Category: Research

In the mid-1990s, James A. Thomson of the University of Wisconsin helped launch the field of regenerative medicine by isolating embryonic stem cells and perfecting methods for self-perpetuating them in a laboratory.

Thomson’s work helped fuel the current push to study these cells, understand how they function and see if they can help cure spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes and other diseases. While Thomson deserves historic credit for his contributions, his university should not be allowed to own a patent on these cells, limiting how they can be used, by whom and at what cost.

Madison, Wis. – The legal wheels still have some spinning to do, but suddenly the prospect of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation not owning three key stem cell patents, or deriving licensing income from them, seems very real.

The decision by United States Patent and Trademark Office examiners to reject WARF’s patent claims might still be overturned or modified, but for the first time since University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell researcher James Thomson developed a method for isolating and defining human embryonic stem cells, some in Wisconsin are wondering whether the university actually has done something groundbreaking.

Tamiflu-resistant strains of flu have been found in patients who haven’t taken the drug, suggesting the mutated virus is capable of spreading between humans, according to an international team of researchers that includes a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle on Tuesday defended his state’s commitment to embryonic stem cell research after the U.S. patent office last week moved to revoke three
basic stem cell patents held by a Wisconsin foundation.

“As long as I am governor, the state will aggressively invest in, support and nurture this research,” Gov. Doyle said
in a statement.

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the licensing arm of the University of Wisconsin, has vowed to appeal the preliminary rejection of three of its key stem cell patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, even if the appeal process drags out in the courts for years.

This appeal should prevail, not for the sake of Wisconsin’s biotech industry and UW’s pioneering stem cell research efforts but on the abundant facts. This should occur soon to spare everyone involved the time, energy and expense of a protracted legal battle.

Menlo Park biotech company Geron Corp. (GERN) said Tuesday that it opposes a decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reject a set of important embryonic stem-cell patents, to which it holds the commercial development rights.A company spokesman said the company was unlikely to be harmed by the ruling, however.

Through a patent licence with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Geron holds the valuable commercial rights to develop treatments based on neural, cardio and insulin-producing cells developed from embryonic stem cells isolated by University of Wisconsin researcher James Thomson.

Tamiflu-resistant strains of flu have been found in patients who haven’t taken the drug, suggesting the mutated virus is capable of spreading between humans, according to an international team of researchers that includes a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist.
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Experts say the study, which showed anti-viral resistance in the milder influenza B viruses, means that Tamiflu-resistant strains of other flu viruses, such as the more fatal avian flu, could spread between humans, too.

CHICAGO: A less common strain of flu has shown hints of resistance to two flu drugs among patients in a small study in Japan, a country known for prescribing the drugs more frequently than anywhere else in the world.

Signs of resistance to the drugs Tamiflu and Relenza turned up among a few patients who had type B influenza, normally a milder flu causing smaller outbreaks than the more common type A.

UW-Madison suffered a setback Friday in its drawn-out and complicated battle to maintain three of its valuable stem-cell patents.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office indicated it is skeptical of the patents, which cover techniques for isolating embryonic stem cells.

But the case is hardly over.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has invalidated three broad patents for human embryonic stem cells that have been blamed for slowing research in the highly visible field of regenerative medicine.The office ruled the discovery of embryonic stem cells from primates â?? including humans â?? was not worthy of patent protection because scientists had used similar methods to isolate embryonic stem cells from mice and other mammals, and described the cells’ potential for producing medical therapies.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has made a preliminary decision to revoke three fundamental patents on human embryonic stem cells. If the decision stands, some scientists and consumer groups say it could loosen restrictions on research in a promising new field.

In a preliminary finding, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has determined that three broad patents issued to the University of Wisconsin at Madison on a technique for isolating and maintaining embryonic stem cells were issued in error because the technique wasn’t really new.

In rejecting the patents after re-examining them, the office found that the inventions described in them “would have been obvious to one skilled in the art” at the time the Wisconsin discoveries were made because of prior discoveries, which were known.

Do video games help kids learn?

If your immediate response to that question is, “Yeah, how to waste time and test your patience,” you’re probably the parent of a school-age child.

You might be surprised to learn that a panel discussion in Chicago recently saw educators and media specialists acknowledge that video games can not only teach, they just might be the springboard for a whole new approach to learning in the Information Age.

“We spend four, five, six years or more of a kid’s mathematical education teaching them what a 99-cent calculator can do,” said David Williamson Shaffer, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the new book How Computer Games Help Children Learn.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a preliminary rejection of three key stem-cell patents owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, setting up a legal battle with potentially big economic and psychological ramifications for the state’s biotech economy.

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the licensing arm of the university, vowed to appeal the ruling in every venue at its disposal, even if the dispute drags out in federal courts for years.

The federal government has preliminarily rejected three controversial stem-cell patents held by UW-Madison, saying discoveries by researcher James Thomson were “obvious to one of ordinary skill.”

The decision could greatly affect the university’s prominence in the burgeoning field and stop the millions of dollars the patents are bringing in.

Critics of the patents, who say they stifle research, said the decision will likely kill the patents. But UW-Madison officials said they will appeal, a process that could take months or years. During that time, the patents will remain active.

A bizarre attack early Wednesday on a woman sleeping in her home turned stranger Friday when prosecutors said elements of the plot may have been taken from a sexual fantasy story found by the alleged attacker on the Internet.

