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Spring 2024

Health Sciences

Spring 2003

World health care: “Many countries have their priorities wrong”

“Evidence shows that the family medicine model is the most cost effective and provides the best care for most people.”—Dr. Robert Higgins

If you are sick enough and have enough money, you can get very good medical care in most countries. Sadly, however, many nations fail to meet even the basic health needs of their people.

These are the observations of Washington State University pharmacy graduate and retired U.S. Navy physician, Robert Higgins. The former president of the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) has visited 53 countries and witnessed health care practices firsthand in many of them.

“Many countries have their priorities wrong. They … » More …

Spring 2003

Smoke & asthma

For as long as Jami Hinshaw can remember, she has coughed, sneezed, sniffled, and felt miserable every September. When she was nine, the Spokane native and WSU alum was diagnosed with asthma.

Last fall, Hinshaw was fighting her usual symptoms, but she was also carrying a portable air quality monitor in a backpack as part of a study to better understand the health effects of agricultural field burning. Researchers from Washington State University are working with their counterparts from the School of Public Health at the University of Washington to examine volunteers’ exposure levels to atmospheric pollutants coming from field burning in the region.

Controversy … » More …

Winter 2001

A better system of braces

“Imagine if you are a patient, the significant difference that decreased pressure is going to make to your comfort level.”

As a child, Dr. Dwight Damon (’62 Zoology) had more than his share of curiosity.

Damon’s father, who taught math and science at Spokane’s West Valley High School, always encouraged him to question and explore everything. “He instilled in me that desire to always find the better solution.”

At Washington State University, encouragement came from zoology professor Herbert Eastlick.

“Herb was my advisor, my mentor, and my friend,” says Damon. “He was constantly challenging us, encouraging everyone to reach their full potential.”

That desire … » More …

Winter 2001

Curing what ails you

IF GARY MEADOWS is right, popping Prozac will do more for you than relieve depression. Meadows’s preliminary data suggest that fluoxetine, the generic form of Prozac, inhibits the growth of melanoma tumors in mice.

The Prozac project began about two years ago in collaboration with neurophysiologist Tanja Obradovic, then at Washington State University. Obradovic and Meadows, who is Dorothy O. Kennedy distinguished professor and director of WSU’s Cancer Prevention and Research Center in Spokane, knew that melanoma cells not only make the neurotransmitter serotonin, but also have receptors for it. A receptor is a site on a cell that binds with substances such as … » More …

Fall 2004

As you read this, thank your ion channels

When Mike Varnum, assistant professor, Veterinary and Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology, and Physiology, visits the aquarium, he looks at the sea creatures a bit differently than the rest of us. What interests him most about a creature is not its bright color or odd shape, but whether it makes a toxin that blocks an ion channel. Oddly, many of the creatures do.

Many toxins, in fact, block specific ion channels, though Varnum uses different agents in his work. Ion channels are pores in the membranes of many different types of cells-highly selective, gated pores-that permit the passage of specific charged particles, or ions, into or out … » More …