Portland State Magazine Spring 2017

SPRING 2017 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 7 PA R K B L O C K S FIRST-IN-HUMAN clinical trials of DesignMedix Inc.’s malaria drug are just months away. The drug development company, which is housed in the Portland State Business Accelerator, has entered into an agreement with the National Institutes of Health for the next phase of testing. Spread by mosquitoes, malaria parasites have developed resistance to almost every drug currently available. “Our malaria drug is designed to overcome drug resistance,” says DesignMedix CEO Sandra Shotwell. “We believe it will make a positive impact on global health.” The company exclusively licensed the malaria drug technology from Portland State. The trial and further studies will take five to six years to complete before the drug becomes available. DOES IT MATTER if a married woman keeps her own surname and doesn’t adopt her husband’s? Only to less-educated men, according to a new study by Emily Fitzgibbons Shafer, sociology faculty at PSU. In a national survey, Shafer found that men with a high school diploma or less saw women who kept their own name as less committed to their marriage, but surname choice had little effect on men with more education and on all women. The results are somewhat surprising but consistent with the “uneven and stalled” gender revolution, Shafer writes. “The gains women have made in the last 60 years—for example, in terms of employment and earnings—have not occurred equally across socioeconomic groups or across outcomes.”  What’s in a name? Malaria drug reaches new phase