MARSHFIELD — Gov. Jim Doyle has unveiled an initiative he says will make Wisconsin a worldwide leader in personalized health care.
Doyle on Friday announced the formation of the Wisconsin Medical Research Triangle, one that might rival a similar research park in North Carolina.
The three points of the triangle are universities in Madison and Milwaukee and a clinic in Marshfield.
Americans may like to make fun of girls who are good at math, but this attitude is robbing the country of some of its best talent, researchers reported on Friday.
They found that while girls can be just as talented as boys at mathematics, some are driven from the field because they are teased, ostracized or simply neglected.
“The U.S. culture that is discouraging girls is also discouraging boys,” Janet Mertz, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who led the study said in a statement.
The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.
The study suggests that while many girls have exceptional talent in math â?? the talent to become top math researchers, scientists and engineers â?? they are rarely identified in the United States. A major reason, according to the study, is that American culture does not highly value talent in math, and so discourages girls â?? and boys, for that matter â?? from excelling in the field. The study will be published Friday in Notices of the American Mathematical Society.
â??Weâ??re living in a culture that is telling girls you canâ??t do math â?? thatâ??s telling everybody that only Asians and nerds do math,â? said the studyâ??s lead author, Janet E. Mertz, an oncology professor at the University of Wisconsin, whose son is a winner of what is viewed as the worldâ??s most-demanding math competitions. â??Kids in high school, where social interactions are really important, think, â??If Iâ??m not an Asian or a nerd, Iâ??d better not be on the math team.â?? Kids are self selecting. For social reasons theyâ??re not even trying.â?
Q: Why do apple slices turn brown?
A: The moment a knife slices through apple — spilling the contents of apple cells along the surface of the cut, and allowing everything to mix — a reaction begins. In particular, an enzyme known as polyphenol oxidase that had been held in check is loosed.
Less than a year after a Wisconsin team helped discover a major alternative to human embryonic stem cells, the Madison scientists say more than 800 labs have begun using the approach, suggesting that many stem-cell researchers are starting to move beyond controversial embryonic sources for their work.
Such shifts may reframe the emotionally fraught debate over stem cellsâ??an issue that has ignited passions across the political spectrum. Both presidential candidates have indicated they would lift President George W. Bush’s restrictions on research funding, though Sen. Barack Obama has been more adamant than Sen. John McCain.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-stemcells-09-oct09,0,6323974.story
Less than a year after a Wisconsin team helped discover a major alternative to human embryonic stem cells, the Madison scientists say more than 800 labs have begun using the approach, suggesting that many stem-cell researchers are starting to move beyond controversial embryonic sources for their work.
Such shifts may reframe the emotionally fraught debate over stem cellsâ??an issue that has ignited passions across the political spectrum. Both presidential candidates have indicated they would lift President George W. Bush’s restrictions on research funding, though Sen. Barack Obama has been more adamant than Sen. John McCain.
The biologist doing more than anyone else to stir the debate is University of Wisconsin researcher James Thomson, who co-discovered human embryonic stem cells a decade ago, in November 1998. Last year Thomson shook the field again when his lab and a Japanese team showed a way of genetically reprogramming adult skin cells to act like stem cells, including the ability to form any of the body’s tissues.
Want another reason why you shouldn’t spend too much time at the trough? Because consistently eating too much food over a period of just a few weeks can screw up your brain, taking away your ability to control your appetite.
That’s the basic finding in a new study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison that could help explain why once you’ve put on those extra pounds, it’s really hard to take them off. The study is published in the current issue of the journal Cell.
“Two or three months of overnutrition, a diet high in fat and sugar,” can wake up a normally dormant “pathway” in the brain, which can take away a person’s ability to control his or her appetite, says Dongsheng Cai, assistant professor of physiology of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Madison, Wis. – One of the speakers at last month’s World Stem Cell Summit in Madison wasn’t a scientist, a patient advocate, or a university administrator. She was an investor – an encouraging sign that human embryonic stem-cell research has entered a new and transformative phase.
Linda Powers of Toucan Capital, a Maryland-based investment firm, is like other venture capitalists in at least one major way – she invests to make money. But Powers is different from most other venture capitalists in at least one respect – she thinks she can make money by investing in stem cell companies.
The University of Minnesota has concluded that falsified data were used in a 2001 article published by one of its pioneering researchers on adult stem cells.
