Rocio Villalobos 
EDINBURG – With the recent awarding of a $38-million donation from the Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation, the UTRGV School of Medicine is on track to becoming a national epicenter for biomedical research.
Over the years, the Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation has gifted $53 million to the UTRGV School of Medicine, assisting its mission of creating a healthier community.
“It really takes UTRGV as an institution to a much more prominent level nationally in terms of research,” said Dr. John Krouse, dean of the School of Medicine.
UT-Health RGV has 30 clinical sites across the Valley, and with the $38 million grant, which is the largest single donation in the history of higher education in the RGV, the medical school will grow its research and education programs.
“That will help us to advance our research into Cameron County, into diabetes, obesity, genetics — childhood genetics — a variety of areas,” Krouse said. “It will also help us to advance some of our surgical training so we’ll actually be able to begin training surgical residents at Valley Baptist hospital.”
One of the research projects focuses on induced pluripotent stem cells to identify the molecular mechanisms of diseases. Dr. Satish Kumar explains.
“First we reprogram these stem cells from the blood cell lines, then we differentiate these stem cells into different cell types into the body to study various diseases and disease genetics, particularly for disease gene identification,” he said.
The School of Medicine will graduate its first class in May and Dr. Krouse says it is their hope the future doctors will stay in the Valley for their residency training and practice, transforming the region with a higher quality of life.
“Over time that would be a healthier community, a community with more access to care, a community where we have answers to some of the chronic diseases we have in the Valley,” he said. “We want to thank everyone that made this possible and we’ll continue to work to really bring them the best education, research and clinical care that we can,” said Dr.Krouse.
Along with its growth, the School of Medicine continues to attract renowned researchers and clinicians and plans to expand its practice to addiction studies this spring.
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