Research and Teaching

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UT San Antonio) is San Antonio's only Tier One research-intensive academic institution and academic health science center. On September 1, 2025, two previously separate universities under The University of Texas System – The University of Texas at San Antonio and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio – officially merged, harnessing two powerhouses to become the third-largest public research university in Texas. This historic milestone reflects extraordinary collaboration across both campuses and marks the start of a thoughtful integration process to strengthen education, research and community impact. The unified university of UT San Antonio is comprised of 17,500 faculty, clinicians and staff and 42,500 students. Financially UT San Antonio has $0.52B in Total Research Expenditures, $2.8B Revenue Budget and $1.3B in Endowments. 

The Health Science Center is UT San Antonio’s academic health science center, located in the South Texas Medical Center and serves San Antonio and a large multicounty region across South and Central Texas. The Health Science Center is home to six professional health schools – medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions, the graduate school of biomedical sciences, and public health – and supports a workforce of approximately 8,500 faculty and staff for the Health Affairs and Health System enterprise component of UT San Antonio. As the region’s primary academic health center, it integrates education, biomedical research, and clinical care, enrolling more than 4,700 students in 65 degree and certificate programs annually and maintaining affiliations with over 100 hospitals and care facilities throughout South Texas. Education is delivered through an interprofessional model that integrates classroom instruction, clinical training, and research engagement, preparing students to become clinicians, scientists, and public health leaders who can address complex, real-world health challenges. 

Faculty excellence is demonstrated by faculty members' participation on many national advisory and governing boards and by their election to high offices in national and professional societies. Faculty recruitment efforts emphasize research as well as teaching, consonant with the institution's mission.

With the cooperation of medical institutions in the area, basic and clinical research are underway in such fields as cancer, aging, genetics, immunology, cardiovascular disorders, nutrition, arthritis, osteoporosis, psychiatric disorders and new drug development. Partners include the Audie L. Murphy Division of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, Trinity University, St. Mary’s University, the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, Southwest Research Institute, the 311th Human Systems Wing at Brooks City Base and the San Antonio Military Medical Center. 

There are several institutes devoted to research, teaching and patient care. These include the Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, the Institute for Drug Development and the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases. In 2020, the UT System Board of Regents approved plans for a $443 million UT San Antonio Health Science Center Multispecialty and Research Hospital, which features 144 beds, 12 operating rooms, an intensive care unit, infusion center, emergency department, pharmacy, laboratories and an imaging center. Construction was completed in December 2024.

The Robert F. McDermott Clinical Science Building, on the UT San Antonio Health Science Center campus, houses the Research Imaging Institute, as well as research labs and teaching facilities for the clinical pharmacology and clinical pharmacy programs and the ophthalmology department.

The Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute (GCCRI) is a unique and specialized cancer research center. The mission of the GCCRI is to advance scientific knowledge relevant to childhood cancer and to accelerate the translation of knowledge into novel therapies. Through discovery, development and dissemination of scientific knowledge relevant to childhood cancer, the overarching aim of the GCCRI is to impact the scourge of cancer at all ages.

The Mays Cancer Center, home to UT San Antonio Health Science Center MD Anderson Cancer Center, is one of the elite academic cancer centers in the country to be named a National Cancer Institute-Designated Cancer Center, and is one of only four in Texas. A leader in developing new drugs to treat cancer, the Institute for Drug Development conducts one of the largest oncology phase 1 clinical drug programs in the world and participates in development of cancer drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

UT San Antonio Health Science Center Medical Arts and Research Center is home to the clinical practice of the university's Long School of Medicine. With more than 1,600 providers, UT San Antonio Health Science Center has the largest medical practice in Central and South Texas, practicing in more than 130 medical specialties and subspecialties. Located in the South Texas Medical Center at 8300 Floyd Curl Dr., the facility features state-of-the-art clinics, diagnostic imaging, an ambulatory center, endoscopic suites, operating rooms, physicians' offices and a pharmacy. It complements community physicians who are invited to refer complex cases to UT Health San Antonio specialists and subspecialists.

The South Texas Research Facility (STRF), completed in 2011, houses the academic health center's state-of-the-art Optical Imaging Core Facility and the Bioanalytics and Single Cell Core Lab, as well as the Office of Technology Commercialization.

The Center for Oral Health Care and Research, completed in 2015, is located next door to UT San Antonio Health Science Center Medical Arts and Research Center and is the home of the School of Dentistry's patient practice, UT Dentistry. The 198,000-square-foot facility provides for all aspects of clinical experiences for students, residents, faculty and patients and creates an environment that supports the finest in comprehensive and multispecialty patient care.

Dedicated in 2016, the 130,000-square-foot Academic Learning and Teaching Center (ALTC) on UT San Antonio Health Science Center campus features 33 ultra-modern classrooms, strategic learning spaces and a state-of-the-art digital anatomy laboratory with 3D interactive imaging capabilities. The largest ALTC classrooms can accommodate 280 students, and smaller seminar rooms seat 12-18. In every room, the technology and furniture design encourages active learning.