Texas A&M Recognized By Fast Company’s ‘World Changing Ideas’ For Alzheimer’s Disease Breakthrough
The honor comes on the heels of being named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies earlier this year.
Texas A&M University has been named a 2025 Fast Company World Changing Ideas honoree, earning national recognition for its innovative Alzheimer’s disease nasal spray therapy. The award, presented in the Academic Excellence category, places Texas A&M among the top 100 projects globally that are tackling the world’s most urgent challenges with creative solutions.
Fast Company’s annual World Changing Ideas Awards celebrate projects that have the potential to profoundly impact society. This year’s competition drew more than 1,500 entries, with winners selected by a team of editors and writers for their ingenuity, scalability, and potential for real-world change.
Texas A&M’s innovative nasal spray joins, among others, Dassault Systemes’ next-gen artificial heart, Voltpost’s retrofitted lampposts for EV charging, the new main terminal at Portland International Airport (PDX) and advanced liquid cooling for data centers from Nexalus on the list of World Changing Ideas this year. Texas A&M is honored alongside Boston University, MIT, UC Berkeley and UCLA in the Academic Excellence category.
“This recognition from Fast Company affirms the bold, transformative research happening at Texas A&M,” said General (Ret.) Mark A. Welsh III, president of Texas A&M. “Our world-class scientists are not only advancing knowledge, but they’re also delivering solutions that improve lives.”
Texas A&M College of Medicine announced its development of the nasal spray treatment last fall. The project is led by Dr. Ashok K. Shetty, a University Distinguished Professor of cell biology and genetics and associate director at the Texas A&M Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
Our world-class scientists are not only advancing knowledge, but they’re also delivering solutions that improve lives.
“The impact will be huge, because Alzheimer’s disease not only affects patients, but also the family members, the caregivers,” Shetty said. “So if you postpone cognitive decline by 10 years, the quality of life of both patients and family members would dramatically improve.”
The drug therapy uses neural stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles to reduce brain inflammation and slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease. It has shown promising results in preclinical trials, offering a non-invasive, scalable alternative to traditional treatments and could represent a major shift in how the disease is managed.
“The projects we honor in the World Changing Ideas Awards are more important than ever,” said Fast Company editor-in-chief Brendan Vaughan. “You and your fellow honorees are playing an important role in building a better world. We’re proud to support the bold ideas you’re working on.”
This honor follows on the heels of Texas A&M being named by Fast Company as one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies earlier this year.
About Fast Company
Fast Company is the only media brand fully dedicated to the vital intersection of business, innovation, and design, engaging the most influential leaders, companies, and thinkers on the future of business. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, along with our sister publication Inc., and can be found online at www.fastcompany.com.
Texas A&M University is ranked by the Wall Street Journal as the best university in Texas and No. 1 in the SEC. The university was recently recognized for having the highest return on investment for bachelor’s degrees among public universities in Texas, according to The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity. Views of Texas A&M University video content on YouTube grew from 311,000 in 2023 to over 30 million in 2024 (+9,360%), propelling Texas A&M to be named the most recognized university in the state of Texas and No. 6 among all U.S. public universities in the latest Global University Visibility (GUV) rankings compiled by higher education research and consulting firm American Caldwell. U.S. News and World Report recognized the university’s biological and agricultural engineering program as No. 1 in the nation, and for leading the nation in engineering research expenditures.
