UTA In The News — Monday, April 5, 2021
Texas Rangers Opening Day
Erin Carlson, associate clinical professor and director of public health graduate programs in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation, spoke to The Dallas Morning News about attending baseball games in stadiums packed at full capacity. “That’s a pretty high-risk activity,” Carlson said. “Even if we’re outdoors… if you’re in close enough proximity to breathe in those droplets, you will be breathing in somebody else’s droplets.” After a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Texas Rangers’ decision to open its stadium to 100% of capacity makes the team the test case for the next steps in the return to normalcy. If the 40,518-seat stadium sells out, it is expected to be the largest publicly documented attendance at an event since March of last year.
Cancer treatment research
Jon Weidanz, UTA’s associate vice president for research, discussed new research for cancer treatments with the National Cancer Institute and Science Magazine. He noted several considerations for using diabodies—antibody fragments—as cancer treatments. The newly designed diabodies are not yet ready to be tested in human studies, but the research team is hopeful about their potential.
Distant earth-like planet
Astrophysicists at The University of Texas in Arlington have predicted that an earth-like planet may be lurking in a star system just 16 light years away, reported KLBJ Radio in Austin. Their investigation of star-system Gliese 832 shows the possibility of additional exoplanets that reside between the system’s two known worlds.