A greyhound named Holly, a retriever named Lucky and a mutt named Mogli don’t have much in common, appearance-wise. Holly, a retired racing dog, is tall, sleek and lean. Lucky is a wiry hunting dog with reddish-gold fur who loves to fetch tennis balls. Mogli is shorter, like a Border collie, with a friendly face [...]
Tag » health
June 1, 2011
Canines to the Rescue
Dogs with cancer point scientists to treatments for people
The similarities are uncanny. Bone tumors, whether from a teenager’s leg or the paw of the teen’s pet dog, look virtually identical. If you biopsy those tumors and examine them under a microscope, you’d be hard pressed to tell one from the other. That’s why oncology research at Oregon State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine [...]
June 1, 2011
Saving Orion
OSU's cutting-edge oncology clinic offers hope for one family's dog
Unlike humans, whose hair falls out during chemotherapy, dogs don’t lose their fur. I didn’t learn that when I was training to be an oncologist. I know it now because my dog has cancer. My 9-year-old golden retriever Orion, who is undergoing a pioneering cancer treatment at Oregon State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, still [...]
May 31, 2011
Good Impressions
How do we size each other up?
Call it gut instinct, intuition, street smarts or sixth sense. Good poker players need it. Success in business, politics and athletics demands it. Psychologists call it emotional intelligence, but unlike the myriad tests available to assess verbal and quantitative intelligence, a well-validated test for emotional intelligence has yet to be established, according to Frank Bernieri, [...]
May 31, 2011
The Birth-Weight Factor
Small babies may face lifelong problems metabolizing meds
Among the questions you may be asked someday by doctors who prescribe your medications is one that few people can probably answer: What was your birth weight? Research by Ganesh Cherala of the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy suggests that when physicians prescribe drugs ranging from Tylenol to cancer chemotherapies, they may need to [...]
May 28, 2011
Holding Out Hope
A tenacious scientist's quest for the causes of Lou Gehrig's disease
He hit .295 with 29 home runs and 114 RBIs that last year in 1938 — a season most baseball players could only dream about. They called him the “Iron Horse” because he was known for his durability. But even in 1938, he was feeling tired by mid-season. And for him, a season like that was considered mediocre.
May 28, 2011
Blood Lines
Ishan Patel found his niche in biomedical engineering
It wasn’t the most elegant way to enter a lab. Ishan Patel had just met his mentor for the summer of 2009, Dr. Owen McCarty at Oregon Health & Science University. The OSU bioengineering student wanted to make a good impression, and when McCarty told him to go across the hall and meet his research [...]
May 28, 2011
Learn About Clinical Trials
Today, the safety and effectiveness of new medicines, medical devices and vaccinations are on peoples’ minds and in the news media. Clinical trials enable researchers to study new treatments and to determine whether they work as intended or cause dangerous side effects. These studies are conducted with an eye to the future, in hopes of [...]
May 27, 2011
Natural Defense
Plant-based diabetes treatment shows promise
“I’m not one that is easily deterred,” Anneke Tucker says with a disarming smile. It’s a good thing. The 23-year-old Oregon State University senior from Lakeview, Oregon, has fixed her sights on nothing less than improving health care in rural communities. And along the way, she might throw in a new treatment for one of the nation’s most serious health threats, Type 2 diabetes.
May 27, 2011
Growth Factors
High alcohol consumption inhibits bone healing
Feeding the rats was just the beginning. To get to the bottom of questions about the effects of alcohol consumption on bones, Cyndi Trevisiol learned how to remove the living cells from a femur and a tibia (purchased frozen from a biological supply house). She then removed the minerals — calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, silicon [...]
July 23, 2010
A World Apart
Jennifer Kue was just a little girl when she began assisting Portland’s Hmong community.
July 23, 2010
Nature’s Medicine Chest
Taifo Mahmud's father inspired a quest for new drugs in Indonesia
Taifo Mahmud opens the incubator and, picking up the stacked petri dishes one by one, raises them to the light. Each round, lidded container displays a colorful pattern pocked or sprayed across the agar. The researcher points with pride to the branching abstractions of yellows and rusts, oranges and greens, the visible etchings of billions [...]
July 17, 2010
Teeny Little Steps
Small changes can pay big dividends for overweight kids
Romping in the backyard at Cozy Corners family childcare home, Avery and Lauryn are boosting their health by doing what kids do naturally – running, jumping and playing.
April 24, 2010
Guarding Human Health
Diseases cross barriers from animals to people
Veterinarians, as everyone knows, care for dogs, cats and livestock. Less well-known is their role in safeguarding human health. “It’s important to point out the strengths and critical assets that veterinarians bring to public health,” observes Cyril Clarke, Lois Bates Acheson Dean of Veterinary Medicine. Clarke ticks off the key intersections of animal-human health one [...]
April 24, 2010
Partners in Rural Vitality
OSU students and faculty team with Wallowa Resources to address rural development
Beautiful landscapes may inspire us, but it takes more than scenery to create community vitality. Wallowa County and rural communities across the country struggle with economic development, a future for their youth and the cultural tensions that arise from changing land ownership. For more than a decade, such issues in Wallowa have been addressed by Wallowa [...]
