Bonnie Petrie
Bioscience & Medicine Reporterbonnie@TPR.org
BlueSky: @bonniepetrie.bsky.social
Bonnie Petrie covers bioscience and medicine for Texas Public Radio and is the host of the Petrie Dish podcast, which explores the intersection of science, medicine, and life in the 2020s. She also brings you the latest research happening at UT Health San Antonio in a weekly report called Science & Medicine.
Bonnie grew up on the Canadian border in northern New York, but called Texas home for more than 20 years. She has twice been nominated for the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in recognition of her work in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio, but claims she's still too young for all that. She has also received many Edward R Murrow, Associated Press, and other journalism awards. She and Petrie Dish have been honored with several Gracie Awards from The Alliance for Women in Media, including personal recognition as the best host of a local show in the nation.
Bonnie is mom to a college student, two dogs, two cats and spends her free time solving family mysteries using genetic genealogy.
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Alcohol use disorder affects millions of Americans, but treatment options remain limited, and relapse is common. A UT Health San Antonio researcher is studying two unconventional approaches that he hopes could one day be combined into a single, more effective treatment. -
San Antonio native whose gifts put his name on UT Health San Antonio’s medical school has died at 96Joe R. Long and his late wife, Teresa Lozano Long, gave more than $70 million to UT Health San Antonio, and the medical school now bears both their names. Their philanthropy has supported more than 400 Long Scholars, many of them South Texans who were the first in their families to attend college. -
Eighty-five percent of combat veterans who received robot-guided magnetic stimulation with prolonged exposure therapy saw significant symptom relief, a substantial improvement over therapy alone.
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Kirsten Eom studies everything that goes into getting a cancer survivor from their front door to a doctor's office: insurance, transportation, follow-up care, and more. The UT Health San Antonio researcher has found that a surprising number of survivors stop seeing doctors once initial treatment ends. Now she's working to build a statewide registry to track the barriers keeping them away.
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Cooler fall temperatures mean an increase in daytime lone star tick activity in areas where sweltering summer temperatures kept them at bay. This type of tick is more aggressive than most other ticks, and it presents a unique threat to the people they bite. The sugar in their saliva can cause humans to develop a dangerous allergy to red meat. -
Only about 30% of Texans who need mental health support are getting it, and the shortage of providers is projected to worsen dramatically over the next decade. A UT Health San Antonio psychologist has developed a program that teaches counseling skills to non-specialists like community health workers, faith-based practitioners, and even doulas.
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A visit to a neighborhood library reveals what a loneliness researcher calls a "third place" in action: ESL classes, new parents bringing their toddlers to storytime, remote workers on their laptops, and neighbors who show up just to be around other people. It's one solution to the crisis explored in our two-part series on loneliness that you can 'check out' with nothing more than a library card. -
A San Antonio scientist thinks of the protein that drives most prostate cancers as a machine, and pioneers a method to visualize it for the first time. This could lead to much better treatments and, someday, prevention.
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As respiratory virus season approaches, San Antonio health experts urge people to get vaccinated against both COVID and the flu. Most pharmacies have both in stock, but children who rely on free vaccines through a federal program may face delays, and a new mRNA flu shot is in short supply. -
In the second part of Petrie Dish’s exploration of loneliness, host Bonnie Petrie looks at what it takes to fight isolation, from teen gathering spaces to libraries and “chatty cafes,” and how communities can be designed to bring people together.
