Sunil K. Ahuja, M.D., is listed among Texas Monthly’s “35 People Who Will Shape Our Future.”
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Contact: Will Sansom, (210) 567-2579

SAN ANTONIO (Jan. 31, 2008) — Sunil K. Ahuja, M.D., the creative and energetic scientist whose team is tackling the intricacies of HIV/AIDS at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the Veterans Administration Center for AIDS and HIV Infection, is featured in “35 People Who Will Shape Our Future,” a list of the top innovative Texans in February’s issue of Texas Monthly.

Others featured include Lance Armstrong, Tour de France champion; George P. Bush, son of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and nephew of President George W. Bush; Dr. Diana Natalicio, president of The University of Texas at El Paso; and Joe Straus III, state representative from San Antonio.

Dr. Ahuja’s research team is providing key insights into genes’ impact on HIV transmission and disease progression. “The upshot of this groundbreaking research is that HIV drugs and vaccines could one day be tailored to a genetic profile,” the magazine wrote. Dr. Ahuja, in a Web exclusive interview on the Texas Monthly site, noted that “we are still a long way off” from seeing HIV drugs matched to particular genetic profiles, but said having a person’s genetic profile can be helpful in many ways, including identifying individuals who may suffer an allergic reaction to HIV medications.

He praised his two-dozen-strong research group for the collective work that has resulted in seminal HIV/AIDS papers in Science, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology and many other journals. Dr. Ahuja attributed the Texas Monthly recognition to the hard work and dedication of his “dream” team and to contributions of many outstanding collaborators, including Dr. Matthew Dolan and others at Wilford Hall Medical Center.

Dr. Ahuja occupies the President’s Council Chair for Excellence in Medical Research, an honor bestowed on him by the Health Science Center in 2005. He was the 2006 Presidential Distinguished Scholar at the university.

Additional faculty members featured
A number of other Health Science Center faculty members have been featured recently in publications:

• V. Seenu Reddy, M.D., assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Health Science Center, and Charles Keller, M.D., assistant professor of cellular and structural biology and faculty investigator at the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute, were recognized as rising stars in the San Antonio Business Journal’s “40 Under Forty” special section dated Dec. 21.


The publication noted that Dr. Reddy, who performs surgery to assist patients with heart or lung disease, is a technological leader in cardiothoracic surgery and an excellent teacher for “the doctors of tomorrow at the Health Science Center.”

The special section noted that Dr. Keller is conducting innovative studies of mice and their embryos to evaluate genes that regulate development and, when mutated, play a role in cancer formation.


• John H. Calhoon, M.D., professor of surgery and head of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery and holder of the Calhoon President’s Council Chair for Excellence in Surgery, was featured in a front-page article in the Jan. 18 issue of the Business Journal.
  
  The article noted that Dr. Calhoon, following in the footsteps of one of his mentors, J. Kent Trinkle, M.D., “has built the heart and lung transplant program at the UT Health Science Center into one of the most respected in the nation.” At University Hospital and CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital, Dr. Calhoon has performed surgeries on 2,500 adults and 2,500 children.
  
  
• Ralph A. DeFronzo, M.D., professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Diabetes, was pictured and quoted in an article in the Business Journal’s Jan. 11 special report on “Healthy Living: Heart and Diabetes Care.” Dr. DeFronzo noted that several studies under way at the Health Science Center and the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research are aimed at discovering genes that cause type 2 diabetes.
  
  Several Health Science Center diabetes researchers were featured in the special section, including Drs. Nicolas Musi, Eugenio Cersosimo and Dan Hale.
  
  
• Carlos Roberto Jaén, M.D., Ph.D., the Dr. John M. Smith Jr. Professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, was quoted in the Dec. 18 edition of the Wall Street Journal in a story titled “Pilot Program Aims to Train Spanish-Speaking Doctors.” Dr. Jaén discussed the danger of miscommunication with Spanish-speaking patients.

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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $576 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $15.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to seven campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 22,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields. For more information, visit www.uthscsa.edu.