About

John Morn González is the J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor of American & English Literature at the University of Texas at Austin, within the College of Liberal Arts. His academic focus includes Latine literature, U.S. literature after 1865, and borderland cultures. As a distinguished faculty member and department chair, he contributes to the study and promotion of these fields, engaging in research and teaching that explore the cultural and literary dynamics of borderland regions and Latin American influences in American literature.

Research topics

• Biology
• Immunology
• Computer Science
• Anatomy
• Medicine
• Cell biology
• Virology
• Pathology
• Psychology
• Chemistry
• Chromatography
• History

Selected publications

• Premio Nobel de Fisiología o Medicina Linfocitos T reguladores:<i> de la teoría del horror autotoxicusal</i> Premio Nobel 2025

  Revista de la Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales · 2025-12-10

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  enemigo es el mejor maestro.Dalai Lama XIV Durante la clase sobre los linfocitos T del curso de Inmunologa que dicto en el pregrado de Medicina desde hace 20 aos, siempre finalizaba hablando de los linfocitos T reguladores y mencionaba que el investigador japons que los describi inicialmente algn da ganara el Premio Nobel.El 6 de octubre de 2025 se anunci que el Premio Nobel de Fisiologa o Medicina haba sido otorgado al japons Shimon Sakaguchi y a dos norteamericanos, Mary E. Brunkow y Fred Ramsdell, por sus descubrimientos sobre la tolerancia inmune perifrica y el papel de los linfocitos T reguladores, conocidos simplemente como Tregs.La respuesta inmune, una vez activada, debe ser controlada.Este es un principio esencial de la homeostasis inmunolgica, ya que una reaccin desproporcionada puede manifestarse como hipersensibilidad y dao de los propios tejidos.Para evitarlo, el sistema inmune cuenta con mecanismos de tolerancia que permiten reconocer el "yo" y no atacarlo.Cuando esta tolerancia se rompe, aparecen las enfermedades autoinmunes, que afectan aproximadamente entre un 5 y un 10 % de la poblacin mundial.La idea de que deban existir mecanismos que impidieran la autodestruccin inmunolgica se remonta a finales del siglo XIX, con Paul Ehrlich y su concepto de horror autotoxicus, una propuesta terica que planteaba que el sistema inmune deba poseer alguna forma interna para no atacar su propio organismo.La evidencia experimental surgi a mediados del siglo XX gracias a Peter Medawar, quien demostr la posibilidad de inducir tolerancia adquirida

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Multicenter international assessment of a SARS-CoV-2 RT-LAMP test for point of care clinical application

  PLoS ONE · 2022 · 20 citations

  • Virology
  • Medicine
  • Biology

  Continued waves, new variants, and limited vaccine deployment mean that SARS-CoV-2 tests remain vital to constrain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Affordable, point-of-care (PoC) tests allow rapid screening in non-medical settings. Reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) is an appealing approach. A crucial step is to optimize testing in low/medium resource settings. Here, we optimized RT-LAMP for SARS-CoV-2 and human β-actin, and tested clinical samples in multiple countries. "TTTT" linker primers did not improve performance, and while guanidine hydrochloride, betaine and/or Igepal-CA-630 enhanced detection of synthetic RNA, only the latter two improved direct assays on nasopharygeal samples. With extracted clinical RNA, a 20 min RT-LAMP assay was essentially as sensitive as RT-PCR. With raw Canadian nasopharygeal samples, sensitivity was 100% (95% CI: 67.6% - 100%) for those with RT-qPCR Ct values ≤ 25, and 80% (95% CI: 58.4% - 91.9%) for those with 25 < Ct ≤ 27.2. Highly infectious, high titer cases were also detected in Colombian and Ecuadorian labs. We further demonstrate the utility of replacing thermocyclers with a portable PoC device (FluoroPLUM). These combined PoC molecular and hardware tools may help to limit community transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

  PublisherDOI

• PSV-A-6 Poor Maternal Nutrition During Gestation Decreases Shear Force and Alters Gene Expression Related to Fibrogenesis

