This renewal application requests 3 years of support to continue a highly successful international scientific meeting entitled Behavior, Biology and Chemistry: Translational Research in Addiction (BBC) that has been held annually in San Antonio Texas since 2009. In addition to this grant as well as a previous NIH grant, BBC meetings have received significant financial and institutional support from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and several other universities.

TxBiomed is helping to develop a safe and effective Ebola/Marburg combination vaccine based on recombinant adenoviral vectors to induce protective immunity.

Poxviruses include some dangerous emerging or re-emerging pathogens as well as some promising vaccine vectors for infectious diseases and cancers. They are unique among viruses in that they encode a large number of proteins that are dedicated to evading host immune responses. These proteins include secreted inhibitors of cytokines as well as intracellular inhibitors of immune signaling or antiviral factors.

Rab7 and estrogen-ER as B cell-intrinsic mediators of auto/antibody responses.

Cigarette smoking is a leading cause of cancer as well as cardiovascular and respiratory disease and is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Many factors contribute to cigarette smoking, including nicotine, other chemicals in tobacco smoke, and conditioned reinforcers. This competing continuation of an R01 proposal focuses on nicotine and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) as critical determinants of smoking behavior and smoking cessation pharmacotherapy.

Cancer has overtaken heart disease as the top Latino killer; however few Latinos seek doctoral degrees and enter the field of cancer control research, particularly in the behavioral sciences. In response, …xito!

Cigarette smoking is a leading cause of cancer as well as cardiovascular and respiratory disease and is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Many factors contribute to cigarette smoking, including nicotine, other chemicals in tobacco smoke, and conditioned reinforcers. This competing continuation of an R01 proposal focuses on nicotine and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) as critical determinants of smoking behavior and smoking cessation pharmacotherapy.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among the U.S. population. Therefore, new and better ways to prevent and treat T2DM are urgently needed. Insulin resistance is one of the earliest and most significant abnormalities in the pathogenesis of T2DM. However, the molecular basis for the insulin resistance of T2DM is not fully understood. Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 is a cell surface receptor that generates immune responses by activating a cascade of pro-inflammatory events.

Impaired endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondrial function has been implicated in many of the obesity-induced etiology of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain to be fully elucidated. We have identified Disulfide bond A oxidoreductase-like protein or DsbA-L as a critical regulator of adiponectin assembly and secretion in adipocytes (Liu et al (2008) Proc. Nat.Acad. Sci. USA, 105, 18302-07). DsbA-L expression in adipose tissues is significantly reduced in obese human subjects and animal models of obesity.