Lyda Hill Philanthropies Powers Innovation at UT Dallas

Novel biotechnology and health care innovations are launching out of The University of Texas at Dallas at a fast pace in part due to recent collaborations with Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

Most recently, Lyda Hill Philanthropies contributed $1 million to support the construction of the Texas Instruments Biomedical Engineering and Sciences Building, which opened its doors in fall 2023 as part of UT Dallas’ shared effort with UT Southwestern Medical Center to foster close collaboration between the institutions’ scientists, engineers and doctors. An additional $750,000 gift created the Lyda Hill Biomedical Innovation Fund, designed to stimulate high-impact research, technological development and commercialization within the new facility.

Lyda Hill Philanthropies has also directed significant support to the Callier Center for Communication Disorders and the Center for BrainHealth, two established centers at UT Dallas where scientific rigor drives pioneering treatments that transform patient lives and advance knowledge.

A Philosophy of Impact

In 2010, Lyda Hill joined The Giving Pledge, created by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett to encourage individuals around the world to commit the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.

In a letter announcing her commitment to The Giving Pledge, Hill wrote, “I am in the fortunate position to help tackle some of life’s most challenging ‘impossibilities.’ Because I have a fervent belief that science is the answer to many of life’s ‘impossibilities,’ I made the decision long ago to donate the entirety of my estate to philanthropy and scientific research. With this philosophy at the core of my philanthropic efforts, I decided long ago that I am not looking for Band-Aids or incremental change. I am looking for solutions. I want to invest in transformational initiatives that have the potential to impact global issues like food safety, ocean conservation, medical research and related efforts.”

Hill’s perspective on the impact of philanthropy found a natural fit at UT Dallas, an institution dedicated by its founders to driving fundamental research and public-facing translations that allow the fruits of academic inquiry to evolve into technologies, treatments and practices that benefit human living.

“We believe that strategic philanthropic investments can accelerate high-impact change,” said Nicole Small, CEO of Lyda Hill Philanthropies and LH Capital. “UT Dallas’ scientists, researchers and clinicians are constantly seeking breakthroughs that will improve our world, and it is exciting to see their discoveries translated to real-world interventions.”

Driving Biotech Development in North Texas

The Texas Instruments Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (TI BMES) Building is a $120 million, five-story, 150,000-square-foot facility located on the East Campus of UT Southwestern in Dallas’ Southwestern Medical District. A cornerstone project of New Dimensions: The Campaign for UT Dallas, the TI BMES Building welcomed its first occupants in the fall of 2023 when seven UT Dallas researchers moved their labs from UT Dallas’ main campus to the new building. Equipped with both wet and dry laboratory space, multidisciplinary working areas and a Biodesign Center featuring a large assembly and design studio, a metal fabrication shop and 3D printing rooms, the building will eventually host dozens of researchers from both UT Dallas and UT Southwestern Medical Center, including undergraduate and graduate students.

Bioengineering is a relatively new discipline at UT Dallas. The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science created its Department of Bioengineering in 2010. Since then, it has rapidly grown to become the third largest bioengineering department in the country, with a graduate program ranked No. 4 among Texas public universities according to U.S. News & World Report. This quantity and quality of bioengineering talent is a major resource for the Dallas region as it looks to create a new hub for biotechnology development. The TI BMES Building affords UT Dallas’ researchers in-person access to patients and medical professionals whose experiences and empirical expertise will expedite ideation, prototyping and commercialization of new biomedical technologies.

“Biomedical engineering and science are major drivers of UT Dallas’ rapidly growing research portfolio,” said UT Dallas president Dr. Richard C. Benson, who holds the Eugene McDermott Distinguished University Chair of Leadership. “The partnership between UT Dallas and UT Southwestern will provide students and faculty with more opportunities to create transformative technologies that will improve lives.”

One collaborative project now underway in the new facility combines the work of UT Dallas researcher Dr. Kristin Miller and Dr. María Florián-Rodríguez, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UT Southwestern. The pair are developing new treatments for pelvic floor disorders.

“If you want to get feedback on a new medical device, who better to ask than the clinician who will one day implant and monitor the device? It is an opportunity we are very excited about,” said Miller, associate professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering.

Lyda Hill Biomedical Innovation Fund

Two UT Dallas faculty members now working in the TI BMES Building are receiving additional support from Lyda Hill Philanthropies in the form of seed funding for novel biomedical research projects. Dr. Zhenpeng Qin and Dr. Jie Zheng are both leading collaborative teams developing nanotechnology-based approaches to treating cancer and diseases in the brain.

Qin, associate professor of mechanical engineering and Fellow, Eugene McDermott Distinguished Professor, leads the NanoBioengineering Laboratory at UT Dallas. In coordination with UT Southwestern faculty Drs. Juan Pascual and James Caruso, Qin is developing a new technique to deliver medicine through the blood-brain barrier. His team has invented a new nanoparticle called optoBBB, which offers a promising minimally invasive delivery system that would allow medicines to access hard-to-reach areas of the body.

“Our new lab will give us the opportunity to deepen our collaborations with our UT Southwestern partners to put medicine in the brain,” Qin said. “Moving into the new building allows us to engage with clinical partners and perform studies that were previously challenging to do.”

Support from the Lyda Hill Biomedical Innovation Fund has helped Qin’s team find early success in their pathway toward commercializing their new technology, completing large animal studies and preparing for large-scale testing. Lyda Hill Philanthropies’ funding has also allowed the team to hire two student researchers from UT Dallas: Harsh Dave, a current bioengineering doctoral student, and Akshar Dobariya, a graduate of UTD’s bioengineering master’s degree program and a current doctoral student at UT Southwestern.

Zheng, Distinguished Chair in Natural Sciences and Mathematics and professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is also working to engineer new nanomedicines. Alongside Dr. Siyuan Zhang at UT Southwestern, Zheng has created a new cost-effective therapeutic agent called GoldenICG that allows for enhanced photoimmunotherapy cancer treatments. GoldenICG would allow doctors to broaden the application of photoimmunotherapy — a treatment which can target cancer cells while minimizing side effects to surrounding normal cells — to forms of cancer that the current delivery methods cannot reach.

Results from the group’s early research have shown great effect in treating breast cancer and controlling the spread of cancer in other parts of the body. Zheng’s team was also able to hire a UT Dallas graduate student and postdoctoral fellow thanks to support from Lyda Hill Biomedical Innovation Fund.

“My research program has greatly benefited from more than one decade of fruitful collaboration with many colleagues at UT Southwestern,” Zheng said. “The building will further strengthen and accelerate such collaborations, allowing rapid tests of our innovative nanotechnologies in a variety of animal models for disease diagnosis and treatment. In addition, we will learn from them about urgent needs in clinics, so that we can develop clinically translatable nanotechnologies to target these needs.”

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