Category: Research

Global warming is putting the planet in crisis, and most people have little solid knowledge about it, says a group of UW-Madison professors.

They are trying to change that by banding together Saturday, which is Earth Day, to hold a five-hour teach-in to educate the public on what needs to be done to solve the problems global warming causes.

Malformed proteins that cause chronic wasting disease in deer can adhere to minerals in soil and remain deadly, a new UW-Madison study says.

Wisconsin brought in a star of a different sort. James Thomson, the University of Wisconsin biologist who won a spot on the cover of Time magazine after being the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells, joined his state�s governor at a presentation focusing on biotech opportunities in their region.
ââ?¬Å?Wisconsin isnââ?¬â?¢t some place scrambling to get in the game,ââ?¬Â Gov. Jim Doyle said. ââ?¬Å?We lead the game.ââ?¬Â

April is proving to be a big month for Wisconsin and the biosciences industry. First of all, the spectacular, $50 million contribution to a new research hub from the Morgridges is a huge boost for biomedical research and the role it plays in the state’s economic development.

MADISON, WIS. ââ?¬â?? The task for Mark Johnson and Jean-FranÃ?§ois Chamba this morning is simple: sample 23 different kinds of soft goat’s-milk cheese. Not some havartis, some Swiss, some cheddar. Just soft goat’s milk. Twenty-three kinds.

CHICAGO ââ?¬â?? The global biotechnology industry will face many serious issues over the next year, ranging from ethical and regulatory fights to the rigors of engineering better biofuels and bioproducts. But few of those challenges will compare with what immediately confronts the 20,000 convention visitors at BIO ââ?¬â?¢06.

THUMBS UP: To University of Wisconsin alumni John and Tashia Morgridge, for their generosity to their alma mater. The Morgridges donated $50 million to the university to help build two research centers. Their money, along with $50 million from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, will help build the first phase of the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery.

The chairman of the board of Cisco Systems and his wife have donated $50-million for the proposed Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, which will include two new science centers to be built near the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and will include facilities for university research.

Elizabeth Donley, general counsel for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), told California stem-cell researchers at a major conference recently that WARF will demand a significant chunk of royalties from any of California’s efforts.

The Wisconsin foundation, which is affiliated with the University of Wisconsin, announced at the conference that it holds two patents with extraordinarily broad claims to the use of embryonic stem cells until the year 2015, and that it intends to enforce the patents.

MADISON, Wis. — An alumni couple from the University of Wisconsin-Madison is putting up $50 million for the first phase of a unique, world-class research institute near campus.

Wisconsin business executives gathered in Milwaukee to hear how radio frequency identification and nanotechnology can make their businesses more competitive, but while several applications are tantalizingly close, barriers remain.

The technologies were outlined during a session of the Wisconsin Innovates Conference. Although presenters Alfonso GutiÃ?©rrez, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s RFID Lab, and Lawrence Casper, UW-Madison’s assistant dean for research and technology transfer, believe these technologies will influence business in many sectors, they acknowledged that both are a bit over-hyped.

MADISON, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin-Madison received $100 million to build two research institutes on campus, including a private research center that will be the first of its kind in the Midwest, university officials said Monday.

The couple’s donation will fund the first phase of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. The governor says the launch of this project is a big step forward in maintaining the state’s status as a leader in biotechnology. Gov. Jim Doyle says he called for facilities like this one, when he announced a $750 million initiative two years ago to further biotechnology and stem cell research in Wisconsin.

James C. Knox, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and an acclaimed expert on the pulses that affect the Mississippi River, told a group at Illinois State University that agricultural factors such as the draining of wetlands, improved drainage from farm fields and erosion are often blamed for floods.

CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) — A rise in autism cases is not evidence of a feared epidemic but reflects that schools are diagnosing autism more frequently, a study said Monday.

There may be as yet unknown environmental triggers behind autism, study author Paul Shattuck of the University of Wisconsin at Madison said, but his research suggested the past decade’s rise in autism cases was more of a labeling issue.