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Contact: Jason Marton
jason.marton@tamuk.edu or 361-593-4143

Award-winning month for faculty & students of Natural Toxins Research Center


Elda Sanchez recieves an award as an Alumna Role Model.

KINGSVILLE (October 19, 2005) — September at Texas A&M University-Kingsville’s Natural Toxins Research Center (NTRC) has been filled with faculty and student researchers receiving awards for their work.

Assistant director Dr. Elda E. Sanchez traveled to Las Vegas to be named an Alumna Role Model at the Sixth Minority Access Inc. National Role Model Conference Sept. 11-13. Sanchez accepted her award Sept. 13, accompanied by Dr. Kay Clayton, provost and vice president of academic affairs, and Mary Gonzalez, assistant vice president of special programs.

Sanchez received word of the award in August in an unexpected fashion. “I was sent a copy of the conference program and saw that I was one of the award recipients,” said Sanchez.

On being named a role model, Sanchez said, “You have the feeling that you need to try harder. There’s more to do and we have a responsibility to those that come after us.”

NTRC director Dr. John C. Perez spoke highly of his assistant director, who received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at A&M-Kingsville. “Elda was a star student and continues to be a shining star on this campus. She earned her Ph.D. a year ago and has been published 17 times in professional journals. She is exactly the kind of kind of success story we love to see here.”

In addition to accepting her award at the conference Sept. 13, Sanchez also joined Clayton and Gonzalez in a presentation on the accomplishments and programs of Texas A&M-Kingsville, as the university was being considered for a 2006 Minority Access Institutional Role Model Award.

Sanchez noted that another of her fellow alumna role models, Margarita Martinez-Moczygemba, assistant professor at the Baylor College of Medicine, was also a former student of the NTRC.

Later that month, awards were handed out yet again to an NTRC member, as Perez received his award from Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology magazine for being named one of the 50 Most Important Hispanics in Technology and Business for 2005. The award ceremony took place Sept. 16 in Baltimore, as part of the Minorities in Research Science Conference.

The list of 50 honorees had been featured in the April/May issue of the magazine.

Finally in September, NTRC student Renato Regalado, a senior biology major from Matamoros, was honored for a poster on his research work in cancer biology at a renowned conference.


Renato Regalado

From Sept. 29-Oct. 2, Regalado attended the national conference of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), where he competed in the conference poster presentation. Regalado represented Texas A&M-Kingsville among a competitive field of universities from around the country and beyond, including Cornell, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His recognized poster was based on cancer biology research he started in the summer through a 10-week program working in collaboration with Dr. Julio G. Soto of San Jose State University in San Jose, CA.  Soto received his masters at then-Texas A&I under Perez.

Regalado plans on continuing his research work through the fall. From there, he will receive his bachelor’s degree, with plans to pursue his master’s degree.

“I’ve had a very good experience at Texas A&M-Kingsville,” said Regalado. “Meeting Drs. Perez and Sanchez has been quite a blessing.”

This page last updated 19 October, 2005