OUT WITH SCAR TISSUE, IN WITH MUSCLE In another project, Callahan and Karina Nakayama, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Oregon Health & Science University, are pursuing regenerative techniques to improve how cells recover from trauma. “Consider a gunshot wound,” Callahan says. “The body loses significant muscle, which comes back as scar tissue. We’re looking at proteins in these cells and how remaining muscle cells have changed, and the potential for developing a cellular ‘scaffolding’ to support the regeneration of muscle tissue instead of scar tissue.”
BOOKMARKS Latest titles of interest from alumni and faculty authors. Visit oregonquarterly.com/bookmarks for more, or to submit a book for consideration.
HAVE BIKE, WILL TRAVEL Callahan is no stranger to athletic performance—he was formerly a competitive amateur cyclist, challenging the pros in fifty- and sixty-mile road races. As a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he regularly made the one hundred-mile trip between Amherst and upstate New York by bike, to see his family. While an undergraduate at Boston University, he also made the roughly two hundred-mile trip on a few occasions. Says Callahan: “That was my once-annual, see-if-I-canstill-do-it ride.”
THREE ON THREE These days Callahan runs—after a morning in the lab, or after his kids. He and Audrey, his wife, have four under age seven, including three-year-old triplet girls. Fortunately, Callahan’s son is freeing mom and dad up by taking on more tasks like making breakfast and lunch independently— and providing a third pair of eyes. “He’s an amazing big brother,” Callahan says. “He watches after his little sisters like a hawk.”
Damien Callahan’s research is part of the Sport and Wellness strategic priority, one of five designed by the Office of the Provost to reshape research and education at the university by looking at societal challenges in the real world and applying a cross-disciplinary approach. Sport and Wellness seeks to answer the question of not just how to live longer, but how to live better, quality lives, by building integrative programs in human physiology, prevention science, community well-being, and more.
X Chabelita’s Heart/El corazón de Chabelita by Isabel Millán, assistant professor, indigenous, race, and ethnic studies
X On Patrol in The North Pacific: A Cold War Narrative by Nick C. E. Squires, BA ’60 (English), MFA ’67 (creative writing)
X Conversations with Dave Eggers Scott F. Parker, BS ’04 (Clark Honors College, general science)
X The Perfect Sound: A Memoir in Stereo by Garrett Hongo, professor, creative writing
X Legend of the Maara by Patrick Castles, BS ’72 (political science)
X The Yesterday Girl by Sharleen Nelson, BS ’06 (journalism: magazine, news/editorial)
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