This Week@WesternU, July 15-19, 2019
Welcome Week 2019
Western University of Health Sciences will hold Welcome Week activities for its Lebanon, Oregon campus July 29-Aug. 2 and for its Pomona, California campus Aug. 5-10. Welcome Week is set aside to help new students successfully navigate the campus and take advantage of available services. Please see the Welcome Week Schedule for program-specific dates and times.
Click here to view Welcome Week information for Lebanon: https://www.westernu.edu/students-or/orientation/
Click here to view Welcome Week information for Pomona: https://www.westernu.edu/students/welcome-week/students-orientation/
SPaRC 2019 Final Day Celebration
The five-week WesternU Summer Preparedness and Readiness Course (SPaRC) program held its certificate of completion ceremony Friday, July 12, 2019. This year, 34 incoming WesternU students opted to spend part of their summer in the program, helping them become academically prepared and emotionally ready for the rigors of their respective program beginning in August. Click here to read the full story, find a link to the Instagram post for more photos, and a link to a video SPaRC participant and incoming COMP student Rachel Southard created: https://news.westernu.edu/sparc-2019-final-day-ceremony/
From the Graduate College of Biomedical Sciences:
Kudos on accomplishments
Graduate College of Biomedical Sciences Dean Michel Baudry, PhD, received a large award from the U.S. Department of Defense. The project is directed at the optimization of a selective calpain-2 inhibitor for the treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury. The contract will provide $3,855,533 over four years with the goal of initiating Phase I clinical trials at the end of the project. Collaborators include Drs. Yubin Wang and Frank Dong in the GCBS, Dr. Xiaoning Bi in COMP and Dr. Lyna Luo in COP.
From the College of Veterinary Medicine:
Biennial Conference of the Regional Teaching Academy
CVM had a strong presence at the Biennial Conference of the Regional Teaching Academy (RTA), Consortium of West Regional CVM held recently in Davis, California. Thirteen faculty and Dean Phil Nelson attended the Academy. The RTA is a group of six veterinary colleges that work together in a number of collaborative initiations that contribute to the enhancement of teaching and learning. This year’s conference theme was, “The Cognitive Integration of Basic and Clinical Sciences – Beyond the Buzzwords.”
In addition to attending, several faculty members contributed to the program proceedings: Drs. Wael Khamas, Malika Kachani, Maria Fahie and Josep Rutllant: “Development of a peer feedback tool for problem-based learning facilitation at the College of Veterinary Medicine” and Drs. Paul Gordon-Ross and Peggy Barr: “Using students’ personal mobile devices to capture case encounters and competency attainment and to engage student in reflective practice during externship rotations in a distributive model.”
Two pre-conference teaching development workshops (VETS 1.0 and VETS 2.0) were held at the RTA Biennial Conference with WesternU contributing leadership from Drs. Paul Gordon-Ross, Suzie Kovacs, Ohad Levi and Beth Boynton. Several faculty members also participated in workshops.
Kudos on accomplishments
CVM faculty members Drs. Gagandeep Kaur, Yvonne Drechsler, David Clark and Jijun Hao recently published a paper titled “Phosphodiesterase 4D, miR-203 and selected cytokines in the peripheral blood are associated with canine atopic dermatitis” in PLOS ONE. The work was a collaboration with VetCell Therapeutic and Dr. Charlie Dong from the Animal Dermatology Clinic in Pasadena. MSC students Jeffrey Koury, Ana Ramirez and Jerry Harb and CVM research associate Dr. Chen Xie are the co-authors of the paper.
Associate Professor Jijun Hao recently published a paper titled “Recent Development of Wnt Signaling Pathway Inhibitors for Cancer Therapeutics” in Current Oncology Reports. Dr. Pen-Jen Lin from GCBS and MSc student Jerry Harb are co-authors of the paper.
Congratulations go out to CVM Professor Jose Peralta, one of six veterinarians worldwide to receive 2019 Global Welfare Awards from the World Veterinary Association (WVA). The awards recognize veterinarians who have made an impact in promoting animal welfare. Winners were selected from each of the WVA’s six regions and announced in April during the World Veterinary Congress in Costa Rica. Dr. Peralta also received the AVA Animal Welfare Award in 2015.
