Advance

With Spanish as her first language, Sonia Lopez-Lopez’ own communication breakdowns were top of mind when she chose to teach the language to veterinary students.

The entire community is invited to visit the Pullman campus for cake, an update from Dean Dori Borjesson, a variety of lawn games, and a showing of the award-winning international film War Tails on Friday, Oct. 4.

A $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health will continue nearly five decades of research into better understanding sperm production and regulation in mammals.

Elizabeth Sandy was worried about paying for veterinary school but after earning the Mike Dunn DVM Veterinary Student Scholarship that financial burden is in the rearview.

Troy Bankhead will use the funding to study how the bacteria that causes Lyme disease evades its host’s immune system and establishes a persistent infection.

There have been five previously documented cases of plague in deer, none of which was in Idaho. The rare disease most commonly manifests with lesions in the deer’s eyes and results in blindness.

A 27‑year collaboration between Nihon University in Japan and WSU is equipping more than two dozen international students with the skills to be practicing veterinarians.

The system launched to detect COVID-19 should now transition to a broader goal of detecting prevalent and emerging pathogens, according to a report from a committee chaired by WSU’s Guy Palmer.

The WSU application could revolutionize the way scientists study hair and ultimately lead to the development of health diagnostics based solely on hair.

Veterinary medicine researchers received an $800,000 grant to develop a safer, more effective vaccine to combat a tick-borne pathogen plaguing the cattle industry.

Equipping hammerhead bats with GPS tracking devices to watch their every move.

Inside his laboratory at Washington State University, Michael Letko is determined to give the world a leg up on the next pandemic.

Researchers in Tanzania can now determine if a dog was vaccinated for the rabies virus with a cellphone camera image.

When Washington State University doctoral student Kaitlin Witherell was a child, she frequently went to work with her scientist mother. Through her young eyes and vivid imagination, she watched her mother complete complex calculations that filled entire pages, make exotic and colorful solutions, and use alien-like equipment that seemed more magical than practical.

Just a few short hours after illness-causing bacteria enter the human body, a sophisticated defense system goes to work. The immune system quickly recognizes the foreign invaders and sends a well-orchestrated, frontline defense.

“Innate immunity is ancient,” says Alan Goodman, assistant professor in the School of Molecular Biosciences and affiliate faculty in the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health. “Our bodies have many ways of fighting infectious disease, but innate immunity is something that must be important for it to have persisted.”

Promoting healthcare strategies that target both human and animal populations at the same time can save money, participant time and result in a two-for-one stop for health care services.

That’s according to a new study by scientists at Washington State University’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health.

Nearly 1,000 stool samples from halfway around the world may show how to reduce the risk of antibiotic resistance in developing countries.

Researchers at Washington State University’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health will analyze the samples from Bangladesh for antibiotic-resistant bacteria and antibiotic-resistant genes.

John and Rachel Clark are driven to prevent rabies in Africa, a disease that kills tens of thousands of children worldwide each year. So driven, in fact, for the past two years they have packed up their now 4- and 8-year-old children to host canine rabies vaccination clinics in Malawi, East Africa, where John was born and raised.

“I saw an article about Rabies Free Africa in the HuffPost featuring Dr. Guy Palmer,” says John. “I sent a note to Rachel that said, ‘This is what I want to do!’”

When Paul Allen visited East Africa, he saw how people’s daily lives could be improved and the desire for local institutions to better serve people in need. His experience motivated his generosity, and today the reach of his namesake Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health and its service to people has expanded even more than its founders could have imagined.

Walking into a public hospital on the southern edge of Mombasa, Kenya, around eight o’clock in the morning, there were already 10–15 pregnant women, most with children in tow, sitting on benches outside the clinic waiting to be seen by a health care worker for prenatal care

Studies conducted in yeast show that exposure to ultraviolet light (UV) induces new types of DNA damage that may cause the deadliest form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma.

Jennifer Adair (’05 PhD, School of Molecular Biosciences) had never heard of Pullman when she considered WSU’s National Institute of Health Protein Biotechnology Training Program. She even shamefully admits, at first, she confused WSU with the University of Washington. Now, the Coug is developing gene therapies to treat genetic disorders, HIV and cancer. Adair is a faculty member in the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Her goal: provide safe, cost-effective applications for gene therapy that can be implemented worldwide.

Just a few short hours after illness-causing bacteria enter the human body, a sophisticated defense system goes to work. The immune system quickly recognizes the foreign invaders and sends a well-orchestrated, frontline defense.

“Innate immunity is ancient,” says Alan Goodman, assistant professor in the School of Molecular Biosciences and affiliate faculty in the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health. “Our bodies have many ways of fighting infectious disease, but innate immunity is something that must be important for it to have persisted.”

Researchers have developed a more accurate method of measuring bisphenol A (BPA) levels in humans and found that exposure to the endocrine-disrupting chemical is far higher than previously assumed.

Walking quickly through an underground tunnel that stretches nearly a half mile, I carried samples frozen on dry ice between two buildings on the Mayo Clinic campus to be tested as part of a clinical study on irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS. Analysis of the tissues may help physician-scientists understand the causes of IBS and one day find a cure. In other places, it could take hours or days for analysis to begin, but here at the Mayo Clinic, I was impressed by how almost instantaneous everything is.

Students who study molecular biosciences can’t actually see what they are learning.

“We can never see with our eyes the things we study,” says Erika Offerdahl, a biochemist and associate professor in the WSU School of Molecular Biosciences. “It is hard to directly see beyond the sub-cellular level, so as students we learn through representation.”

A $2.2 million gift from the estate of Bernadine and James Seabrandt will create the Bernadine Fulfs Seabrandt Graduate Fellowship in Molecular Biosciences at Washington State University’s School of Molecular Biosciences.

From as long as I can remember, I have loved animals. Growing up, my family lived mostly in the suburbs. We had a dog, but I would not have considered them “animal” people. When I was 9 years old, I started riding horses. I bought my first horse when I was 12 years old from money I’d saved mowing lawns in the summer. I knew then that I would be a veterinarian.

In a light-filled laboratory, Nick Negretti grows bacteria. “I love pathogens,” says Negretti, who is a graduate student in the WSU School of Molecular Biosciences. “They are so interesting. In each of us, there are more bacterial cells than human cells,” he says. “And while most bacteria are helpful, there are a few that make us sick.”

Floricel Gonzalez (’16 BS) was attending the School of Molecular Biosciences scholarship awards ceremony holding a letter in her hand. She knew she’d received a scholarship, but didn’t yet know which one. Carefully opening the letter, she read the name: The Elizabeth R. Hall Endowment Scholarship. “My jaw dropped,” says Gonzalez. The prestigious award, given to promising students in medical microbiology, was $4,000. “It was a breath of fresh air that I don’t have to worry about tuition or books for my last year.”