A Madison biotechnology company has signed a multimillion-dollar agreement with the world’s largest pharmaceutical company.
Mirus Bio Corp., founded in 1996 by three UW-Madison researchers, has entered into a two-year deal with Pfizer to work on RNA interference – better known as gene silencing – using two delivery methods.
Dear Editor: After reading the Jan. 1 New York Times article on Madison, I think it can be safely said that whatever tradition of “progressive liberalism” upon which Madison built its reputation has been trumped by a culture of public alcoholism that is out of control.
Now that this culture, and its gross and violent consequences, has been revealed for all to see in the nation’s paper of record, it can no longer be hidden behind Madison’s myopic and nostalgic civic ego.
Dear Editor: In a recent column Doug Moe seemed to be making some points that seem odd to me. The first is that because something has been a problem for a long time, such as the overconsumption of alcohol downtown, it should therefore not be addressed.
….Addressing the problem of the overconcentration of bars downtown with their statistically related violence and police calls does not preclude addressing the problem of money-making house parties serving to underage patrons.
Gov. Jim Doyle spent much of his first term lowering expectations, and this newspaper frequently criticized the Democratic executive for the narrowness of his vision.
As Doyle begins his second term, however, he is raising expectations. And we celebrate him for that.
….He spoke of making Wisconsin a global leader in the search for cures and treatments for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, juvenile diabetes and other devastating diseases and conditions, promising that “we’ll invest in stem cell research that could one day bring cures – and save millions of lives around the world.”
Madison firefighters kept busy early this morning and at mid-morning, fighting two separate fires in two near-downtown buildings that forced the evacuation of residents but resulted in minor damage and only one injury.
The first fire was at the Palace Latin Club, 1401 University Ave., and is being investigated as possible arson after occupants of the building heard a small explosion at 2:11 a.m. today.
IF A front page New Year’s Day story in the New York Times is to be believed, it is not inherently bad for drunks to pee in an alley in downtown Madison.
It is only bad if a yuppie looking out his living room window can see them. He might be startled and spill his cappuccino.
The Times article, datelined Madison and written by Susan Saulny, was headlined: “This Remaking of Downtown Has Downside.”
As Gov. Jim Doyle sees it, Wisconsin stands on the verge of a golden age in which legions of well-educated, tech-savvy workers will find high-paying jobs in the emerging fields of health care, high-tech manufacturing, biotechnology and alternative energy.
Doyle says his mission – as he begins his second term as governor today – is to steer the state in that direction, preserving what he describes as a vibrant heritage of hard work and respect for longstanding values while keeping an eye toward future growth.
As states try to maintain thriving economies in the high-tech 21st century, two assets are essential: brains and money.
For that reason Wisconsin lawmakers should make it a priority in 2007 to improve the education level of the state’s work force and to increase the financing available for economic development.
Inviting Ward Connerly to speak to a special Wisconsin legislative committee studying affirmative action is like inviting the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan to address a hearing on race relations.
….The irony is the embarrassing Grothman and Connerly show is taking place at a time when the University of Wisconsin System has a serious problem with affirmative action. Namely, we don’t have nearly enough of it.
Some major corporations have stopped job recruitment on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus because executives say the lack of racial diversity on the campus does not properly prepare students to succeed in their companies after graduation.
Joe Boucher is not your average dark-suited, buttoned-down lawyer who works in a well-appointed, mahogany-laden, immaculate Downtown office overlooking the state Capitol.
Boucher is a sweater guy, friendly and informal. He is co-founder of a Madison law firm, Neider & Boucher, that employs 30 people, 14 of them attorneys, with offices at University Research Park on the West Side.
A UW-Madison program that has helped Wisconsin apple growers reduce pesticide use without sacrificing fruit quality has a new name and a broader mission.
The project recently received a $125,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to expand into more apple growing regions and to set up a similar program for Wisconsin berry growers. Therefore, the project that began in 2003 as the Eco-Apple project has been renamed the Eco-Fruit project.
The Downtown Madison Inc. Board (DMI) is not convinced that there is direct correlation between reducing the number of liquor licenses downtown and a safer downtown, DMI President Susan Schmitz said today.
This echoed both Business Improvement District (BID) executive director Mary Carbine’s and DMI Board member Rick Petri’s Dec. 13 comments at a BID-sponsored public hearing on the alcohol density plan that Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and alders Judy Olson and Mike Verveer introduced to the Madison City Council Nov. 29.
