The House Higher Education Committee spent time in the Tri-Cities Thursday for a work session and visit of the WSU Tri-Cities campus during the Committee’s Eastern Washington tour.
During the work session, Committee members considered the higher education needs of the health care industry. John Roll, Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research at WSU Spokane, provided a presentation to members highlighting WSU’s work in the health sciences to produce more nurses, pharmacists and primary care physicians.
In particular, Roll highlighted WSU’s “signature element” in health sciences education – the interdisciplinary educational activities that put medical students working alongside pharmacy, nursing, speech and hearing and other students just as they will in a professional setting.
“In the future, health care is a team sport,” Roll said.
Later the Committee visited the WSU Tri-Cities campus where WSU Professor and Director of the Bioproducts, Sciences and Engineering Laboratory Dr. Birgitte Ahring provided legislators and staff a tour of the BioChemCat facility. At BioChemCat, Dr. Ahring and her team of WSU researchers partner with the Port of Benton, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and start-up company Clean-Vantage LCC to turn regional waste into biofuels.
Ahring described the process of taking raw wastes and turning them into a material from which fuel can be refined.
Visiting legislators were shown a drum of Douglas Fir residue – essentially saw dust – and the warm and soupy concoction it would become when “cooked”. The steaming tub gave off a thick, sweet smell of molasses.
“This is the smell of gold to me,” Ahring said.
