‘Nowhere else I’d rather be!’
When I was growing up, I loved going to San Antonio Spurs basketball games and watching everyone cheer for the star players Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan. The Spurs have been NBA champions five times in the last 24 years — and we treat every home game as if it were the championships. This feeling of unity and a sense of community is one of my favorite things about the city.
I’m a San Antonio native and a second-year Ph.D. student at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, or UTHSCSA. One of my favorite things about going to school here is engaging in the wide breadth of research that takes place. My dissertation work focuses on characterizing the interactions between the main driver of prostate cancer, the androgen receptor and its cofactors. However, labs around campus are performing groundbreaking research in other cancers, neuroscience, immunology and vaccines, aging, pharmacology and drug design — imagine any biomedical topic, and someone at UTHSCSA is probably studying it or something related.
This theme of diversity doesn’t end in the lab, though. San Antonio has a rich history and uniquely diverse culture that can be rivaled by only a handful of cities around the world. You can grab kolaches (Central European sweet breads) for breakfast, take a stroll by the River Walk, visit a breathtakingly beautiful art exhibit and end the night at a live jazz club, all in one day.
San Antonio offers endless beauty and culture, and the myriad experiences available here are a testament to that. I feel exceedingly fortunate to have grown up in such a vibrant, lively city and there is nowhere else I’d rather be!
Submit an abstract
Discover BMB, the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, will be held March 23–26 in San Antonio. Abstracts for poster presentations and spotlight talks will be accepted through Nov. 30. See the poster categories and spotlight talk themes.
Enjoy reading ASBMB Today?
Become a member to receive the print edition four times a year and the digital edition weekly.
Learn moreGet the latest from ASBMB Today
Enter your email address, and we’ll send you a weekly email with recent articles, interviews and more.
Latest in People
People highlights or most popular articles
Brain-on-a-chip tech powers neuroscience research
MOSAIC scholar Brian O'Grady has engineered a biomimetic model of the brain’s blood vessels to help tackle glioblastoma.
Being a whole person outside of work
Creating art, community service, physical exercise, theater and music — four scientists talk about the activities that bring them joy.
‘We’re thankful for our reviewers’
Meet some of the scientists who review manuscripts for the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Lipid Research and Molecular & Cellular Proteomics.
In memoriam: Bruce Ames
He invented a cheap and easy way to assess mutagenicity that helped identify many environmental and industrial carcinogens; it became known as the Ames test.
Honors for DebBurman, Margaryan and Santiago–Frangos
The Council on Undergraduate Research honors Shubhik DebBurman with a mentoring award. Anush Margaryan wins a Projects for Peace grant to teach refugees in Armenia. UPenn names Andrew Santiago–Frangos an endowed assistant professor.
In memoriam: William L. Smith
He served as associate editor of both the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Journal of Lipid Research and was an ASBMB member for more than 40 years.