New discoveries about enzyme’s metabolic role may lead to better diabetes treatments

For the first time, a team led by UAH, a part of the University of Alabama System, has characterized the metabolic function of a phosphatase enzyme called mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase-2 (MKP-2), as well as the enzyme’s pathophysiology in obesity, Type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

UTEP Study Examines Movement in Children with Autism

For more than a year, researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso’s Stanley E. Fulton Gait Research & Movement Analysis Lab in the College of Health Sciences have been using real-time 3D animation to investigate motor impairments in children who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The greatest takeaway from this study is that when teaching or coaching new movements to an individual with autism, the teacher or coach needs to understand the individual with autism’s specific motor learning characteristics.

UTEP Fights Superbugs with $1.2 Million NIH Grant to Develop a New Way to Produce Antibiotics

Chu-Young Kim, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at The University of Texas at El Paso, is helping combat the threat of superbugs – illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria – by returning to nature.
His work is supported by a $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a biological method for producing new versions of current antibiotics that have become ineffective due to resistance

UTEP Researcher Studies Effects of Teen Vaping on the Brain and Behavior

With support from a nearly $340,000 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Ian Mendez, Ph.D., UTEP assistant professor of pharmacy, is developing an animal model that mimics real life exposure to e-cigarettes in order to investigate the effects of nicotine vapor exposure on adolescent behavior.