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The Source: The Answer Is In Your Genes | Innovation In San Antonio

Robert Fludd
/
Public domain (copyrite expired)
The diagram of consciousness from Robert Fludd's "Utriusque Cosmi, Maioris scilicet et Minoris, metaphysica, physica, atque technica Historia."

In the first segment:

Your "senior moment" -- forgetting where your keys are -- reciting the wrong child's name -- is the result of normal aging, but what makes up normal is defined by what makes up you -- that is to say your genes affect the way your brain declines.

Studying extended families, the Texas Biomedical Research Institute and Yale University published a study showing just how much that decline is influenced by your genetics.

This is just the latest study from Dr. John Blangero, a geneticist with Texas Biomed. From diabetes and obesity to heart disease and even depression, Blangero and his team have been intrigued by discovering disease genes. We talk to Blangero about his recent work and what are genes could tell us.

In the second segment:

131106-source-innovation.mp3

San Antonio city leaders often tout the information economy and the need to innovate and grow our technology sector in order to compete globally. But what is San Antonio doing to capture the inspiration of its innovators?  

How is the area encouraging and building the supports for entrepreneurs, inventors and those aspiring to reimagine?

Lorenzo Gomez III, executive director of the 80/20 Foundation and a Geekdom guy, joins us along with Cory Hallam, chief commercialization officer for the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Some interesting projects we see coming out of these organizations have come to fruition are Invictus Medical and Free Flow Research.

We'll talk to Peter French about Free Flow's efforts to increase STEM jobs and students and the number of international entrepreneurs in the U.S.

Also on, Tom Roberts, CEO at Invictus Medical, about how their humble beginnings -- being co-founded by a UTSA student -- have taken root and the now professionally-staffed company is ready to level up.

*The Source airs at 3 p.m. on KSTX 89.1 FM - audio from this show will be posted by 5:30 p.m.

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Paul Flahive can be reached at Paul@tpr.org