Department Update: Biomedical Sciences

The Department of Biomedical Sciences in the College of Osteopathic Medicine is pleased to welcome all back to campus! We are happy to see the upper half of our colleagues’ and students’ faces, which we presume are all smiling! 

Recent news from the Division of Cellular Sciences includes the fact that SciFoM is again underway, involves most of the faculty, and is scheduled for its second exam on September 30, preparation for which is taking up most of the faculty’s and students’ time. We trust it will go well. 

In the Division of Microbiology, Dr. Kim Taylor has been, as usual, very busy keeping the COVID-19 Advisory Group abreast of all the latest developments in that large and important arena, in addition to her customary heavy teaching load in SciFoM and the GI system. She, along with student research teams, continues their scholarly activity in various areas, inclusive of the upcoming presentation of two research projects at November’s “International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance” of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.  

The big, exciting news in the Division of Pathology is that Dr. Habecker will soon be adding a colleague to assist with teaching Pathology starting sometime in January. We look forward to her arrival on campus! 

PHARM 599 plans to have Exam 2 on 04 OCT 21, having nearly finished the first half of the course. Then we start antibiotics, which is very important, but somewhat more complex than the material covered so far. All pharmacology faculty are teaching in PHARM 599. The Renal System is now complete, with results that were similar to those of years past. And now we are on to the GI system, closely followed by the all-important Nervous System, which has the most pharmacology sessions of any System! Dr. Novack reports that he has submitted a review article to Trends in Immunology on K-63 ubiquitination regulating immune signaling in autoimmunity, T cell subsets, and normal pathogen responses (including SARS-COV2), drafted a new research proposal on Long-Haul COVID-19 and vaccination, is finishing up a paper on phytochemicals that promote health by altering biochemical pathways, continuing as Chair of the IRB and the Admissions Committee, and working with a new PNWU faculty member (Dr. Sarah Dill, Rheumatology) as co-course director for the CLIN 504 Musculoskeletal Course. 

Drs. Oestreich and Mattocks have been very busy with the SciFoM course, but Dr. Oestreich has successfully compiled a draft schedule for the Spring, 2022 semester, which is serving as a template for Course Co-Directors’ syllabi, which are due in a few short weeks.