Donald Y. Shirachi

This scholarship is named in honor of Dr. Donald Y. Shirachi ’60, a pharmacy graduate of the School who went on to receive his doctorate in pharmacology at Purdue University in 1968. After doing a US Public Health Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at UCSF Medical School, he joined the Pacific faculty in 1971. He is particularly known for his teaching of physiology and pharmacology of endocrine function in the professional program. He considers Dr. Carl C. Riedesel, one of the cofounders of the School as his mentor. In research Dr. Shirachi was funded for nine years by the US EPA to investigate the carcinogenic potential of arsenic in the drinking water. He is currently involved in the neuropharmacology of hyperbaric oxygen as it relates to pain and opiate addiction.