In the Spotlight
Meet Dr. William Rhoten

While working on my Ph.D. at the Hershey Medical Center of Penn State University I acquired an excitement and desire in my career and life to work in new and developing medical school programs. I bring that desire and excitement to the Savannah campus of Mercer University School of Medicine. My experience in instructional programs ranges from traditional to computer-assisted and is international as well as national. My service to humankind on a global scale began in 1985 at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa where I set up a Cell Biology Unit. While in the Faculty of Medicine at the UCT I developed and implemented an honors program and had the opportunity to interact and work closely with perhaps the first African students in an honors program in the Department of Anatomy. I have considerable pride in knowing that all were successful in receiving their B.Sc. Med. Honours degrees. Subsequently I was very fortunate to be awarded two Fulbright Senior Scholarships, one to Uganda in 1990 and a second to Zimbabwe in 1996. The purpose of the Fulbright Program is, "to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries by means of educational and cultural exchanges." In 1992, I went to Kuwait to provide input into the rebuilding of the Faculty of Medicine after the Iraqi invasion and subsequent liberation by the Coalition Forces. As an external examiner I went to Saudi Arabia and returned to Kuwait. My experiences abroad led me to develop my creed of, may we learn how to love one another.

My research investigations included morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular biological approaches. These studies focused on various aspects of pancreatic endocrine cell structure and function, comparative endocrinology, and at times the nervous system. This research was funded by NASA, NIH, and foundations. My collaborators and I showed that a group of calcium-binding proteins known as the calbindins can buffer the level of calcium within cells, thus helping to maintain the normal range of cellular calcium levels so that other cell activities can carry on as usual.

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