Two Texas State University geneticists have a $3 million NIH grant to develop platyfish and swordtails as a model for studying human disease.
Yuan Lu, Ph.D., and Manfred Schartl, Ph.D., of Texas State University in San Marcos have received a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the Hays Free Press reported on 4 November. The project is titled Advancement of the Xiphophorus Model for Studying Disease. Lu is an assistant professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry and in Biology, and associate director of the university’s Institute for Molecular Life Sciences. Schartl is a scholar in residence at the institute.
Xiphophorus are platyfish and swordtails. The institute houses 24 of the 26 known species and supplies fish to scientists around the world. Some of these fish show traits that resemble cancer, obesity, and neurological and developmental disorders, yet often stay healthy. Studying that contrast helps researchers pinpoint the processes that protect them.
The grant is meant to make the model easier for other labs to use, by standardizing data, linking it to public research platforms, and developing lab-grown cell models and genetic tools. Collaborators include the University of Missouri, UT Health San Antonio, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Undergraduate and graduate students will take part in laboratory and computational research. “Nature has already given us powerful clues about disease resilience,” Lu said.
Why it matters in the Eastern Crescent
Texas State is in San Marcos, on IH-35, the line CEEI uses as the western edge of its region. This is basic research. It is not a cure or a treatment, and the Free Press report does not claim one. What it shows is federally funded science with an international reach, run from Hays County, with students trained in the lab and on the computer as part of the grant. For CEEI, that training is the part closest to the region’s workforce.
Reported by Hays Free Press staff, 4 November 2026. Summary and commentary by CEEI. CEEI is not affiliated with Texas State University, the National Institutes of Health or the Hays Free Press. Photo of a male southern platyfish by Monika Korzeniec, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.