  Journal of Animal Science · 2022-09-21

  articleOpen access

  Abstract To test the hypothesis that poor maternal nutrition during gestation would alter offspring muscle shear force and adipogenesis, fibrogenesis, and myogenesis mRNA expression, Dorset ewes (n=46) pregnant with twins were fed 100%, 60% or 140% of NRC requirements from d30±0.02 of gestation until parturition. Male offspring from CON (n=12), OVER (n=13), and RES (n=21) ewes were euthanized at d284±1.82 and longissimus muscle (LM) was harvested for shear force and gene expression. Vacuum-sealed LM steaks were aged for 10 d postmortem (4℃) and tenderness was measured using Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) methodology. RNA was isolated from the LM to quantify mRNA expression of genes related to adipogenesis (fatty acid binding protein 4, CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein α, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ), fibrogenesis [collagen A1A (COLA1A), COL3A1, cystain-c, fibronectin (FN1), and lysyl oxidase (LOX)], and myogenesis [bone-morphogenic protein (BMP)-1, myostatin, myogenin, and myogenic differentiation 1). The WBSF decreased by 21% and 18% in OVER relative to CON (P=0.01) and RES (P=0.03), respectively, but CON and RES were not different (P=0.60). Expression of BMP1 was 1.5- and 1.8-fold greater in RES than OVER and CON, respectively (P≤0.03). Expression of FN1 was 1.6-fold greater in RES than OVER (P=0.02). Expression of COL1A1 was 2.2-fold greater in RES than CON (P=0.05) and was 1.6-fold greater in RES than OVER (P=0.07). Expression of LOX was decreased 37% in OVER compared with CON (P=0.04) and decreased 21% compared with RES (P=0.08). An effect of diet was not observed for other genes (P≥0.18). In summary, RES offspring had greater expression of genes related to fibrogenesis, but no observed difference in tenderness relative to CON. Over-feeding during gestation increased meat tenderness, which may be due to reduced collagen cross-linking by LOX.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Afterword: The Memory Work of Refusing to Forget

  Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies · 2021-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation John Morán González; Afterword: The Memory Work of Refusing to Forget. Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies 1 January 2021; 11 (1): 105–107. doi: https://doi.org/10.18085/1549-9502.11.1.105 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest Search

  PublisherDOI

• Introduction: Memory, Violence, and History in the 1919 Canales Investigation

  University of Texas Press eBooks · 2021

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • History
  • Psychology
  PublisherDOI

• JoVE Video Dataset

  2021

  • Biology
  • Cell biology
  • Anatomy

  Chagas disease is a parasitic infection caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, whose motility is not only important for localization, but also for cellular binding and invasion. Current animal models for the study of T. cruzi allow limited observation of parasites in vivo, representing a challenge for understanding parasite behavior during the initial stages of infection in humans. This protozoan has a flagellar stage in both vector and mammalian hosts, but there are no studies describing its motility in vivo.The objective of this project was to establish a live vertebrate zebrafish model to evaluate T. cruzi motility in the vascular system. Transparent zebrafish larvae were injected with fluorescently labeled trypomastigotes and observed using light sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM), a noninvasive method to visualize live organisms with high optical resolution. The parasites could be visualized for extended periods of time due to this technique's relatively low risk of photodamage compared to confocal or epifluorescence microscopy. T. cruzi parasites were observed traveling in the circulatory system of live zebrafish in different-sized blood vessels and the yolk. They could also be seen attached to the yolk sac wall and to the atrioventricular valve despite the strong forces associated with heart contractions. LSFM of T. cruzi-inoculated zebrafish larvae is a valuable method that can be used to visualize circulating parasites and evaluate their tropism, migration patterns, and motility in the dynamic environment of the cardiovascular system of a live animal.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Establishment of Larval Zebrafish as an Animal Model to Investigate <em>Trypanosoma cruzi</em> Motility <em>In Vivo</em>

  UNC Libraries · 2020-04-18 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Chagas disease is a parasitic infection caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, whose motility is not only important for localization, but also for cellular binding and invasion. Current animal models for the study of T. cruzi allow limited observation of parasites in vivo, representing a challenge for understanding parasite behavior during the initial stages of infection in humans. This protozoan has a flagellar stage in both vector and mammalian hosts, but there are no studies describing its motility in vivo.The objective of this project was to establish a live vertebrate zebrafish model to evaluate T. cruzi motility in the vascular system. Transparent zebrafish larvae were injected with fluorescently labeled trypomastigotes and observed using light sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM), a noninvasive method to visualize live organisms with high optical resolution. The parasites could be visualized for extended periods of time due to this technique's relatively low risk of photodamage compared to confocal or epifluorescence microscopy. T. cruzi parasites were observed traveling in the circulatory system of live zebrafish in different-sized blood vessels and the yolk. They could also be seen attached to the yolk sac wall and to the atrioventricular valve despite the strong forces associated with heart contractions. LSFM of T. cruzi-inoculated zebrafish larvae is a valuable method that can be used to visualize circulating parasites and evaluate their tropism, migration patterns, and motility in the dynamic environment of the cardiovascular system of a live animal.

  PublisherDOI

• The Troubled Union

  Ohio State University Press eBooks · 2020-10-09

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Chronology

  2018-02-20

  other1st authorCorresponding

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  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2018-02-20

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

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Frequent coauthors

• Laura Lomas

  4 shared

• James R. Woodgett

  Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute

  3 shared

• Joel D. Pearson

  3 shared

• Suying Lü

  Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center

  3 shared

• Laurel Brianne Kartchner

  Natera (United States)

  3 shared

• Philippos Peidis

  3 shared

• Rod Bremner

  3 shared

• Tony Mazzulli

  Sinai Health System

  3 shared

Education

• Ph.D., English

  Stanford University

  1998

• M.A., English

  Stanford University

  1991

• A.B., English

  Princeton University

  1988