April 23, 2010
Finding a Balance: Q&A with Stewart Trost
Terra: Sometimes anti-obesity programs are viewed as placing emphasis on children’s weight rather than on their health. Stewart Trost: Yes, that’s true. Some programs have tried sending home BMI (body mass index) report cards to parents. They’ve had a lot of push-back from parents saying, “You’re telling me my child’s fat.” It’s difficult, because on [...]
February 24, 2010
The Stress Paradox
Carolyn Aldwin has been privy to countless untold secrets, heartbreaking stories from war zones, hospital wards and prisoner-of-war camps. People from all walks of life have confided their everyday problems and their worst nightmares to her. “I talked to someone who was a lawyer at the Nuremberg Trials,” she says. “I’ve talked to people who’ve [...]
February 22, 2010
Regulating Immunity: Toxicologists seek novel gene therapies
Dioxin, the chemical pollutant made infamous by Vietnam-era defoliant Agent Orange, has long been known to suppress immune function in humans and other animals. Surprisingly, this dangerous side effect has a scientific silver lining. While studying the toxin’s health effects, researchers discovered the genetic pathway to immune system malfunction. For people who would actually benefit [...]
February 22, 2010
Struggling Toward Health
“Our research suggests that learning to find benefits in even the worst problems, to gain perspective and to avoid distress over minor problems – even chronic ones – can help protect health and promote optimal aging,” says OSU researcher Carolyn Aldwin. Drawing on a lifetime of ups and downs and knowing that overreacting is not [...]
February 22, 2010
The Stress Paradox
Coping with trauma can strengthen us over time
Carolyn Aldwin has been privy to countless untold secrets, heartbreaking stories from war zones, hospital wards and prisoner-of-war camps. People from all walks of life have confided their everyday problems and their worst nightmares to her. “I talked to someone who was a lawyer at the Nuremberg Trials,” she says. “I’ve talked to people who’ve [...]
April 24, 2009
Cut to the Bone
Wendy Baltzer's surgical technique does the trick for an old dog
The surgical suite in OSU’s small animal clinic bristles with crisp efficiency. A masked med tech wearing scrubs of sea-foam green unpacks sterile instruments from stainless-steel carts, treading lightly on puffy blue booties. Above the operating table, a state-of-the-art Stryker scope hangs like a giant jointed bug with shiny hooded eyes. The scene suggests an [...]
February 24, 2009
Resilience
Three times a week, as dawn breaks over the Willamette Valley, 25 women show up at the Benton Center gym in Corvallis.
February 24, 2009
Targeting an Old Foe
Medicine for the new war on tuberculosis
M. tuberculosis is a tenacious germ. Armored in a thick, waxy wall impervious to water, the bacterium can lie dormant in the lungs for decades, waiting for a weakness in its human host.
January 23, 2009
Lunging for Life
Next year, a class for 90-year-olds
The risk of falling rises as we get older, but researchers and fitness instructors have a prescription: Better Bones and Balance. Even if you’re 88 years old, there’s a class for you.
September 11, 2008
Student goes for gold
How do gold-based nanoparticles behave in the body?
Nanomaterials are on the health-care horizon. Gold-based materials have long been used to reduce inflammation associated with rheumatoid arthritis and to improve biomedical imaging. They have intrigued Lisa Truong since she first heard about their potential to help solve intractable problems from cancer to heart disease. Truong, who grew up in the Seattle area, wants [...]
July 19, 2008
“Like Looking Over His Shoulder”
Scholars pore over Pauling Papers for insights into a genius and his times When OSU librarian Cliff Mead leads you into the collected life history of one of America’s greatest minds, you step into the vortex of the last century. The Valley Library, where the papers of Linus Pauling reside, opens up a first-person portal [...]
July 19, 2008
Hallie Ford spent a lifetime advocating for youth and families
Her work will continue to inspire research in the new Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families at OSU. Prompted by an $8 million gift from her estate, the OSU College of Health and Human Sciences will build on existing strengths of the faculty and anticipate the needs and challenges of children and families. [...]
July 19, 2008
From Risk to Relationship
Youth development focuses on the positive, but the most vulnerable still face long odds
Youth development focuses on the positive, but the most vulnerable still face long odds In 1998, Michelle Inderbitzin decided to conduct a study of youth in a detention center for violent offenders. Almost every Saturday morning for 15 months, the University of Washington graduate student in sociology made the 90-minute drive from Seattle to an [...]
May 23, 2008
Sacred Landscape
Tribes confront the cultural risks of contaminant exposure
The traditions of native cultures — making reed baskets, eating wild foods, participating in sweat lodges — sustained people for centuries. Now those cultures are threatened by contamination. Researchers from the Umatilla reservation and OSU show why.
January 23, 2008
Building the Pauling Legacy
Oregon native Linus Pauling had already won two Nobel prizes when he turned his genius to the chemical complexities of diet and health. Not content to rest on his laurels as a world-renowned chemist and international peace activist, Pauling plunged with characteristic ardor into the study of micronutrients, particularly vitamin C, in the late 1960s. [...]
