SAN ANTONIO -- A local university received a grant Thursday that university officals hope will help in the treatment of soldiers returning from war.

The University of Texas Health Science Center received a $33 million grant from the Department of Defense to help find a way to treat and prevent Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in both active duty and recently discharged soldiers.

Alan Peterson, a professor of psychiatry at the Health Science Center and veteran said he hopes the grant can help his fellow service personnel.

"I think it's an extremely important grant," he said. "We have a generation of military members who've been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan who we're concerned about, and the project will be developing treatments that will potentially help an entire generation of military veterans."

Recent studies show that one out of every six soldiers returning from operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom suffers from symptoms of PTSD.