The Generative Brain

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston)

UTHealth Houston is a public academic health institution in the University of Texas System; its McGovern Medical School Department of Neurology hosts the Mitchell Center for Alzheimer's Disease and Related Brain Disorders (director Claudio Soto) and the prion lab of Rodrigo Morales. The prion work is laboratory research: PMCA-based anti-prion drug screening, prion strain and species-barrier studies, zoonotic risk of animal prions and chronic wasting disease detection, funded by NIAID and the CJD Foundation. No clinical prion service, family registry or diagnostic test offer was found on the pages read.

Key facts

  • UTHealth Houston belongs to the University of Texas System and has seven schools including McGovern Medical School, with research spending above 400 million dollars a year and a 2.7 billion dollar operating budget in FY2025.
  • Leadership: Melina Kibbe became president on 2025-09-09 after interim president LaTanya Love (from 2025-03-01), who became Dean of McGovern Medical School on 2025-09-10.
  • Rodrigo Morales is Professor of Neurology at McGovern Medical School (postdoc 2009, Assistant Professor 2012, Associate Professor 2018) working on prion strains, species barriers and prion-like amyloid beta.
  • Claudio Soto directs the Mitchell Center, whose Soto Lab studies protein misfolding in Alzheimer's and prion disorders; Soto is also founder and chief scientific officer of Amprion Inc.
  • The CJD Foundation funded Morales in 2020 (zoonotic potential of pork from prion-exposed pigs) and in 2022 (high throughput screening of anti-prion molecules).
  • The 2022 project produced a strain-aware PMCA drug screen; compounds hit none, all or only some prion strains, and only methylene blue blocked prions of all species tested in vitro.
  • The 2025 mBio pig study found BSE-exposed pig tissue could convert human prion protein in vitro while CWD and scrapie pig prions did not, with Edinburgh, USDA ARS and Colorado State co-authors.
  • Papers list NIAID grants R01AI132695 (Morales) and P01AI077774 (Soto) plus CJD Foundation support.
  • Morales co-authored the 2024 CWD state-of-the-science review with Byron Caughey (RML), Colorado State, the Alberta CPPFD and USGS, covering PMCA and RT-QuIC detection.
  • The group publishes steadily on CWD detection in deer, coyotes, environments and soil (2024 to 2026) and reviewed prion therapeutics in humans and animals in 2024.
  • An October 2026 eNeuro mouse study found that removing TMEM106B does not change prion disease progression.

Timeline

  1. 2009Morales joins UTHealth as a postdoctoral fellow; Assistant Professor 2012, Associate Professor 2018.
  2. 2020CJD Foundation grant to Morales on the zoonotic potential of pork from prion-exposed pigs.
  3. 2022CJD Foundation grant to Morales for high throughput anti-prion screening.
  4. 2024CWD state-of-the-science review with RML, Colorado State and Alberta co-authors.
  5. 2024FASEB J paper on PMCA adapted for anti-prion compound screening.
  6. 2024Biomolecules paper on PMCA compound screening; president Colasurdo announces he will step down.
  7. 2024PLoS Pathogens review of prion therapeutics in humans and animals.
  8. 2025LaTanya Love becomes interim president.
  9. 2025mBio paper on prions in pigs exposed to BSE, scrapie and CWD.
  10. 2025Melina Kibbe becomes president; Love becomes Dean of McGovern Medical School.
  11. 2026eNeuro paper: TMEM106B loss does not alter prion disease in mice.
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