Checking out high-quality breast cancer information online not only keeps patients informed about their disease, it may also boost their opinion about their doctor, new research shows.Previous studies have found that many breast cancer patients go online to learn more about their disease. This is the first study to look at how patients’ opinions about their doctors affect how they seek online information and support, and how the Web affects how patients regard their doctors, the study authors said.

MADISON, Wis. â?? A man accused of breaking in a college studentâ??s apartment, pouring a chemical into the sleeping womanâ??s mouth and standing over her with a knife may have been following the plot of a sexual fantasy story he viewed on the Internet, prosecutors say.

MADISON, Wis. — Prosecutors said a man accused of breaking into a college student’s apartment, pouring a chemical into the sleeping woman’s mouth and standing over her with a knife might have been following the plot of a sexual fantasy story from the Internet.

John Mulvihill, 56, was charged on Friday with armed burglary, first-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree reckless endangerment and resisting police after police said he attacked a UW-Madison student in her home with a chemical believed to be chloroform or ether.

A Madison man accused of threatening and poisoning a woman with chemicals used to put animals to sleep may have committed more crimes like it.

Police say a UW student was attacked in her home on Mound Street earlier this week and her attacker may have stolen the chemicals to poison her with from UW’s Zoology Department. The suspect, John Mulvihill, appeared in court this afternoon and prosecutors say the crime he is accused of may not have been his first. The communities targeted could be anywhere from here to Minnesota.

Q. I saw on TV that a girl died from drinking too much water. How is that possible?
— Clarice Lightning grade eight Sennett Middle School

A. The human body is more than 50 percent water — it fills our cells, shuttles ions and nutrients, and clears out waste products. With so many crucial jobs, body fluid levels are very tightly regulated, says Dandan Sun, a UW-Madison professor of neurosurgery and physiology.

A global warming study involving University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers says some climates of the world will be lost by 2100 and replaced by other climates not known in the world today.

Researchers at UW-Madison have found that prions, the malformed proteins that cause chronic wasting disease, move more easily through soils with high alkaline content.

Joe Talmadge recalls the moment when he and other UW- Madison engineers first fired up the magnetic plasma chamber, called a stellarator, they had built to study nuclear fusion.
The gathered scientists waited. And waited. Nothing happened.

Known climates will disappear as a result of global warming, replaced by climates unknown in today’s world, a new study predicts. Entire plant and animal species could be lost as a result, said primary study author Jack Williams, a geographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Global climate models for the next century forecast the disappearance of climates currently found in tropical highlands and regions near the poles, according to the study by researchers at UW-Madison and the University of Wyoming.

If global warming continues unabated, many of the world’s climate zones may disappear by 2100, leaving new ones in their place unlike any that exist today, according to a new study. Researchers compared existing patterns of temperature and precipitation with those that may exist at the turn of the century, based on scenarios put forth in the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue rising at the same rate, up to 39 percent of Earth’s continental surface may experience totally new climates, primarily in the tropics and adjacent latitudes as warmer temperatures spread toward the poles.

A magazine investigation has raised new doubts about pioneering adult stem cell studies, leaving questions about the much-touted medical potential of these cells. A report in New Scientist magazine finds “apparently duplicated (images) being used to describe results from different experiments” in a 2006 patent obtained by University of Minnesota researchers.

A global warming study involving University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers says some climates of the world will be lost by 2100 and replaced by other climates not known in the world today.

Instances of disappearing climates would be primarily concentrated in tropical highlands and regions near the north and south poles. Places such as Wisconsin and the Midwest seem to escape the biggest changes.

The duration of ice on Lake Mendota in Dane County has slipped from an average of four months between 1850 and 1870 to nearly three months for the 20 years ending in 2005, according to research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

John Magnuson, a lake researcher at UW, said less ice cover could harm the health of some lakes.

Northeastern Wisconsin can and should capitalize on biomedical research â?? especially the stem-cell research currently being cultivated at the University of Wisconsin â?? former Gov. Tommy Thompson told a group of business and elected officials on Thursday afternoon.

When Jerry Chi-Ping Yin started his research lab in 1995, he spent the majority of his time conducting experiments and interacting with staff throughout the day.

Now, the University of Wisconsin-Madison molecular geneticist tends to hibernate in his office – writing, submitting, rewriting and resubmitting grants to fund his studies and pay seven salaries, a cost of about $400,000 a year.

Q: Why do we itch?
Ben MacDonald

Grade 8

Sennett Middle School

A: Like so many questions that seem simple at first, this one gets complicated the moment you start scratching below the surface.

MADISON — Nobody ever accused computer games of being too educational. The most that most players learn from hours in front of the gamepad is the best way to defeat a Strogg alien army or find the blue key that unlocks Level 17.

But professors at the University of Wisconsin are on the vanguard of research into the idea that computer game technology can be a powerful learning tool, one that could transform education as we know it.

Lifting the ban on taxpayer funding of research on new stem cells from fertilized embryos would better serve both science and the nation, the chief of the National Institutes of Health told lawmakers Monday. Allowing the ban to remain in place, Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni told a Senate panel, leaves his agency fighting “with one hand tied behind our back.”

Breaking with his boss, Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, told members of Congress on Monday that President Bush’s restrictions on funds for research on human embryonic stem cells are blocking progress in the field and should be relaxed.

At the same hearing, four university scientists and Dr. Zerhouni testified that the agency’s flat financing also threatens to slow the pace of research advances in cancer and other diseases just as scientists are poised for major strides.