The stunning admission followed an 18-month investigation into research published by Dr. Catherine Verfaillie, an internationally known stem-cell expert.
Extreme rainfall events in southern Wisconsin will become 10 to 40 percent stronger as the climate continues to change toward the end of the century, resulting in greater potential for flooding and waterborne diseases that often accompany high sewage diversion into Lake Michigan, University of Wisconsin researchers predict.
When I listen to some politicians that support stem cell research, especially embryonic stem cell research, I understand why stem cell research pioneers like Dr. James Thomson try to be realistic when talking about its potential benefits, and the timetable on which these benefits will reach us.
It is the political season, and in the coming weeks we’ll hear a lot about the potential cures and treatments that stem cell research could produce. Be prepared, however, for snake oil salesmen (and women) that trot out families whose members suffer from debilitating conditions and make it sound as though stem cell research will produce cures that are just around the corner.
A national law firm specializing in biotechnology and life sciences issues is closing its Madison office but the 25 affected employees are expected to land with another firm.
It’s not unusual for video game players to speak of a routine that involves ordering pizza, getting a sugar jolt, and then playing “World of Warcraft” for hours.
But the person talking in this case is Constance Steinkuehler, an educational researcher at UW-Madison who organized an afterschool group for boys to play, for educational purposes, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
VANCOUVER – Experts are welcoming a study that suggests the pine beetles devastating large tracts of North American forests could be a treasure trove of new antibiotics.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard Medical School have isolated a new antibiotic compound in the bacterium associated with the southern pine beetle, a close relative of British Columbia’s mountain pine beetle.
A passage in the brain may determine caloric intake and therefore obesity, University of Wisconsin researchers announced Thursday.
A team of researchers from the UW School of Medicine and Public Health has identified a breakdown in the brain’s control tower for obesity — a snarl in a complex molecular messaging system that regulates the body’s food intake and weight.
In a study published Thursday in the Oct. 3 issue of Cell, researchers led by Dongsheng Cai, an assistant professor of physiology, honed in on a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. Smaller than a grape, this tiny structure is charged with a mighty mission: the regulation and control of the body’s metabolism.
Southern pine beetles get by with a little help from their friends, including a newly discovered bacterium that makes a weed killer.
When the beetles burrow into trees to lay eggs, they leave behind spores that sprout into a garden of fungal baby food. Now electron microscopy, beetle sampling and lab tests suggest that the female beetles also mix in helpful strains of bacteria, says Jarrod Scott of the University of Wisconsinâ??Madison.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Overeating makes the brain go haywire, prompting a cascade of damage that may cause diabetes, heart disease and other ills, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
Eating too much appears to activate a usually dormant immune system pathway in the brain, sending out immune cells to attack and destroy invaders that are not there, Dongsheng Cai of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues found.
The discovery of another way in which the body appears to control how much it eats could shed fresh light on obesity.
US researchers said poor diets may trigger a signalling system which prompts the body to consume even more.
The latest “pathway” under investigation, by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is normally associated with the immune system, and inflammation, one of the body’s defence systems.
Mentor Corp. announced Wednesday that a drug it is developing in Madison to compete with the well-known and hugely successful Botox has successfully completed the first of three Phase 3 clinical trials.
….The development of PurTox stems from Mentor’s 2003 deal for an exclusive license from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation for botulinum toxin technology developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Q. How many people can the Earth support?
A. It depends on the kind of lifestyle those people enjoy, says Lisa Naughton, a UW-Madison professor of geography and environmental studies.
The late 18th century English economist Thomas Malthus — one of the first to express concern about overpopulation — observed that there should be no more people in a country than can “daily enjoy a glass of wine and piece of beef for dinner.” But what if people choose tofu and beer instead?
Dear Editor:
….How much alcohol should a pregnant woman consume? The only safe amount is none. That $5 million to study monkeys should have been used to actually help people. Let’s stop wasting our limited resources on arcane scientific research that helps no one but the scientist banking the federal grant.
Dawn Kubly, Cambridge
Gov. Jim Doyle made a bold and reassuring statement in front of stem cell scientists from around the world last week in Madison.
Doyle declared the political fight on stem cell research over in Wisconsin.
Youngsters close to the age of three who develop wheezing with the virus have a 30-fold risk of becoming asthmatic by the time they turn six.
