{"id":51225,"date":"2025-11-15T21:45:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T21:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/51225\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T21:45:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T21:45:22","slug":"ut-san-antonios-100m-center-for-brain-health-set-to-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/51225\/","title":{"rendered":"UT San Antonio’s $100M Center for Brain Health set to open"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Melissa Garcia, chief of staff and vice chancellor of the University of Texas System, the opening of UT San Antonio\u2019s new Center for Brain Health is deeply personal. <\/p>\n

Her father started exhibiting signs of cognitive decline in 2015, receiving an Alzheimer\u2019s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia diagnosis four years later. She watched his health decline rapidly until he passed earlier this year in May. He was from Starr County in the Rio Grande Valley, which has one of the highest rates<\/a> of dementia in the U.S.<\/p>\n

It was \u201cbrutally challenging\u201d for Garcia and her family, who ultimately decided to donate his brain to the university\u2019s Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer\u2019s and Neurodegenerative Diseases for research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that it will be a small yet profound part of showing the critically important mission that research will hopefully have to eliminate this tragic disease,\u201d Garcia said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the center on Wednesday<\/p>\n

\"\"Melissa Garcia, senior associate vice chancellor and chief of staff for the University of Texas System, speaks at the ribbon cutting celebration for UT Health\u2019s new Center for Brain Health on Wednesday. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

The new, $100 million Center for Brain Health will bring the university\u2019s neurological specialists, therapies, diagnostics, support groups and research all under one roof.<\/p>\n

The five-story, 100,000 square-foot building contains just about everything patients and their family might need: 91 exam rooms, physical therapy, mental health support, community rooms for caregiver education and support groups, as well as spaces for music, art and meditation. It\u2019s a testament to how far dementia care has come, said Dr. Carlayne Jackson, the chair of UT San Antonio\u2019s Department of Neurology.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started my residency here in 1987, neurology was kind of teased as the field of \u2018diagnose and adios,’\u201d Jackson said, \u201cmeaning that we could diagnose devastating conditions, but we really didn\u2019t honestly have a lot that we could do for the diseases that we treated.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"The check-in and triage area of the Glenn Biggs Institute on the third floor of the new UT Health San Antonio Center for Brain Health. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

Now, \u201cnothing could be further from the truth,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis center represents progress\u2014real, meaningful progress and a future filled with innovation, compassion and hope for patients and families dealing with disorders of the brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drug infusions recently approved<\/a> by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration shown to slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases will be administered at the center.<\/p>\n

The center is also home to one of the most powerful MRI scanners in the state, which produces high-resolution brain images critical in diagnosing and studying Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s, epilepsy and other brain diseases.<\/p>\n

Located at 4940 Charles Katz Drive in the South Texas Medical Center, the center will officially open on Dec. 10.<\/p>\n

Included in the new building is the school\u2019s Glenn Biggs Institute, one of 37 federally designated Alzheimer\u2019s research centers in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Of them, the Biggs institute is home to one of the largest Hispanic populations, which faces higher rates of the disease and has historically been underrepresented in clinic trials and research. Several UT Health researchers aim to untangle the jumble of social, genetic and lifestyle factors that give South Texas higher rates of these diseases.<\/p>\n

The building will also be home to the UT San Antonio Long School of Medicine\u2019s Department of Neurology. <\/p>\n

UT\u2019s expansion follows another big win earlier this month for dementia researchers in the state. Texas voters approved Proposition 14<\/a> on election day, securing $3 billion in state funding for research grants on neurodegenerative diseases.\u00a0UT Health and other organizations had been pushing for approval<\/a> of the research institute, which they say will help attract research talent to the state.<\/p>\n

However, officials agree that there\u2019s still a tremendous amount of work to be done. There is still no cure for Alzheimer\u2019s and other similar diseases, despite advances in some drug therapies. But UT San Antonio officials have high expectations for the center and the research that might come out of it.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Ann Biggs, a philanthropist and widow of Glenn Biggs, speaks during the opening celebration and ribbon cutting ceremony for UT Health\u2019s new Center for Brain Health on Wednesday. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is our responsibility to basically solve this mystery of Alzheimer\u2019s and eliminate it,\u201d said Francisco Cigarroa, senior executive vice president for health affairs at UT San Antonio. \u201cThe center \u2026 reflects our belief that scientific innovation must always be tied to humanity. Otherwise, I think we\u2019ve lost our soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Sudha Seshadri, the founding director of the Glenn Biggs institute, is confident that there\u2019s a cure for the disease, and much to be learned about prevention, and that UT San Antonio researchers will be the ones to find such breakthroughs. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not there yet, not where we want to be,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have so much more to do \u2026 to make dementia treatable, reversible and preventable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same goes for Ann Biggs, 91, a philanthropist and widow of Glenn Biggs, the San Antonio business leader and the institute\u2019s namesake. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have work to do. We need to find those missing links, those parts to pull together. If we can move forward, I predict there could be a prize down the line,\u201d she said at the ribbon-cutting, hinting at a potential Nobel Prize. \u201cI feel like maybe we can hope for that, and we\u2019ll have another day to celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Melissa Garcia, chief of staff and vice chancellor of the University of Texas System, the opening of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9063,22726,9065,584,82,84,83,28948,92,3028,17975,3438,6251],"class_list":["post-51225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-alzheimers-disease","tag-dementia-research","tag-glenn-biggs-institute-for-alzheimers-and-neurodegenerative-diseases","tag-health","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-south-texas-medical-center","tag-top-story","tag-typedaily","tag-ut-health-san-antonio","tag-ut-san-antonio","tag-wc-500-750"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}