An oft-heard complaint about the University of Wisconsin-Madison, justified or otherwise, is that its academic and research fruit falls close to the tree. It has world-class scientists and well-developed mechanisms for turning their best ideas into products or services, but most of that commercialization takes place within a half-hour drive from campus.
At an unprecedented gathering in the main living room of the governor’s mansion, top state officials earlier this month courted an elite group of executives who control hundreds of millions of investment dollars.
The message: Help grow Wisconsin’s young, high-tech companies.
That’s why a grant announced recently by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to the University of Wisconsin-Madison is an important step in building a base for new business start-ups. The foundation, based in Kansas City, is giving UW-Madison $5 million over five years to encourage entrepreneurship, offer services to nascent companies and perhaps work on the economic problems in Milwaukee’s inner city. The school is one of nine nationwide receiving the funding.
A Norwegian stem cell company will open a Madison location, Gov. Jim Doyle announced today.
After conducting an extensive international search, CellCura Inc. chose Madison for its overall quality of life, access to world class stem cell scientists at UW-Madison, and its proximity to WiCell, according to a press release from Doyle’s office.
I MAY as well warn you right now that this story is about black fishnet stockings. There’s a red feather in it, too. What can I say? Readers contact John Nichols about presidential elections. They contact me about cocktail waitress attire.
In this instance, a reader called my attention to a story about female executives in the business section of Sunday’s New York Times. Featured prominently was Carol Bartz, one of the first female CEOs in the country. Now retired, Bartz in the 1990s (and until last year) ran a hugely successful Silicon Valley high-tech company called Autodesk.
What caught the eye of my correspondent was this sentence: “After working her way through college at the University of Wisconsin in Madison as a cocktail waitress (required uniform: red miniskirt, black fishnets and red feather in hair), Ms. Bartz graduated with a computer science degree in 1971.”
Investors have lots of money they want to put to use in growing companies but it’s apparently going to established businesses, not to entrepreneurs coming up with new ideas, a study finds.
The survey, by the Milwaukee-based Foley and Lardner law firm, with offices in Madison, shows that more than three-fourths of the investors questioned have raised money in the past two years, and nearly as many expect to raise another fund in the next year or two.
NeoClone Biotechnology International LLC is a poster child for what can happen when the state gives incentives to investors in young, emerging companies. The firm was founded in 1999 based on technology developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Dear Editor: While considering free tuition for all University of Wisconsin students is unrealistic for the simple fact that it raises taxes in a state whose residents, if not the politicians, know that it is already on the high end on the tax scale. We can accomplish the objective, which is to keep students in Wisconsin after graduation, with a much better and actually workable solution.
Dear Editor: The Capital Times correctly lauds Judge Sarah O’Brien’s decision upholding a contract to sell a property that will be the National Primate Research Exhibition Hall, a permanent protest against animal research conducted by the university in two adjacent buildings.
Open-enrollment executive education programs at the UW-Madison School of Business have been rated best in the world for the second straight year by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
Wisconsin scored 4.3 on a 5-point scale, with three schools tied for second at 4.2 – IESE School of Business in Barcelona, Spain; Washington University in St. Louis (Olin); and York University (Schulich).
The rankings came from an international survey of more than 200 senior executives who attended executive education programs.
City and county lawyers are considering making a request to the state Public Service Commission to order American Transmission Co. to pay for an independent study looking at future power needs in the county.
A top official at ATC, however, said that the company would not be willing to pay for another independent study since it already spent $200,000 for a study completed two years ago.
But a PSC official said another study could be ordered if a compelling need for it were found.
Dear Editor: The problem with passing a resolution on alcohol license density as weak as this one is that people will think the issue has been solved and it really hasn’t.
Both academic research and personal experience demonstrate that the concentration of alcohol outlets in the downtown area leads to increased criminal activity, property damage and a reduced quality of life for downtown residents.
The start of a third stem-cell company in Madison shows, yet again, how UW-Madison’s dynamic research is spurring business and economic growth.
It also is leading to better health for Wisconsin citizens.
A former top executive at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s patenting arm and a high-profile university researcher are forming the state’s third embryonic stem cell company.
….During a break in the action of last Saturday’s (12/2) game between the Badgers and Florida International at the Kohl Center, the UW took the time to thank Top Promotions, Inc., of Middleton for outfitting the visitors with game jerseys.
But inquiring minds wanted to know: Who supplied FIU with the shoes?
