Category: Research

UW-Madison announced a new director of the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, one of eight federally funded primate research centers and the only one in the Midwest. Jon Levine, a neurophysiologist from Northwestern University, took over Sept. 1.

A Federal Judge denied the Justice Department?s request to temporarily delay an order to shut down federal funding for such work on Tuesday.

A federal judge sentenced a former University of Wisconsin associate professor Friday after she pled guilty in July for making false statements on government documents.

Noted: Research by the DNR and University of Wisconsin in 2006 and 2007 on Wisconsin bear population.

A judge has sentenced a former University of Wisconsin-Madison genetics researcher to two years of probation for submitting false data to federal reviewers. Goodwin pleaded guilty in June to one count of making a false statement. She acknowledged she included false data in a progress report to convince federal reviewers that her lab had made more progress than was actually the case. Goodwin worked at UW-Madison from 2000 to 2006.

A former UW-Madison professor was sentenced to two years probation and $100,500 in fines for lying on a federal grant report. Elizabeth B. Goodwin, who was a UW-Madison associate professor of genetics from 2000 to 2006, admitted in June that she manipulated data in a federal grant progress report to convince reviewers she was making more scientific progress than was the case.

In the last days of July, the Food and Drug Administration gave the green light to a clinical trial that has been nearly a decade in the making. The federal agency approved a test of some of the first fruits of human-embryonic-stem-cell research, in a new therapy that could help patients recover from spinal-cord injury.

A report from University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers says Milwaukee County has the highest poverty rate in the state.

A federal judge issued an injunction halting President Barack Obama?s expansion on stem cell research funding Aug. 23, impacting how research is performed at the University of Wisconsin as well as facilities across the nation.

Two researchers from the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Medicine and Public Health will leave their laboratory for the road to Chicago as part of the Alzheimer?s Breakthrough Ride. The cross-country trip includes 55 scientists seeking to draw attention to the need for their work.

Dear Editor: Recently a federal judge stopped stem cell research because of a law that was the result of Christianity?s war on science. According to Christian values, people like me would burn in hell in the next life for doing scientific research on cells that would otherwise have ended up in the garbage.

Dear Editor: For those undecided about whether there needs to additional investigation of experiments on lab animals in Madison, here?s a recent story to consider: The Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Center decided to study the effect the cage environment itself had on the outcome of mice specifically bred to get cancer. When put in small, barren cages, all the mice got cancer. When put in large cages with all sorts of interesting activities (but the same population density), the mice developed smaller tumors or didn?t get cancer.

Wisconsin?s dependence on federal research dollars makes a recent court decision even more devastating to the human embryonic stem cell research being done at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Talk about judicial activism. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth just ruled that the federal government can?t fund any stem cell research because it destroys embryos. He voided not just President Obama?s stem cell policy, but former President George W. Bush?s policy, too.

Stem-cell scientists still reeling from a judge?s ruling that their life?s work violates federal law received little reassurance about their job security from the nation?s largest funder of these studies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Describing stem-cell research as one of the more promising engines of scientific discovery, NIH director Francis Collins said the legal decision “poured sand into that engine of discovery.”

A glimmer of hope among those with Alzheimer?s, Parkinson?s, diabetes and other ailments that might be relieved with new treatments derived from embryonic stem cells was dimmed this week by a federal judge, whose injunction on federal funding for such research could not only jeopardize American medical science but the health of millions of patients worldwide. But the failure isn?t just judicial ? the ruling was based in part on a sound interpretation of an ill-considered law imposed by Congress.

The renewed debate over embryonic stem cells highlights the advances and complications that have arisen in the field since its controversial beginnings. Mention James Thomson, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A day after a U.S. district judge halted federal funding of all research involving embryonic stem cells, the government froze about $70 million for projects that were either up for renewal or well along in the approval process, effectively shutting down one of President Barack Obama?s top scientific priorities.

In Wisconsin, the temporary injunction triggered praise from opponents of the research and anxiety from scientists who have dozens of projects and millions in federal money at stake. The ruling put at risk hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation could potentially reap from its three key embryonic stem cell patents. And in the space of 24 hours, the court action thrust the issue of embryonic stem cell research into an already heated campaign for governor.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison, known around the world as the place where James Thomson isolated and grew human embryonic stem cells for the first time, now has 21 projects and about $5 million a year in federal money that depend on the use of the controversial cells. At the Medical College of Wisconsin, embryonic stem cell research accounts for federal grants of $2 million to $3 million a year.

The nation again finds itself in the weeds over embryonic stem cell research – again needlessly – after a federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday blocked the government?s effort to expand funding.

Blindsided by a court ruling blocking federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells, the U.S. government plans to freeze all new grants for scientists and impose other restrictions on this burgeoning area of science.

The head of the National Institutes of Health said Tuesday that some stem cell research would continue for a while, but new research would be stopped, in the wake of a federal judge?s ruling Monday that blocked President Obama?s order in 2009 to expand embryonic stem cell funding.

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked guidelines set down by the Obama administration expanding human embryonic stem cell research, throwing into doubt studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and other major universities across the nation.

“It?s broad and could have dramatic impact if the court upholds this for all funding of embryonic stem cell research,” said Timothy Kamp, director of UW?s Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine Center.

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered 50 proteins that help plants survive in the absence of water, a crucial step toward one day engineering crops that can resist droughts.

In research that offers promise for growing crops in a warmer, drier world, scientists at UW-Madison have identified dozens of proteins that control how plants respond to drought. The findings were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers, led by Michael Sussman, a professor of biochemistry, probed the workings of a well-known plant hormone called abscisic acid in the oft-used laboratory plant Arabidopsis.

Some immigrants in the United States may need more than translations to grasp what is involved in cancer treatment, researchers found. Tracy Schroepfer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said cancer educators may find it difficult to explain cancer detection and prevention to people who may not even have a word for cancer.

If you ever want to be in awe of nature, take an occasional peek at this site:ge.ssec.wisc.edu.

This is a high resolution visible satellite image courtesy of NASA that is processed by the “other UW” — the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of the “MODIS” program.

Mentions new research by Barry Burden and three University of Wisconsin-Madison colleagues, voting ahead of Election Day has more than quadrupled since the early 1990s, increasing from 7 percent of votes in 1992 to 30 percent in 2008.

Quoted: Frank Salomon, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin who led a recent project to help Rapaz protect its khipus in an earthquake-resistant casing.

The Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University has landed a major NASA contract to work on a new satellite designed to produce highly accurate climate records. The lab joins Harvard and the University of Wisconsin, Madison in winning a contract to work on the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory project.