A bid to preserve a historic drug store may complicate UW-Madison’s proposal for a $375 million state-of-the-art research center that will help discover drugs for some of the world’s most serious illnesses.
The state and university are proposing to build the massive, 750,000-square-foot Institute of Discovery on a wedge-shaped piece of land bordered by University and Randall avenues and West Johnson and Charter streets.
Students at Madison-area colleges might be purifying proteins or crafting computer programs in their spare time, as interns for local startup companies, a couple of years from now.
And a new organization – a Dane County economic development corporation – could be aggressively chasing pharmaceutical and engineering companies in other states, trying to lure them here, using a new “brand” identity to market the area.
MADISON — Managers at the Sheboygan-based Acuity insurance company have attended executive education courses at Harvard, the University of Chicago and other prestigious private schools.
But as far as John Signer – head of Acuity’s human resources department – is concerned, some of the best professional-level programs he has encountered are run by the UW-Madison School of Business at the Fluno Center.
A fledgling organization that wants to provide early-stage capital to high-tech start-ups and eventually spur development of a new research park could get $2.5 million in the next state budget. The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee has recommended funneling the money to the Biomedical Technology Alliance, which is seeking to forge various high-tech research efforts in the area into a stronger, more collaborative undertaking. Joining in the effort are the Medical College of Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University, the Milwaukee School of Engineering and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
UW Credit Union customers were targeted by a “phishing” identity theft scam this week, a credit union official said Wednesday. Criminals sent out emails to local residents that included the UW Credit Union logo and urged customers of the credit union to “verify personal information” by providing confidential details.
A change in Forbes magazine’s criteria for selecting its seventh annual “Best Places for Business and Careers” helped push Madison from the top spot last year to No. 10 this year.
Forbes this year replaced doctoral degrees per capita with engineers as one of the nine statistical measures it uses in ranking the 150 largest U.S. metro areas. Madison was No. 1 in the former, but is just No. 50 in the latter.
A federal trial is scheduled next week involving major makers of scientific equipment, the University of Wisconsin and an entrepreneur, all over who can profit from a device most people know from high school chemistry.
At stake is millions of dollars in U.S. sales of the adjustable pipette, the syringe-like instrument that researchers around the world use to measure and transfer liquids from one container to another.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â?? Recent developments in Washington and Korea could have a lasting impact on Wisconsin’s stem cell community, putting more roadblocks in scientists’ search for funding.
MEDFORD – Gena Lynn Cooper, 22, of Mukwonago, was selected Friday night as Wisconsin’s 58th Alice in Dairyland over five other finalists.
Cooper graduated this month from UW-Madison with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry.
Many people think of a co- op as one of the agricultural cooperatives that have been a staple of rural life in the Upper Midwest since the mid-1800s or as one of the community grocery stores that combine organic food and social awareness.
But cooperative businesses encompass far more than grain and granola, and interest is growing, experts in the field agree.
“There are a lot of people who are beginning to think about business in different ways. They hear about the co- op model, and it appeals to them,” said Anne Reynolds, assistant director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives.
To put together this promising biotech start-up, it took a chicken farmer from Lake Mills, a patent licenser and a quirky UW-Madison researcher with a Louisiana drawl.
Together these entrepreneurs at Madison’s aOvaTechnologies are pushing forward a product they say could benefit consumers by cutting farmers’ controversial use of antibiotics to speed the growth of young chickens and pigs.
The number of undergraduates signing up for computer degrees is falling fast, making IBM and other tech companies worry that there soon won’t be enough skilled U.S. workers to meet demand.
South Korean researchers Thursday announced the creation of 11 custom-made cloned stem cell lines, made for the first time from the skin cells of child and adult patients. The advance is considered a significant refinement of the controversial stem cell technology that opens the door wider for future treatment of such diseases as juvenile diabetes and Parkinson’s.
Concern over recurring Halloween violence has led to a proposal to give Mayor Dave Cieslewicz greater power to shut down downtown businesses during “a state of emergency.”
In the next few weeks, the Madison City Attorney’s Office plans to send out letters to more than 50 downtown bar and restaurant owners informing them that in the event of such an emergency, the city will have authority to evacuate customers.