The older the toddlers are when they catch the virus, the greater their chance of developing the condition, which is called Rhinovirus, according to the research.
Around 5 million people in Britain, including more than 1m children, suffer from asthma.
Daniel Jackson, from the University of Wisconsin, who led the team which carried out the study, said that the Rhinovirus was a “significant predictor” that children would go on to become asthmatic.
The armed forces and cigarettes have a long history, going back to World War II. That’s when Ancel Keys, a scientist who spent his career studying the relationship between diet and disease, helped the Cig2 military develop an adequate meal suitable for combat. Named K-rations, after Keys, the meal considered sound at the time contained bacon, canned cheese and dextrose tablets. For relaxation, the military threw in gum and cigarettes, triggering massive nicotine addiction in young GIs.
The post-war tragedy unfolded over decades as smoking by WWII veterans led to a nine-fold increase in lung cancer deaths by 1980.
Cigarettes are no longer freebies in field K-rations, but the nicotine addiction rate in the military is still sky high, according to a news release put out by the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention.
Quoted: “It’s a very large magnetic field strength for a galaxy by any standard,” confirmed astronomer and galactic magnetism researcher Ellen Zweibel of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Madison-based Stratatech Corp. announced Monday the successful completion of a clinical trial of its StrataGraft human skin substitute. The company said the trial showed StrataGraft performed comparable to the current standard of care.
The clinical trial was designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of StrataGraft in patients with major skin trauma that required temporary skin replacement before “autografting” — the transplantation of live skin tissue from one part of a patient’s body to another.
….The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Michael J. Schurr was the trial’s principal clinical investigator.
UW-Madison prides itself on numerous aspects that allow it to stand out amongst other major universities, such as the revolutionary research it conducts or its reputation for competitive sports programs. Unfortunately, the latter mention tends to outdo the first in terms of campus notoriety.
I was in Madison, Wisconsin, last week at the 2008 â??World Stem Cell Summit,â? a gathering of hundreds of scientists, pharmaceutical company reps, patient advocates and policy folks united in their evidence-based faith that stem cells are going to revolutionize biology and medicine.
Iâ??ve been to a fair number of stem cell meetings over the years, but this one was remarkable in several respects. For one, it was held in Madison, where Jamie Thomson and his colleagues first discovered and isolated human embryonic stem cells ten years ago this fall. So it was something of a decadal celebration and homecoming for the Wisconsin team. Go badgers!
Madison, Wis. – Stratatech Corp. has announced the successful completion of a clinical trial of its StrataGraft human skin substitute.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Michael J. Schurr was the trial’s principal clinical investigator.
Madison, Wis. – Carolyn “Biddy” Martin is an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but that wasn’t the only thing that convinced her to pursue the chancellor’s job following John Wiley’s decision to step down.
Interviewed at the World Stem Cell Summit, which was held last week in Madison, Martin said the UW’s leading edge work in life sciences, including stem cell research, also interested her in the job.
â??The cutting-edge research in the life sciences here in general piqued my interest in the position, but of course the stem research is really right at the leading edge of what is an enormously impressive life sciences infrastructure,â? said Martin, who came to the UW-Madison after serving as provost at Cornell University. â??It definitely played a role.â?
Geophysicists in the US are proposing a new magnetic field generated in the Earthâ??s core, the existence of which could help us understand why our planetâ??s magnetic moment has flipped several times in the past.
By measuring ancient field patterns frozen into the volcanic rocks of West Eifel in Germany and Tahiti in French Polynesia, Kenneth Hoffman of California Polytechnic University and Brad Singer of the University of Wisconsinâ??Madison have recorded the first data to suggest that the Earthâ??s dipolar magnetic field is accompanied by a second magnetic field with a distinct origin in the Earthâ??s core (Science 321 1800).
The new effort to help treat malaria is just one facet of a major undertaking to find new antibiotics. Last year Metcalf and his colleagues at the U. of I.’s Institute for Genomic Biology, chemistry professor Wilfred van der Donk, Zhao, chemistry professor Neil Kelleher, and biochemistry professor Satish Nair, received a $7.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate just this. Jo Handelsman of the University of Wisconsin rounds out the research team.
SHREWSBURYâ?? It takes a few seconds to get a glimpse of the precious cargo loaded into the laboratory cooler that Dr. Gary Stein opens, mostly because of the frosty fog that billows out.
