WesternU’s Austin Lecture focuses on ‘The Vulnerable Child’

The fourth annual Dr. Robert L. Austin Endowed Lectureship in Pediatric Medicine and Pediatric Health Care Policy will feature a groundbreaking leader in developing critically needed medical, legal and social services for families affected by violence.

“”The Vulnerable Child: A Challenge to Multi-disciplinary Pediatric Care”” will be presented by keynote speaker Astrid Heppenstall Heger, MD, Executive Director of the Violence Intervention Project at Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center, and a professor of clinical pediatrics at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

The lecture will be at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 21, 2015 in Lecture Hall I of WesternU’s Health Education Center, 701 E. Second St., Pomona, Calif. 91766.

Click here to read the full story.

WesternU Interprofessional Health Fair

The Student Government Association (SGA) and the WesternU chapter of the American Pharmacist Association (APhA) will host an Interprofessional Health Fair on Saturday, April 25, 2015. This FREE event will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the First Lutheran Church of Ontario, 203 East G Street, Ontario, Calif. 91764. WesternU students, faculty, and staff will provide free services to residents of the Ontario area, and are actively recruiting faculty and student volunteers for this event. To volunteer, or for more information, contact Christy Ho, Interim Director for University Student Affairs, by email at

hoc@westernu.edu or phone at (909) 469-5668.

WesternU to hold annual Ray Symposium April 30

The Ninth Annual Ray Symposium, sponsored by the College of Pharmacy and the Interprofessional Education program, will focus on the importance of numbers in health care. The symposium will be at 3 p.m. Thursday, April 30, 2015 in Lecture Hall I of WesternU’s Health Education Center, 701 E. Second St., Pomona, CA 91766.

The topic, presented by keynote speaker Ellen Peters, PhD, will be “”Numeracy and Health: A Tyranny of Numbers.””

Click here to read the full story

From the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific:

Mini-Medical Day

Almost 400 Lebanon and Sweet Home kindergarteners toured through COMP-Northwest on Thursday, April 16 as part of the school’s Mini-Medical Day. The program is designed to teach children about the importance of disease prevention and healthy lifestyle choices. Physicians and student-doctors led several stations teaching children about the skeletal structure, heart, medical instruments and germs, as well as taking the children through a special “”mini-operating room”” where children will learned about the body’s organs. The annual event was sponsored by COMP-Northwest and the Osteopathic Physicians & Surgeons of Oregon (OPSO).

Medical Marketing Semi

The U.S. Army will bring their “”Medical Marketing Semi”” to COMP-Northwest from noon to 2 p.m. today, April 20. The semi-truck showcases the Army’s latest technology, research, education and opportunities available to today’s Army health care professionals. Tours of the medical semi-truck are open to the public. The truck will be parked on Mullins Drive, and COMP-Northwest’s Military Medicine Student Association will be hosting a bake sale fundraiser for the

Hero Half Marathon, (http://herohalf.org/) which takes place in Sweet Home on May 23.

Click here to view a flier.

Match Day

A video was recently released chronicling COMP-Northwest’s inaugural Match Day. The video can be viewed on

WesternU’s YouTube channel. COMP-Northwest’s inaugural commencement is scheduled for Friday, June 5, 2015 at 11 a.m. in Lebanon.

Let’s Get Cookin’!

The Oregon Coast to the Cascades Community Wellness Consortium, which includes COMP-Northwest, Samaritan Health Services and dozens of community organizations, addressed the growing epidemic of childhood obesity in Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties at the sixth annual Regional Childhood Obesity Prevention Summit on April 15. The theme of the summit, “”Food as Medicine,”” furthers the efforts in preventing, detecting, and treating pediatric obesity. At the summit, Dr. Louise Muscato, Chair of the Coast to Cascade Childhood Obesity Partnership, presented an overview of the COMP Lifestyle Medicine Curriculum. The curriculum includes culinary medicine educational training. Ten COMP-Northwest Lifestyle Medicine Track Students and COMP-Northwest Lifestyle Medicine faculty member Charles Ross DO, participated in the summit.

Kudos on accomplishments

Dr. Lony Castro, Professor and Chair of the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, gave two CME presentations at the 82nd Annual Meeting of The American College of Osteopathic Obstetricians and Gynecologist in San Diego. On April 12 she spoke on “”Current Issues in Obstetrical Critical Care.”” On April 14 she spoke on “”Psychiatric Disorders in Pregnancy.””

COMP alumna Vanessa Solomon, DO ’14, wrote about her experiences as a resident at Duke Family Medicine.

Click here to read the story.

From the College of Pharmacy:

Kudos on accomplishments

Kabir Lutfy, PhD, and his collaborators from Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia have published their work in Nature. In this groundbreaking study, they show that group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) are expressed in human white (WAT) adipose tissue. Decreased responses of ILC2s are a characteristic feature of obesity in humans and mice. The cytokine IL-33 maintains ILC2s in WAT. ILC2s regulate obesity by increasing caloric expenditure, a process known as beiging. In this groundbreaking study, it is demonstrated that the production of methionine-enkephalin peptides by the ILC2s promote beiging. This study presents a new pathway that can be targeted to combat obesity and diseases associated with obesity.