Probably the last place some Badger backers might expect: The Shoe Box. Yes, that Shoe Box – the Black Earth store where the NCAA said UW athletes were receiving impermissible discounts and lines of credit from 1993 to 2000.
MILWAUKEE – The median family income in Madison is $64,264 a year compared to $35,765 in Milwaukee, according to a report by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.
The group said Monday that the difference has grown to about 80 percent after being less than 10 percent about 15 years ago.
….Madison has some “built-in advantages,” such as the major research center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and that it is the state capital, said Ryan Parsons, a research associate for the alliance.
Parson said, “One of the reasons Madison has such an edge over Milwaukee is having people who can fill high-tech science research jobs. A lot of that work force is missing from a city like Milwaukee.”
The former head of UW- Madison’s stem-cell patenting arm has teamed up with a stem-cell scientist on campus to launch a company using stem cells to develop tests for diseases.
A state commission might recommend a huge incentive for University of Wisconsin students to stay in the state after they graduate: four years of free tuition at any UW System school.
MILWAUKEE (AP) – A commission is considering recommending free tuition for all students in the University of Wisconsin System who agree to live and work in the state for 10 years after earning a bachelor’s degree.
The commission which was created to upgrade UW’s two-year college campuses is scheduled to meet Tuesday in Madison to discuss that idea along with other changes primarily geared toward improving the two-year campuses.
Q: What is the financial education center at UW-Madison that you’re helping to develop?
A: We’re still working on the mission of it, but it’s very much in concept form. It’s research and outreach. It’s yet another avenue to get consumer education into people’s hands and to help people with the behavior change of that. We all know that working out is really good for us, but actually getting to the gym is the next leap and there’s a disconnect in the same way with financial services. We all know we would be better off in the future by saving money but doing it is a whole other aspect.
UW-Madison students were assigned to write profiles of businesses on State Street, Downtown Madison’s unique cultural and shopping zone where 80 percent of businesses are locally owned. The stores and restaurants the students chose – ranging from a chocolatier to an import store to a landmark watering hole reflect State Street’s claim as the place Madisonians go to shop, dine and play.
In an effort to retain and attract quality staff members, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted Thursday to ask for domestic partner benefits for university faculty members.
Funny bugs in the basement? Messy fungus growing on your favorite tree? Perhaps you want help starting a new business, a nonprofit organization, or a new farmers’ market in your town. Maybe you want advice on being the best child care provider you can be.
Every year, the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension helps more than 300,000 people with a wide range of needs, knitting together community life and building the state’s economy.
ST. FRANCIS – No one predicted that a strange, wedge-shaped chunk of yellow foam would someday symbolize a state and its way of life.
That includes Ralph Bruno, the 45-year-old guy who invented the Cheesehead, which is in its 20th year of production.
Ruth Olson, a folklorist at the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures, is quoted.
If and when the allure of the Cheesehead vanishes, what will be the next pop culture symbol for Wisconsin?
The UW’s Ruth Olson posed that question to her Folklore 540 class and says she got the same response over and over: Sconnie.”
The idea came off the slang word for Wisconsin but has grown to represent all things that pertain to a Badger lifestyle, such as eating cheese curds or driving a John Deere tractor,” says Amy Peterson, responding via e-mail to her teacher’s query.
Much of the rhetoric surrounding the gay marriage ban last month claimed that its passage would eliminate the possibility of UW-Madison ever offering its employees domestic partner benefits. In meetings beginning Thursday, the UW Board of Regents may try to skirt the amendment and offer those benefits anyway in its unclassified pay plan.
The University of Wisconsin System already has a school of public health. It is in Madison.
For that reason, the UW Board of Regents should reject a proposal to begin a years-long, multi- million-dollar effort to build a school of public health in Milwaukee.
With New York officials voting Tuesday to become the first major city in the nation to ban the use of artery-clogging artificial trans fat in restaurants, can Madison be far behind?
Despite the city’s reputation in the business community for interventionism, the answer may be “No way.”
(Dr. Pat Remington, director of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, is quoted.)
Optimism about the local economy is high: More Dane County business leaders think business will be strong in the coming year than a year ago. More than eight of every 10 of the companies surveyed said they expect their performance to improve in 2007, according to a survey prepared by the UW-Madison School of Business’ A.C. Nielsen Center for Marketing Research and sponsored by First Business Bank and the UW-Madison School of Business.
While most Wisconsinites are proud to reside in the Badger State, one University of Wisconsin faculty member has been looking to leave since this fall.