Then the air clears, and boxes of samples come into view: human embryonic stem cells.
Itâ??s the initial inventory for the new UMass Stem Cell Bank, a repository that organizers hope will come to hold more than 100 types of stem cells. Launched with a $7.7 million state grant, the bank is an early sign of Gov. Deval L. Patrickâ??s push to invest $1 billion in the life sciences in Massachusetts over 10 years to promote the stateâ??s economy. Starting Wednesday, the bank will begin accepting embryonic stem cell â??deposits,â? the first step in eventually making cells available to researchers.
Earth’s magnetic field is really two fields with two separate sources, argues paleomagnetist Kenneth Hoffman of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and geochronologist Brad Singer of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in a paper published in the Sept. 26 issue of the journal Science.
The new finding, published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science, builds on the reprogramming work of teams led by Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka and James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In November, both teams created cells that appear similar to human embryonic stem cells but do not require the destruction of an embryo. The cells are known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells.
Lucas Moyer-Horner crams his arm under a truck-sized boulder and pulls out a handful of peppercorn-like pellets. The dark brown scat belongs to a small animal that looks like a fur-covered Russet potato. American pikas inhabit high alpine talus slopes â?? rugged, steep places most people fear to tread, but Moyer-Horner scampers over like he’s in a playground. “Pika get me up high,” he says. “Grizzlies or elk wouldn’t.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison zoologist has spent his summer hiking more than 500 miles of Glacier National Park to search for pika. He climbed peaks to spot their likely talus habitats and then surveyed the rubble of rock for signs of the rabbit-cousin â?? all to gain a baseline on the park’s population. Since heat intolerant pikas have been disappearing from the West, Glacier Park wants a starting point to chronicle the future of the endearing creature.
Researchers report that they have sidestepped a major technical hurdle in the generation of pluripotent stem cells from adult cells.
A team of Boston scientists developed a way to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) — which are functionally similar to embryonic stem cells, but which can be produced from adult cells, rather than via the creation or destruction of an embryo — more safely than ever.
They say a picture is worth 1,000 words – but when it comes to science, one good picture might be worth 104 or 105 words, judging by this year’s winners of the International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.
One winner is Ye Jin Eun and Douglas B. Weibel, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for “Polymazing.”
From UW Madison: With a photograph that embodies the unexpected – and sometimes breathtaking – outcomes of science, University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student Jenna Eun has won second place in the 2008 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Science magazine.
The image, “Polymazing,” appears in the Sept. 26 issue of Science, which Eun herself finds somewhat amazing, considering the subject of her photo arose completely by accident.
Q. Why do people get tan?
A. The ultraviolet portion of sunlight causes some skin cells to make more of a dark pigment called melanin, says Nihal Ahmad, an associate professor of dermatology at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. Melanin has a protective role, because after formation it blocks some ultraviolet light.
On the closing day of the World Stem Cell Summit, speakers confronted a complex but inevitable question. After all of the talk about promising results when stem cells have been placed in animals and in laboratory dishes, has the science reached the point when stem cells can be tested in human patients?
Former Gov. Tommy Thompson told the World Stem Cell Summit Tuesday a meeting he had in the summer of 2001 with President George W. Bush led to Bushâ??s approval of limited embryonic stem cell research.
American patients frustrated with the pace of science in this country are increasingly going overseas for stem-cell treatments, a controversial trend that created sharp divisions Tuesday among attendees at the last day of the 2008 World Stem Cell Summit in Madison.
To many scientists, those promoting what is sometimes referred to as “stem cell tourism” are nothing more than the 21st century’s version of the snake oil salesman.
Fueled by sometimes desperate patients who are willing to travel the globe for cures, dozens of companies around the world are marketing injections of stem cells as life-changing treatments, or even cures, for everything from Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease, to heart failure, spinal injuries and other tough-to-treat conditions.
“Medical tourism for stem cells is very controversial,” said Bernard Siegel, executive director of the Genetics Policy Institute and the driving force behind the World Stem Cell Summit, which concluded its two-day run at the Alliant Energy Center’s Exhibition Hall on Tuesday.
Calling it “a story that I guess I can tell now that President Bush is almost out of office,â? former Gov. Tommy Thompson today told the World Stem Cell Summit in Madison about an internal Bush administration battle over stem cell research that happened when he was serving as secretary of Health and Human Services.
