Ronald Heimark

Ronald Heimark is professor of Surgery in the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona and is also the Chair for Surgical Research. His research laboratory has made several fundamental discoveries in understanding the mechanisms of metastasis in prostate and pancreatic cancer.  After graduation from Western, Ron went to University of California at Davis and received his PhD in Biochemistry. He returned to Washington to gain experience as a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington in the departments of Biochemistry and Pathology. Ron was a member of the group of initial researchers along with senior leadership to establish the biotechnology company ICOS Corporation in Bothell Washington. This group went on to develop Cialis® as their major product, and had a number of other discoveries in the pipeline. Over his 23 years at the University of Arizona, he has been a faculty member of three interdepartmental graduate programs: The Cancer Biology Program; Physiological Sciences Program and the Biomedical Engineering Program. During this time, Ron has been involved in the training of numerous undergraduate, graduate and medical students, residents and postdoctoral fellows, who are now clinicians and researchers across the US. He has published nearly 90 manuscripts and book chapters. In addition, he holds one patent on glaucoma therapeutics and is working on a second one for detection of lethal prostate cancer.  He was encouraged by a WWU Biology Department faculty member to apply to graduate school. This is part of his motivation to support STEM education at Western Washington University.