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Petrie Dish

Why does a new study on depression have people asking their doctors about their SSRI medications? Will sequencing the human genome soon be affordable for almost everyone? On Petrie Dish, join host and veteran reporter Bonnie Petrie for deep dives into a wide range of bioscience and medicine stories.

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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.
  • 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.
  • In rural Texas, severely injured patients often wait more than two hours to reach specialized trauma care. A UT Health San Antonio trauma surgeon is co-leading an effort to change that with an AI tool designed to help emergency doctors make faster transfer decisions that can mean the difference between life and death.
  • The UT Health San Antonio professor who is leading an effort to increase the number of South Texas teens who are vaccinated against the human papillomavirus hopes to see cervical cancer eliminated in the United States in her lifetime.
  • The annual summer COVID wave hasn't peaked yet, and flu season is on the way, but this year brings new options to fight back. From a prophylactic pill you can take after exposure to COVID to a faster-made mRNA flu shot, Dr. Jason Bowling of UT Health San Antonio breaks down the new options.
  • Every organ in your body keeps its own internal clock, and UT Health San Antonio researcher Kevin Koronowski is studying how that clock controls fat metabolism. His lab is investigating a protein pair that decides when the body burns fat and when it stores it, work that could eventually improve treatments for metabolic disease.
  • When Bruce Willis, an action movie star known for his way with words, started to lose his language skills, it made news. He had aphasia.
  • When doctors can't identify a fungal infection, they often turn to UT Health San Antonio's Fungus Testing Laboratory, which has discovered more than 60 new species since 2013. The lab is now racing to fight drug-resistant fungi while helping bring new antifungal treatments to market.
  • A new UT Health San Antonio study finds that any amount of physical activity can slow cognitive decline in older adults, with Mexican Americans showing the greatest benefit. Researchers say the findings highlight a need for community investment in accessible spaces for movement and social connection.