Texas Biomed President/CEO Dr. Larry Schlesinger honored for transformative approach to science and the business of science.
SAN ANTONIO (June 2025) — Championing the biomedical industry and its contributions to the lives of the citizens of San Antonio, BioMedSA has selected its 2025 Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience Awardee. BioMedSA named Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed) President/CEO and Professor Larry Schlesinger, M.D., as this year’s honoree. Positive disruptors are born of curiosity and vision, and as a physician-scientist Schlesinger brought both to Texas in 2017. He also brought little patience for incremental change, aiming to move science forward faster for the sake of patients and society.
“I’m humbled and also quite excited about having received this recognition by this peer group in the city,” Schlesinger said. “Since arriving in San Antonio, I have had nothing but support. City and county leaders, as well as organizations like BioMedSA that support biomedical research, have all been terrific partners in facilitating success. My vision was to develop an organizational structure that more nimbly translated science to the clinic. That was one of the reasons I moved to Texas Biomed. I saw an opportunity to move that dial to a more translational business model.”
Bringing to bear his competitive spirit, teamwork and willingness to take risks, Schlesinger launched a 10-year strategic plan and put Texas Biomed on a path to more than double its annual revenue in less than 10 years, creating jobs and impact in what is already the city’s largest economic sector – healthcare and bioscience – the bedrock of San Antonio’s economy. Texas Biomed now employs nearly 500 people in San Antonio, representing more than 40% growth since 2017, and according to an economic impact report of its strategic plan, the Institute is expected to produce a $3.2 billion economic impact in Bexar County by 2028.
Unforeseen but not unexpected, Schlesinger’s strategy positioned Texas Biomed to become a global partner in the race to develop therapeutics and vaccines and help the San Antonio region navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. While no one predicted the global impact of COVID-19, Schlesinger foresaw the need for a new approach to science funding and partnership that enabled the speed and efficacy of the pandemic response.
“As a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded investigator for nearly three decades, it was clear the NIH-funded environment would only get more competitive and indirect revenue from grants cannot offset the true cost of doing this science, particularly in high containment and animal research,” Schlesinger explained. “I knew we needed a different model.”
Texas Biomed’s business model is now a 50/50 split between federally funded basic research and translational contract-type research with the goal of those studies to move diagnostics, therapies and vaccines toward FDA approval.
“Beyond his own research, Schlesinger doesn’t just accept the status quo but is constantly looking at the big picture and ways to move science research organizations forward to make significant impact,” said Maziar Divangahi, Ph.D., Professor of Medicine and Associate Director, McGill International TB Centre. “His tireless motivation is rooted in a strong sense that scientists can create meaningful change transcending silos and traditional boundaries or definitions of scientific disciplines. Schlesinger is a physician-scientist who puts words into action and inspires collaboration.”
Schlesinger is very active on the Boards of BioMedSA and the San Antonio Medical Foundation. He led the Healthcare and Biosciences group on the Greater San Antonio Chamber’s SA to DC trip in 2024. In 2021, he was named the World Affairs Council of San Antonio International Citizen of the Year.
While Schlesinger’s leadership role enables him to expedite patient interventions, his heart remains in the lab. A renowned physician scientist, his lab focuses on tuberculosis (TB) and other airborne infectious agents that subvert lung immunity. He has been funded by the NIH for more than 30 years, authored 250+ peer-reviewed articles, reviews and books, served on NIH study sections and committees, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.
“I enjoy my role in leadership, but I still get incredibly excited about a new result from the lab, and that’s never left me,” he said.
Despite TB being preventable and curable, it is still the leading cause of infectious disease deaths, killing nearly 1.4 million people annually. Schlesinger’s work in the field since the 1990s has led to multiple discoveries, critically around how our immune cells recognize and respond to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb), the bacteria that causes TB. These studies helped scientists identify new targets for treatments to better control or eliminate TB.
Schlesinger explained that TB is a human-adapted pathogen that exploits the finely tuned immune pathways of the lung environment. His lab found that M.tb uses similar immune-suppressing tricks as cancer to survive in the lung environment, including inhibiting a process called apoptosis – an essential function that results in the death of unwanted cells and would normally help control M.tb. His lab is moving new immunotherapy drug candidates to preclinical testing. Additionally, his lab succeeded in generating a cell culture model of an alveolar macrophage, the lung’s most important immune cell and niche for M.tb. This model, both easier to work with and less expensive, enables researchers to test interventions against a variety of respiratory pathogens, including TB, COVID-19 and H5N1 influenza.
“I firmly believe the next generation of treatments for infection will be immunotherapy in combination with antibiotics and antivirals; that’s where our science is going,” Schlesinger said.
Schlesinger earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Cornell University and his medical degree from Rutgers Medical School. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan and clinical and research fellowships in Infectious Diseases at University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to joining Texas Biomed, he held several posts at The Ohio State University, including Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine; First Chair of the Department of Microbial Infection & Immunity; and Founder and Director of the university-wide Center for Microbial Interface Biology (now called the Infectious Diseases Research Institute).
The Award for Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience celebrates local and national innovators in industry focus areas, such as patient care, education, research and development, leadership, public policy and medical technology. Schlesinger will accept his award at BioMedSA’s annual award event on Sept. 9 at the Tobin Center.
To learn more about previous award winners, sponsorship opportunities or to register for the 2025 Award for Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience, visit biomedsa.org/innovation-award.
