Transforming health through Discovery and Education
From cancer and heart failure to bacterial infections and neurological defects, researchers at the Texas A&M Institute of Biosciences and Technology in Houston work to improve the quality of health care through innovative research and education. Our mission is to perform innovative translational biomedical research and to transfer discoveries to the classroom, clinic and marketplace.
Kenneth S. Ramos, M.D., P.h.D.
Welcome to the Texas A&M Institute of Biosciences and Technology in Houston, Texas, simply called the IBT!
Established as a free-standing unit by the Texas A&M Board of Regents in Houston in 1986, the IBT is fulfilling its role as a hub of scientific and technological excellence in research and education in the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical center in the world. The IBT is one of the founding components of the Texas A&M University Health Science Center (Texas A&M Health).
The IBT fosters innovative research at the intersection of biomedical and translational sciences and technology. Uniquely, the IBT has strong education programs in biotechnology and entrepreneurship involving many faculty who actively develop new intellectual property and startup companies to commercialize their discoveries. The institute is organized into four Research Centers of Excellence; each positioned to address critical issues in biomedicine and health care, including epigenetics and disease prevention, genomics and precision medicine, infectious diseases and inflammation, and translational cancer research. With over 30 distinguished faculty scholars, our state-of-the-art facilities bridge multiple disciplines in our quest to develop strategies to treat, alleviate and prevent human diseases. Faculty, staff and trainees throughout the Texas A&M University System, as well as the Texas Medical Center, take advantage of outstanding Core Facilities that enable their research in the areas of advanced cellular and molecular imaging, epigenomics, high-throughput drug screening and analysis, bioinformatics, molecular modeling, and more.
The growth and accomplishments of the IBT is in no small part due to the support by generous donors who have graciously endowed some of our programs and greatly augmented IBT’s impact. Philanthropists such as Albert B. Alkek were instrumental in development of the $22 million, 11-story research tower on the South campus of the Texas Medical Center, now known as the “Alkek Building”.
Thank you for visiting the IBT website. I invite you to explore the institute and discover the outstanding quality of our programs.
Centers
The institute is organized into four research centers of excellence:
Epigenetics & Disease Prevention
Identifies novel disease protective agents from natural sources via the “Field-to-Clinic” initiative, and exploring the role of the epigenome in health and disease.
Genomic and Precision Medicine
Promotes the translation of discoveries in biology and engineering into interventions of value in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Infectious & Inflammatory Diseases
Determines the molecular mechanisms of infectious and inflammatory diseases and designing strategies to interfere with these processes.
Translational Cancer Research
Promotes the translation of discoveries in cancer cell biology into interventions of value in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Advanced Technology Cores
In order to foster intra-institution as well as inter-institution collaboration the IBT encourages and provides resources for development of core laboratories as part of the research environment.
Antibody & Biopharmaceuticals Core (ABC)
Service center that provides researchers with access to state-of-the-art technologies for the generation of customized monoclonal antibodies, antibody- drug conjugates, and engineered antibody fragments tailored to meet the specific needs of individual research programs.
Center for Advanced Imaging
Joint resource supported by the institute, the Alkek Foundation, and Baylor College of Medicine to promote multi-investigator, multi-institutional grants using advanced imaging technology.
Flow Cytometry Analysis and Cell Sorting
Provides state-of-the-art instrumentation, exceptional specialized expertise and training in flow cytometry, including fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS).
High Throughput Research and Screening
Joint resource supported by the institute and the Gulf Coast Consortia to promote the discovery of new drugs and new treatments for some of the most devastating diseases of our time using high throughput screening.
Microphysiological Lead Optimization Screening (MLOTS)
Joint resources supported by the institute and Gulf Coast Consortium (GCC) to promote a multi-institutional drug discovery core designed to accelerate the development of new cancer therapies.
Pre-Clinical Imaging Core
Provides a platform to support investigators using state-of-the-art dynamic molecular and anatomical imaging technology to accelerate a broad spectrum of basic and preclinical studies via non-invasive, live and in vivo fluorescence, bioluminescence, and micro-ultrasound imaging system.
Protein Production, Characterization and Molecular Interaction (PPCMI)
Provides a range of services such as molecular cloning, recombinant protein expression, purification characterization, and biochemical binding studies for experimental development, bioengineering, and biopharmaceutics.
Rigor and Reproducibility Core
Service center that assists researchers with integration of Rigor and Reproducibility into their research by performing rigorous statistical and bioinformatics analysis.
Texas A&M Clinicogenomics
Texas A&M’s Clinicogenomics programs are designed to examine systems issues impacting healthcare outcomes in chronic disease populations, including genetic, psychosocial, socioeconomic, environmental, occupational, operational, delivery, access and coverage.