Jim Weinert, a prominent entrepreneur and philanthropist, and Bob Pricer, a longtime teacher of entrepreneurship, were inducted into the UW-Madison Business School’s Entrepreneur Hall of Fame at the eighth annual celebration of the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship.
WAUWATOSA ââ?¬â?? Individually, each of the four major building projects underway on the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center campus and the neighboring Milwaukee County Research Park is impressive.
The UW-Madison School of Business was ranked 15th in the U.S. and 26th in the world in the Financial Times’ annual list of top executive education providers for the fourth consecutive year.
Last year, UW was rated 17th in the U.S. and 32nd in the world. In 2003, UW was rated 17th in the U.S. and 34th in the world.
A fight between centrist and conservative Republicans over a bill to expand federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research has intensified in the past week as the House moves closer to a promised vote.
With 199 co-sponsors, supporters of the bill are confident that they have enough votes to pass it when leadership brings it to the floor this month, furthering the possibility that this legislation will become the first veto of President Bush�s tenure in the White House.
Entrepreneur magazine was not overwhelmed with the entrepreneurial programs at the UW-Madison in its April 2005 edition, and several surveys show the state ranks in the bottom third when it comes to creating new companies.
More than even the graduates, the Wisconsin Idea took center stage Sunday in graduation ceremonies at UW-Madison.
The Wisconsin Idea is the tradition-steeped notion that the boundaries of the university extend to the boundaries of the state and beyond – that the University of Wisconsin has a duty to share its knowledge to make the state a better place.
High standards in food and accommodation are a vital part of the package in the executive education market, but there are many ways to fry an egg when it comes to providing a service.
“It’s a complete requirement, if you want to be highly regarded in executive education, that food and accommodation are first rate,” says Ted Beck, associate dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business.
Instead of viewing economic development as a local issue, civic leaders in Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago and the Twin Cities ought to strengthen regional ties and work together to foster growth, according UW-Milwaukee urban planning professor Sammis White.
“It really is the Midwest against the rest,” he told a group of about 80 gathered Friday for a breakfast meeting sponsored by the UW-Madison Small Business Development Center. “If we want to succeed, we really need to take advantage of the strength that each of these areas have, and the Midwest as a whole has, in order to compete with other sections of the country.”
As the woman listened to information about filing for earned income credit on her taxes, she couldn’t believe what she’d lost.
“I’ve been ripping myself off for three years,” she repeated several times. By refiling her tax forms, the woman gained $3,000 in tax credits.
She was part of a pilot project at a Staples call center in Massachusetts to increase the disposable income of poor workers. The project, which began Feb. 1, was a test run for a program sponsored by the UW-Madison Center on Business and Poverty.
Barry Orton, a UW-Madison professor of continuing studies who advises many communities in their franchise negotiations, is quoted.
A deal appears to be in the works to straighten out the troubled downtown music venue Luther’s Blues, but there is confusion about who is currently running the show.
“We want to improve the tarnished image of the place. It is definitely tarnished,” said Michael Loveless, who lives in Seattle, Wash., and is calling himself one of the new owners.
Employees walked out, creditors say they went unpaid, and the phone lines were disconnected for a time.
It wasn’t long ago that Luther’s was the darling of the local club scene. It opened in late 2000, just a few months before the fire that destroyed O’Cayz Corral, and rose to prominence as one of a handful of live downtown music venues.
A change of operators appears to be in the works for the club at 1401 University Ave., and a power struggle has ensued. How it plays out remains to be seen, and the straight story is elusive.
With more than 250 buildings, 153 departments, 41,500 students, scores of labs, dozens of consortiums and a head-spinning number of faculty and researchers, the UW-Madison campus can be an intimidating place to navigate.
“We’ve got a large number of resources for business people, but people often don’t know where to turn,” said Noel Radomski, a policy and planning analyst in the university’s Office of Corporate Relations (OCR).
Lessons in business and philanthropy aren’t usually taught together. But a new class that just wrapped up at the UW- Madison School of Business showed MBA candidates that they can apply entrepreneurial skills to social problems.
Students who took the class “Social Entrepreneurship: Redefining Markets and Organizations” said the course opened their eyes to a world possibilities.
