Daryll DeWald, vice president and chancellor for WSU Health Sciences, presented the State of Health Sciences in Spokane on Oct. 1, 2019.
DeWald touched on recent successes at WSU Health Sciences Spokane and explained how the Spokane campus has statewide responsibilities. He also talked about what’s coming down the road, including some planned expansion.
Many of the world’s leading experts on shift work are converging on the Inland Northwest this week to present and discuss issues related to night shifts and non-standard working hours. Organized by the Washington State University Sleep and Performance Research Center on behalf of the Working Time Society, the 24th International Symposium on Shiftwork and Working Time—Shiftwork2019—will bring together scientists and practitioners focused on improving the health and safety of shift workers. » More …
Celestina Barbosa-Leiker, WSU Health Sciences’ vice chancellor for research, is one of 10 winners of the 2019 YWCA Women of Achievement award. Barbosa-Leiker is WSU Health Sciences’ third YWCA Women of Achievement award winner in the last four years, joining Lois James in 2018 and Robbie Paul in 2016. Patricia Butterfield, Ruth Bindler, Thelma Cleveland, Margaret Bruya, Jan Holloway and Barbara Richardson are additional WSU Health Sciences representatives who have also been honored.
A researcher at Washington State University Health Sciences Spokane has developed a new technology that harnesses the immune system to deliver drugs directly to infection sites within the body.
“Most diseases develop in local tissues within the body,” said Zhenjia Wang, an associate professor in the WSU College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. “That makes drug delivery challenging, because many drugs don’t have targeting properties—they simply go wherever they go. By delivering drugs to the disease site specifically, we can improve treatment while dramatically decreasing side effects.”
Wang’s technology uses neutrophils—a type of white blood cells that play a key role in the body’s natural immune response—to deliver drugs directly to diseased tissue. Neutrophils make up as much as 70 percent of the white blood cells that travel through the bloodstream to help fight off bacteria, viruses, or other pathogens that invade the body and cause inflammation in affected tissue. » More …
Help identify which medical approaches most effective for specific people based on genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors
Washington State University (WSU) Health Sciences Spokane will host National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) All of Us Journey, a traveling, hands-on exhibit that aims to gather genetic, biological, environmental, health and lifestyle data from 1 million or more volunteer participants living in the United States. Through NIH partnership with the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, the program’s ultimate goal is to accelerate research and improve health.
When one thinks about “summer camp,” they might think of children heading to the woods, sleeping in cabins and paddling in a canoe. At WSU Health Sciences Spokane, summer camps take on a different meaning—one where high school students of different backgrounds are given the opportunity to explore careers in the health sciences.
One of those opportunities was the Dare to Dream Health Sciences Academy.
Na-ha-shnee Summer Institute at WSU Health Sciences Spokane, June 16-28
Seventeen Native American and Alaska Native high school students from multiple states will attend the 24th annual Na-ha-shnee Summer Institute at WSU Health Sciences Spokane, June 16 – 28. Attendees are heading into their sophomore, junior or senior years of high school and plan to pursue careers in the health sciences.
At any given time, an estimated 7.7 million American adults suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a psychiatric condition that occurs in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event. Though PTSD can affect anyone who lives through trauma, it is especially common among military veterans returning from combat zones.
The effects of PTSD can be debilitating. It’s one reason why neuroscientist Willie Vanderheyden—an assistant research professor in the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine—has set out to better understand the condition and its ties to one of his other research interests: sleep.
“Up to 90 percent of people who have experienced trauma suffer from some type of sleep disturbance, whether it’s fragmented sleep, difficulty falling or staying asleep, or nightmares,” Vanderheyden said.
These sleep disturbances may be the result of PTSD, but Vanderheyden says it’s also possible that they are part of what is causing PTSD. » More …
Science is usually a serious matter, but there were plenty of laughs last week at the fourth annual Science Bites event held at WSU Spokane. The science communications competition featured ten graduate and professional students from the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, who rose to the challenge of providing a compelling description of their research in no more than three minutes.
Participants could use one static PowerPoint slide and were expected to use language that could be understood by non-specialists. Facing a panel of judges, they pulled out all the stops, using a variety of laugh-inducing metaphors and anecdotes in their quest for top honors.
Prizes—including $200 toward travel expenses to attend the Science Talk ’19 conference in Portland—went to the top three competitors, all of whom are PhD in pharmaceutical sciences candidates working in different research labs.
Science Bites competitors and judges at the 2018 event. From left to right, in the back: Dyston Madsen, Panshak Dakup, Trevor Kirby, Philip Wibisono, Soumyadeep Sarkar, Siavosh Naji-Talakar, and Chancellor Daryll DeWald. Center: Shannon Kozlovich, Priyanka Bushana. Front: Xinyue Dong, Laken Kruger, Celestina Barbosa-Leiker, Shamema Nasrin, and Shirley Moore.
