experience, cultivate strategic partnerships, and accelerate climatetech solutions" in his new role.

“I couldn’t be more excited to join Greentown at this critical moment for the energy transition,” Gow said in a news release. “Greentown has a fantastic track record of supporting entrepreneurs in Houston, Boston, and beyond, and I am eager to keep advancing our mission in the energy transition capital of the world.”

Gow has also held analyst, strategy and advising roles since graduating from Rice University.

“We are thrilled to welcome Lawson to our leadership team,” Georgina Campbell Flatter, CEO of Greentown Labs, added in the release. “Lawson has spent his career building community and championing entrepreneurs, and we look forward to him deepening Greentown’s support of climate and energy startups as our Head of Houston.”

Gow is the latest addition to a series of new hires at Greentown Labs following a leadership shakeup.

Flatter was named as the organization's new CEO in February, replacing Kevin Dutt, Greentown’s interim CEO, who replaced Kevin Knobloch after he announced that he would step down in July 2024 after less than a year in the role.

Greentown also named Naheed Malik its new CFO in January.

Timmeko Moore Love was named the first Houston general manager and senior vice president of Greentown Labs. According to LinkedIn, she left the role in January.

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

Houston foundation grants $27M to support Texas chemistry research

fresh funding

Houston-based The Welch Foundation has doled out $27 million in its latest round of grants for chemical research, equipment and postdoctoral fellowships.

According to a June announcement, $25.5 million was allocated for the foundation's longstanding research grants, which provide $100,000 per year in funding for three years to full-time, regular tenure or tenure-track faculty members in Texas. The foundation made 85 grants to faculty at 16 Texas institutions for 2025, including:

  • Michael I. Jacobs, assistant professor in the chemistry and biochemistry department at Texas State University, who is investigating the structure and thermodynamics of intrinsically disordered proteins, which could "reveal clues about how life began," according to the foundation.
  • Kendra K. Frederick, assistant professor in the biophysics department at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who is studying a protein linked to Parkinson’s disease.
  • Jennifer S. Brodbelt, professor in chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin, who is testing a theory called full replica symmetry breaking (fullRSB) on glass-like materials, which has implications for complex systems in physics, chemistry and biology.

Additional funding will be allocated to the Welch Postdoctoral Fellows of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. The program provides three-year fellowships to recent PhD graduates to support clinical research careers in Texas. Two fellows from Rice University and Baylor University will receive $100,000 annually for three years.

The Welch Foundation also issued $975,000 through its equipment grant program to 13 institutions to help them develop "richer laboratory experience(s)." The universities matched funds of $352,346.

Since 1954, the Welch Foundation has contributed over $1.1 billion for Texas-nurtured advancements in chemistry through research grants, endowed chairs and other chemistry-related ventures. Last year, the foundation granted more than $40.5 million in academic research grants, equipment grants and fellowships.

“Through funding basic chemical research, we are actively investing in the future of humankind,” Adam Kuspa, president of The Welch Foundation, said the news release. “We are proud to support so many talented researchers across Texas and continue to be inspired by the important work they complete every day.”

New Houston biotech co. developing capsules for hard-to-treat tumors

biotech breakthroughs

Houston company Sentinel BioTherapeutics has made promising headway in cancer immunotherapy for patients who don’t respond positively to more traditional treatments. New biotech venture creation studio RBL LLC (pronounced “rebel”) recently debuted the company at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Rima Chakrabarti is a neurologist by training. Though she says she’s “passionate about treating the brain,” her greatest fervor currently lies in leading Sentinel as its CEO. Sentinel is RBL’s first clinical venture, and Chakrabarti also serves as cofounder and managing partner of the venture studio.

The team sees an opportunity to use cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) capsules to fight many solid tumors for which immunotherapy hasn't been effective in the past. “We plan to develop a pipeline of drugs that way,” Chakrabarti says.

This may all sound brand-new, but Sentinel’s research goes back years to the work of Omid Veiseh, director of the Rice Biotechnology Launch Pad (RBLP). Through another, now-defunct company called Avenge Bio, Veiseh and Paul Wotton — also with RBLP and now RBL’s CEO and chairman of Sentinel — invested close to $45 million in capital toward their promising discovery.

From preclinical data on studies in mice, Avenge was able to manufacture its platform focused on ovarian cancer treatments and test it on 14 human patients. “That's essentially opened the door to understanding the clinical efficacy of this drug as well as it's brought this to the attention of the FDA, such that now we're able to continue that conversation,” says Chakrabarti. She emphasizes the point that Avenge’s demise was not due to the science, but to the company's unsuccessful outsourcing to a Massachusetts management team.

“They hadn't analyzed a lot of the data that we got access to upon the acquisition,” explains Chakrabarti. “When we analyzed the data, we saw this dose-dependent immune activation, very specific upregulation of checkpoints on T cells. We came to understand how effective this agent could be as an immune priming agent in a way that Avenge Bio hadn't been developing this drug.”

Chakrabarti says that Sentinel’s phase II trials are coming soon. They’ll continue their previous work with ovarian cancer, but Chakrabarti says that she also believes that the IL-2 capsules will be effective in the treatment of endometrial cancer. There’s also potential for people with other cancers located in the peritoneal cavity, such as colorectal cancer, gastrointestinal cancer and even primary peritoneal carcinomatosis.

“We're delivering these capsules into the peritoneal cavity and seeing both the safety as well as the immune activation,” Chakrabarti says. “We're seeing that up-regulation of the checkpoint that I mentioned. We're seeing a strong safety signal. This drug was very well-tolerated by patients where IL-2 has always had a challenge in being a well-tolerated drug.”

When phase II will take place is up to the success of Sentinel’s fundraising push. What we do know is that it will be led by Amir Jazaeri at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Part of the goal this summer is also to create an automated cell manufacturing process and prove that Sentinel can store its product long-term.

“This isn’t just another cell therapy,” Chakrabarti says.

"Sentinel's cytokine factory platform is the breakthrough technology that we believe has the potential to define the next era of cancer treatment," adds Wotton.