The future of stem cell research in Wisconsin, as well as the rest of the nation, could hinge on the presidential election. That’s the message from the 2008 World Stem Cell Summit being held in Madison.
Medical advocacy groups are concerned that a research breakthrough is being politicized and will present a new obstacle to therapies that might someday result from embryonic stem cells . And the scientist who made the discovery says there will be challenges that a currently “risk-averse society” might have to accept. Shamane Mills reportsâ?¦ (Audio.)
Gov. Jim Doyle highlighted Wisconsinâ??s important role in the stem-cell industry during his keynote speech at the World Stem Cell Summit in Madison Monday.
Researchers from across the globe gathered at the World Stem Cell Summit Monday in Madison, stressing the need for further clinical trials funded by the federal government.
Gov. Jim Doyle addressed the World Stem Cell Summit in Madison Monday night and asked attendees to take one question back to the people of their state or country: Should â??science triumph over personal ideologies?â?
When University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist James Thomson announced a groundbreaking discovery in November of 2007 that ordinary adult skin cells had been reprogrammed to resemble embryonic stem cells, some jumped to the conclusion that the ethical debate surrounding this science could finally be wiped away.
That day, however, is not yet here.
So with the Nov. 4 election just six weeks away, some of the world’s most prominent stem cell researchers made it a point Monday to reiterate what they’ve been saying all along: Studies on stem cells from human embryos must continue for at least several more years while the new technique is tested and perfected.
Wisconsin is considered the birthplace of human embryonic stem-cell research, but the field may be taking up residence in California, with well-financed digs.
California is building a dozen institutes for the research, has awarded $614 million in grants and soon expects to recruit up to 1,000 scientists, the leader of that state’s efforts said Monday at the 2008 World Stem Cell Summit in Madison.
Stem cell experts said on Monday they hope the next U.S. president will end political curbs on embryonic stem cell research but some worry recent comments by Republican candidate John McCain suggest his past support for such research may be waning.
Both McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have said they favor easing restrictions on spending public money to finance embryonic stem cell research.
Treatment with genetically modified stem cells helped rats with a paralyzing disease live significantly longer, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a finding that could one day help humans.
Rats with ALS that were treated with the gene-engineered stem cells lived 28 days longer than untreated mice, the researchers told a conference.
It looks like students can be open-minded after all: When provided with the option to view lectures online, rather than just in person, a full 82 percent of undergraduates kindly offered that theyâ??d be willing to entertain an alternative to showing up to class and paying attention in real time.
A new study released today suggests not only a willingness but a â??clear preferenceâ? among undergraduates for â??lecture capture,â? the technology that records, streams and stores what happens in the classroom for concurrent or later viewing.
The study, sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s E-Business Institute, tackles the much-discussed question of studentsâ?? preferences for traditional versus online learning with unusual rigor.
Today, Governor Jim Doyle accepted the National Leadership Award from the Genetics Policy Institute for his support of biotechnology.
The Governor along with other stem cell research advocates spoke about Wisconsin’s role in the controversial field and it’s expansion.
This was the scene as Governor Jim Doyle gave the keynote address at the World Stem Cell Summit in Madison at the Alliant Energy Center.
MADISON, Wis. — The future of stem cell research in Madison as well as the rest of the nation could hinge on the presidential election.
That’s the message from the 2008 World Stem Cell Summit being held at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.
“There is no question that these cells might serve as a new area of medicine — human regenerative medicine,” said Dr. Gabriella Cezar, noted UW researcher and chief scientific officer of Stemina, a biotech start-up based in Madison.
“There are 150 people on campus working on stem cell research,” Cezar told a summit audience, “and we’re doing the science to benefit patients.”
Madison, Wis. – James Thomson acknowledged that scientists are notoriously bad at predicting timelines, so when he was asked about the timing of potential therapeutic stem cell research breakthroughs at the World Stem Cell Summit, he was naturally cautious.
Thomson, speaking on the potential future benefits of induced pluripotent stem cells, has been more cautious than some stem cell research advocates when addressing its possibilities. It’s not that he isn’t enthusiastic about the potential of the research he ignited 10 years ago when he became the first scientist to isolate and develop methods to culture human embryonic stem cells, but he has no illusions about the degree of difficulty that lies ahead.
