Dr. Mark Pellegrino continues to dream big with his biology research and has many important new research projects planned at The University of Texas at Arlington.

Pellegrino's studies on mitochondrial stress are of growing interest because of the implications for multiple conditions such as cancer, Parkinson's disease and bacterial infections.

Earlier this year, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas awarded The University of Texas at Arlington an $823,067 grant to recruit star cell biology researcher Mark Pellegrino from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Dr. Pellegrino began as an assistant professor at UT Arlington in August 2016 for the start of the fall semester. He is an internationally recognized biologist whose discovery that mitochondria are an important activator of innate immunity was published in Nature in 2014.

Pellegrino joins UTA as the school is expanding its focus on research that advances health and the human condition. Construction is scheduled to begin this fall on a $125 million Science and Engineering Innovation and Research building with 200,000 square feet of teaching and research space that will enable enhanced activity in the health sciences.

The modern glass and steel building will provide a new, iconic southern entry to the UTA campus, south of the existing Life Science building. A groundbreaking event will be held at the end of October.

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