Leading Innovation: Building Better Health

UT’s life sciences research, interdisciplinary expertise and innovative clinical programs are creating a healthier future.

Students at UT’s life sciences research, interdisciplinary expertise and innovative clinical programs

Bold pursuits to improve health and transform health care are launching from The University of Texas at Austin. There is no limit to what UT’s life sciences research, interdisciplinary expertise and innovative clinical programs will achieve when backed by visionary investors like you.
Health starts here, and it starts with you.

Assisting Autistic Adults

Retired UT professor Patricia Kruppa and her former husband Jimmie Savage (B.A. ’73, MLS ’75) are leaving their entire estate to UT Austin to support research into the causes of autism. Their desire to improve understanding of this condition was inspired by their adult son, Christopher, who faces lifelong high-support needs due to autism. Patricia and Jimmie want to help other families with autistic children who need ongoing support into their adult years. The Christopher Eden Savage Memorial Endowment for Autism and Related Developmental Disabilities will support autism research and programs at Dell Medical School, the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and the College of Education.

Student photo cut in the shape of a puzzle piece

Improving Care for Aging Populations

The University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing’s efforts to educate outstanding nurses and improve care for older adults will continue to grow, thanks to a gift from Luci Baines Johnson and Ian Turpin. Their support has created the Luci Baines Johnson and Ian J. Turpin Center for Gerontological Nursing.

The gift from Johnson and Turpin has a deep personal connection. They have dedicated it in memory of their mothers — Lady Bird Johnson and Rita Turpin — and in honor of Marion Douglas and Sabrina Mikan, the UT School of Nursing graduates who cared for them.

The goals for the new center include leading innovative community-based and clinical research that will benefit the health, independence and well-being of diverse aging adults and their caregivers; mentoring a new generation of nursing scholars and clinicians in gerontology; disseminating knowledge and strategies to promote well-being for older adults and their families; and advancing leadership that supports innovative, collaborative practice across care environments.

Luci Baines Johnson and Ian J. Turpin

decorative brain illustration for the left side of the screen

Advancing Alzheimer’s Research

A gift from the Bob and Aubyn Howe Foundation is funding research into delirium — a sudden decline in awareness, attention and thinking that is a frequent precursor of dementia.

A team led by David Paydarfar, M.D., chair of Dell Medical School’s Department of Neurology and director of the school’s Mulva Clinic for the Neurosciences, is using off-the-shelf fitness sensors to gather data from study subjects on movement, temperature and pulse. With the help of machine-learning algorithms to analyze these objective physiological markers, researchers hope to identify who is at risk of longer-term cognitive dysfunction.

“My dream is that Dr. Paydarfar and his team can develop an early diagnosis for Alzheimer’s and dementia so families would know what they are facing sooner,” says Bob, who met Aubyn in 1958 when they both were UT students. The couple was married for 60 years before Aubyn died of Alzheimer’s in 2021. “But the ultimate goal is the cure. I believe his people are on the right track in their research, and I hope we are the ones who find it first.”

decorative brain illustration for the right side of the screen

“My dream is that Dr. Paydarfar and his team can develop an early diagnosis for Alzheimer’s and dementia so families would know what they are facing sooner.” — Bob Howe

“My dream is that Dr. Paydarfar and his team can develop an early diagnosis for Alzheimer’s and dementia so families would know what they are facing sooner.”
— Bob Howe

The Business of Health Care

Through a generous gift from Michael and Kay Lester, the College of Pharmacy has formally launched the Innovating for Health (i4H) Nexus program, designed to reduce the business-health science gap and accelerate the University’s capacity for developing health technologies.

Michael Lester

Traditional health science education tends to produce health care practitioners with strong content knowledge but few of the innovation and collaboration skills needed to improve health care and patient outcomes. The Nexus program directly addresses this challenge through workshops, customized learning sessions and team experiences.

Students and faculty from pharmacy, medicine, engineering, natural sciences and business participate in cross-disciplinary experiences designed to instill an entrepreneurial mindset.

The approach aims to help all learners, including first-generation students, solve complex problems in health care.

Traditional health science education tends to produce health care practitioners with strong content knowledge but few of the innovation and collaboration skills needed to improve health care and patient outcomes. The Nexus program directly addresses this challenge through workshops, customized learning sessions and team experiences.

Students and faculty from pharmacy, medicine, engineering, natural sciences and business participate in cross-disciplinary experiences designed to instill an entrepreneurial mindset.

The approach aims to help all learners, including first-generation students, solve complex problems in health care.

Michael Lester

Grateful