A new online database has been launched by the Office of Corporate Relations at UW-Madison to provide businesses and others with another tool to identify and access resources and services at the university.
The Wisconsin Business Resources Database contains links to nearly 100 offices on the Madison campus, and has a growing list of other campuses in the University of Wisconsin System. Its Web address is www.wbrd.wisc.edu.
Middleton-based Bone Care International Inc., a drug-maker that has seen its sales soar in the past two years, agreed to be bought by Genzyme Corp. for about $719 million in cash, the companies announced Wednesday. Bone Care was founded in 1987 as a division of Lunar Corp., which grew out of bone research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was later bought by GE Medical Imaging.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? Massachusetts-based Genzyme Corp. said on Wednesday it has agreed to buy Bone Care International, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biotech spinoff, for $600 million in cash.
Trevor Twose says he thoroughly enjoyed his days as a post-doctoral researcher at UW-Madison in the early 1970s.
“Those were interesting times for a number of reasons,” says Twose, a wry smile washing over his lean face. “Molecular biology was just breaking through. My work mostly focused on drug resistance in bacteria.”
San Francisco has grabbed the lead among California cities battling for the state’s new embryonic stem-cell research headquarters, a $3 billion program that could fuel creation of biotechnology’s version of Silicon Valley.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley made a guest appearance at a political fundraiser on Thursday night for a Brookfield Republican.
Sen. Ted Kanavas’ campaign held the $100-per-person cocktail reception at the Madison Club, with information technology as the theme. Wiley’s special assistant, Casey Nagy, said the chancellor wanted to attend because it would be an opportunity to meet many people in the field of technology and venture capital.
Wiley would not make an endorsement or give any money at the event, Nagy said.
Outline of the recommendations contained in the “Report of the Madison Area Citizen Consensus Conference on Nanotechnology.”
A group of Madison area citizens has leaped ahead of the latest technological revolution – nanotechnology – previously the realm of researchers and science fiction books such as Michael Chrichton’s scary “Prey.”
….Members of the citizens group who spoke during a press conference at the State Capitol on Thursday included Gail Vick, 52, of Madison, a manager in a corporate computer technology customer service area.
“I feel very privileged to have taken part in this innovative model for connecting ordinary citizens with the potential outcomes of scientific research that will undoubtedly affect our lives and the lives of our fellow world citizens in many ways,” she said.
After watching his two older brothers struggle to find work when they graduated in 2001 and 2003, fifth-year psychology major Adam Miller was prepared for a trying job hunt of his own.
But he said he started to relax when companies began contacting him in January after seeing his resume on a UW- Madison job site.
UW-Madison Business School Dean Michael Knetter also has noticed an increased interest in ethics, both from students and the general public.
“What’s changed is people are asking us about it now,” he said. “Students bring a heightened awareness of that coming in, relative to where they were before.”
Student surveys and a program review have led to major curriculum revisions in the Evening MBA program (EvMBA) at the UW-Madison School of Business.
Starting in fall 2005, incoming students will be part of a new program, streamlined and more geared to international perspectives and concerns, said Linda Uitvlugt, director of operations for the program.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will build a coalition of colleges to encourage apparel makers to disclose more about where they make their products.
Chancellor John Wiley met on Wednesday afternoon with current and former members of the university’s Labor Licensing Committee. The committee is charged with advising Wiley’s office on matters of UW-logo licensed apparel.
Leaders from business, government, non-profits and education are aiming to grow Dane County’s economy while preserving and advancing the quality of life here by working together in the Collaboration Council.
(Chancellor John Wiley is quoted in this story.)
More than 100 people turned out Monday night for a public workshop to tell city planners and consultants what they’d like to see in the redeveloped Villager Mall on South Park Street.
Overwhelmingly, neighborhood residents and other interested parties want a grocery store, farmers’ market, teen center, day care center, incubator for start-up businesses, education and training facility, family restaurant, coffee shop, health club and senior center.
James Burgess, former publisher of the Wisconsin State Journal and executive vice president of Lee Enterprises, has made a $1 million gift to the UW-Madison School of Journalism to establish an endowed professorship in ethics.
The James E. Burgess Ethics in Journalism Chair will be part of an envisioned center devoted to issues of fairness, accuracy and integrity in the media. A nationwide search is planned to award the chair.