UW-Madison�s Faculty Senate passed a resolution Monday afternoon supporting domestic partner benefits for state employees, though it recognized the difficulty of working against obstacles like the statewide vote to ban same-sex marriages.
The Sierra Club will sue the state and the UW-Madison over allegations that several coal power plants in Madison violate the 1976 Clean Air Act.
The lawsuit targets the university�s Charter Street Power Plant and the Wisconsin�s state Capitol Heat and Power Plant.
The state of Wisconsin ââ?¬â? and the University of Wisconsin in particular ââ?¬â? could face litigation for violating the federal Clean Air Act.
A sprinkling of snow was enough to bring out an avalanche of skiers for the 43rd annual Wisconsin Hoofers Ski and Snowboard Resale at the Memorial Union on Saturday and Sunday.
The event featured more than 6,800 pieces of discounted cross-country, downhill and snowboarding equipment and accessories from area vendors, as well as used gear from the general public.
For a second straight year, fresh powder enhanced the enthusiasm of area skiers, and sales were unusually high, topping $250,000.
While American women overall are closing the wage gap with men, the situation in Wisconsin is worsening, according to a recent report.
“The State of Working Wisconsin 2006” by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in September found that women earned 25 percent less than men in 2005, a gap that actually increased from about 23 percent in 2000.
Dear Editor: I found your editorial regarding Judge O’Brien’s decision on the dispute between Roger Charly and Dr. McLellan misguided.
While I agree that the University of Wisconsin should be a good neighbor, the case was not a dispute between the university and Charly. The case arose because Charly failed to honor his agreement to sell the property to Dr. Richard McLellan.
Another election season has come and gone. In Wisconsin, there was little intelligent discussion about our environment and how we should protect, manage and use our incredible natural resources to maintain the quality of life and recreational opportunities most Wisconsinites cherish.
….Gov. Jim Doyle and his agencies, along with a new Legislature and new local leadership, now have a responsibility to lay out their vision for Wisconsin’s environment, including what actions they plan and what resources they propose to commit.
(Born is a UW-Madison emeritus professor of planning and environmental studies)
Already the subject of campus discussion and debate, the question of permit renewal of Madison�s coal power plants is now the cause of legal action against the state of Wisconsin.
….Those who want to see “The Madison Kid” filmed in Madison have mobilized one last push to see if they can get state government to change the date of implementation of the tax incentives to Jan. 1, 2007. As part of that effort, Hellmuth has written an op-ed piece that will be offered to numerous papers in the state.
In his piece, Hellmuth makes both a logical and passionate case for moving the date so “The Madison Kid” can be filmed here. He stresses the economic benefits, as well as the karmic importance of having it shot in Madison.
It may work. But I have an idea that will work even better. It’s this: Promise them all a role in the movie! Everyone wants to be in the movies, especially legislators….
Renovar Inc., a fledgling Madison-based company focused on the development of kidney disease diagnostics, announced that it has raised $1.22 million in funding.
The financing round, the UW-Madison spin-off’s second, brings the total capital raised by the company to $3.2 million.
A Madison homebuilder who had planned to build a couple of small homes on lots he owns in the Arboretum had his proposal shot down Wednesday, which he said could result in two “incredibly large” homes built on the land instead.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley announced plans to launch a student wage review Wednesday.
A committee of students, faculty and staff will be appointed to review and possibly recommend market-based increases to student hourly wage scales.
University of Wisconsin Chancellor John Wiley is appointing a committee to determine whether hourly wages should be raised for student employees on campus.
Big changes are happening for financial advisors in Madison, from a new center focused on the workings of the financial world to national certification to help better educate and prepare financial advisor students.
University of Wisconsin-Madison is in the process of creating the Center for Financial Security, an interdisciplinary center drawing from the resources of many schools such
as Law, Business, Human Ecology and Economics. Their mission is simply to improve consumer financial management.
Dane County Circuit Judge Sarah O’Brien made it clear earlier this week that the University of Wisconsin cannot just throw its weight and money around to get its way.
Wisconsin is lagging far behind other, comparable states in providing basic education and training for adults and that could be hurting the state’s economy, a report by UW- Madison’s Center on Wisconsin Strategy says.
The Charter Street Heating Plant has recently come under fire from environmentalists who want the state Department of Natural Resources to deny its application for a 5-year permit renewal. The DNR has preliminarily approved its application and recently invited citizens and activist groups to weigh in on the future of the plant.
A public hearing was held Tuesday evening to discuss proposed utility improvements on the University of Wisconsin�s west campus.