Brestoff JR, Kim BS, Saenz SA, Stine RR, Monticelli LA, Lutfy K, Seale P, Artis D. Group 2 innate lymphoid cells promote beiging of white adipose tissue and limit obesity. Nature. 2015;519(7542):242-6. doi: 10.1038/nature14115.

Click here to view the article.

Lyna Luo, PhD, and MSPS Student Abdelaziz Alsamarah presented at the 249th American Chemical Society National Meeting held in Denver, Colo., on March 22-26.

Oral presentations: Computational analysis of the binding specificity of DMH1 to ALK2, ALK5 and VEGFR2 kinases, Abdelaziz Alsamarah.

Binding specificity of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) receptors: Insight from free energy simulations, Lyna Luo

Poster presentation, with Alec LaCuran (MSPS Alumnus), Peter Oelschlaeger, and Vet Med faculty member Jijun Hao. Rational design of ALK2 small molecule inhibitors for treatment of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, Abdelaziz Alsamarah, Alecander E. LaCuran, Peter Oelschlaeger, Jijun Hao, Lyna Luo.

Arezoo Campell, PhD, and Postdoctoral Fellow Parrisa Solaimani presented their abstract at the 54th Annual Society of Toxicology in San Diego, Calif. on March 22-26, 2015.

Solaimani P., Campbell A. (2015) Neurotoxic effects of ultrafine particulate matter found in ambient air pollution on Alzheimerʼs disease model cells. Society of Toxicology, San Diego, Calif.

Click here to view the abstract.

Peter Oelschlaeger, PhD, and his collaborators recently published the following: Yang S-K, Kang JS, Oelschlaeger P, Yang K-W. Azolylthioacetamide: A Highly Promising Scaffold for the Development of Metallo-β-lactamase Inhibitors. ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters. 2015;6(4):455-60. doi: 10.1021/ml500534c.

Click here to view the article.

Lyna Luo, PhD, was awarded a startup allocation award from Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE ) for the her project, “”Computational study of bone morphogenetic protein receptors.”” The award amount is 100,000 SU (1 SU = 1 hours of computing on 1 CPU). Time on big clusters or supercomputer has an in-kind award value of approximately $9,000.

From the College of Veterinary Medicine:

Kudos on accomplishments

For the second year in a row, CVM fourth-year preceptor Gary D. Norsworth, DVM, of the Alamo Feline Health Center in San Antonio, Texas, was selected from a field of about 200 Small Animal speakers, as Small Animal Educator of The Year by the Western Veterinary Conference.

Dr. Miguel D. Saggese was included in the Vet Tech Colleges online blog, “”Exotic Animal Veterinary Professors: 15 Top Exotic Animal Veterinary Professors.”” The entire article can be accessed at

http://www.vettechcolleges.com/blog/top-exotic-animal-veterinary-professors

From the College of Dental Medicine:

Kudos on accomplishments

On April 14, 2015, Dr. Joel Laudenbach presented “”Common Oral Medicine Diagnoses and Management Strategies”” for the Western Los Angeles Dental Society at the Ayres Hotel in Hawthorne, Calif.

From the College of Optometry:

Kudos on accomplishments

On April 14, third-year College of Optometry student Joseph Ibarra presented/represented the College of Optometry (in Spanish) at the Pomona Unified School District/Pomona Parents Care parent conference. He participated in two workshops given by PUSD to help parents with the Career Center, promote healthy lifestyles and create high self-esteem for their children through quality parenting and good health and nutrition.

Joseph was chosen to present by PUSD due to his history in attending the district when he was in elementary and middle school. He talked about himself and the award he won while attending San Jose elementary and his visiting WesternU when he was a little boy (you can read this story in the

latest edition of WesternU View). Joseph also went in depth about the services we offer here at the Eye Care Center and did an amazing job in answering questions.

From University Advancement:

Sudden Snack

The Office of Alumni Relations hosted its final Sudden Snack event of the year, passing out 500 extra-large cookies to students on April 15. The event is designed to introduce students to the Alumni Association as well as to provide the students with a well-deserved break (and a treat!). Students were notified about the event just about one-hour prior via email.

The Alumni Office is accepting RSVPs for three events next month. Click on the links below for details or to register to attend.

    • Saturday, May 2, 7 a.m.-5 p.m.: COMP’s 8th Annual CME Conference on campus

    • Saturday, May 2, 3-5 p.m.: WesternU Reception at the California Dental Association Presents conference in Anaheim

    • Sunday, May 24, 6-8 p.m.: WesternU Reception at the American Academy of Physician Assistants Annual Conference

      in San Francisco

From the Pumerantz Library:

Celebrating Library Preservation Week

The University Archives will celebrate Library Preservation Week April 27 to May 1 with three noontime workshops on “”Preserving Your Family Memories””

    • April 27, Workshop I, “”Preserving Family Papers.””

    • April 28, Workshop II, “”Preserving Family Photographs.””

    • May 1, Workshop III, “”Preserving Home Movies.””

The workshops will discuss causes of deterioration and proper care and handling of materials, and will provide storage guidelines and other helpful tips. All workshops will be from noon to 1 p.m. in Library Conference Room. Seating is limited to 20 people.

Click here to go to the library workshops calendar. From there, click forward to the month of April or May and click on the respective workshop to register.

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