Issues of ethics in journalism, thrust into the spotlight by recent scandals, will soon have a more prominent place at the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, thanks to a $1 million gift from former Wisconsin State Journal Publisher James Burgess.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the technology transfer and licensing arm of the UW-Madison, has filed a lawsuit against Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc., charging it with breach of contract and other violations of its agreement with WARF.
Attorneys for WARF said the suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Madison, seeks to ensure that the interests of UW-Madison and its inventors are protected and that WARF receives its contractual share of a $157-million agreement entered into by Xenon, which is in British Columbia, Canada.
Assembly Republicans ought to be embarrassed by the mess they made of a bill to encourage businesses to create research-related jobs in Wisconsin.
The Assembly last week passed the bill, to offer businesses tax credits for conducting research and development, but only after attaching an amendment to withhold the credits from businesses focusing on human cloning or research into new lines of human embryonic stem cells.
Quoted: Richard B. Jacobson, a Madison lawyer and lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.
Their business might be worth millions in five years, but the business plan alone was worth a cool $10,000 for the two UW-Madison entrepreneurs who crafted it.
Tony Escarcega, 31, and John Puccinelli, 25, beat out 13 other teams of UW-Madison hopefuls last week to capture the top prize in the eighth annual G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition at Grainger Hall, the university’s business school.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? A drug-delivery patch took first place and $10,000 in the G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s annual contest for student entrepreneurs.
Pedrus Pharma, a University of Wisconsin-Madison spinout that has sped to the finals in the Governor’s Business Plan Contest, may put a stop to the annual flu vaccine hoopla, among other things.
Cities across the country have taken steps to stop doing business with firms that deal in goods made in sweatshops, and Madison needs to join the coalition of conscience.
District 8 Ald. Austin King, fresh from his landslide re-election in April 5 local voting, wants the city to set a standard that says no public funds will be used to purchase “goods made under the deplorable, inhumane conditions of a sweatshop.”
Gov. Jim Doyle is blasting a Republican proposal to cut off state tax breaks for Wisconsin companies seeking to develop new stem cell lines.
Doyle said the move would close the door on new research in Wisconsin and sends the wrong message to biotech businesses seeking to locate or expand here.
� Gov. Jim Doyle on Wednesday said he would veto any proposed business tax credit that excludes companies doing embryonic stem-cell research.
Doyle reacted angrily to a bill approved by the Assembly late Tuesday night that would give research and development tax credits to Wisconsin companies, with the exception of those that focus on human cloning or research new lines of embryonic stem cells.
Stepping gingerly into a politically charged arena for the first time, some large companies in the United States are pursuing plans to study stem cells drawn from early-stage human embryos.
Noted: Becton Dickinson received supplies from the University of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin political, business and science leaders who have pushed the state’s nascent biotech industry reacted with dismay Wednesday to a vote by the Assembly Tuesday night that would bar companies doing research on new stem cell lines from applying for research and development tax credits.
As tuitions soar and the job market strengthens, some B-schools are downsizing — and all are getting less selective.
A total of $22,000 in prize money is available in an annual competition at UW-Madison showcasing student entrepreneurs’ innovative business ideas.
Fourteen teams of UW-Madison students will compete in the G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition in Grainger Hall, 975 University Ave., on Friday. The event is open to the public with the winning team, which will receive $10,000, announced at 5:45 p.m.
Convicts, college kids and visitors to the governor’s mansion could all soon be chowing down on fare provided by a single food vendor mandated by the state.
As part of Gov. Jim Doyle’s plan to consolidate agency purchases across state government, the Department of Administration is issuing a request for proposals this week seeking one or more primary food vendors that would provide meat, cereal, dairy and other food products to all state agencies and the University of Wisconsin system.
UW officials in particular are troubled at the idea of having to deal with a primary food vendor, and the university’s current vendors are worried about losing their contracts.
Janet Jackson nearly took down the newspaper that made Madison famous.
During a University of Wisconsin-Madison campus lecture Monday night, former Onion Editor in Chief Robert Siegel said the singer nearly took the satirical newspaper to court after a crude 1990s story about a boy who was supposedly being granted a wish by the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
