A bill that would make it easier for University of Wisconsin professors to cash in on their research is part of a package of “Invest Wisconsin” legislation announced by Republican legislators today.
Other laws – some already introduced and others to come – would create wide-ranging tax credits and exemptions aimed at promoting investments in high-technology projects and businesses.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Madison, said the plan was “necessary if the United States is to maintain a leadership role in technology and grow our economy in the 21st century.”
Baldwin said that “if the Congress adopts this agenda, both the UW-Madison and area businesses will surely benefit from increased federal support for research and development in alternative energy sources, high speed communications and biotechnology.” The University of Wisconsin-Madison was the fourth-biggest research institution in the country in fiscal 2003, according to National Science Foundation figures.
MatriLab, a biotech start-up company with one foot in Madison and the other in Milwaukee, is part of the new “tech corridor” taking shape between the two cities.
Basic scientific research is being done at UW-Madison, while clinical work is taking place in Milwaukee.
The company, which makes an innovative drug delivery product for wounds, stems from a partnership that includes scientists, clinicians and management consultants.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor has won the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for science and technology.
Edwin Lightfoot, emeritus professor of chemical and biological engineering, is one of eight recipients of the award, which will be presented by President Bush in a White House ceremony. The date has not yet been set.
Lightfoot joined the faculty at UW-Madison in 1953. His textbook, “Transport Phenomena,” published in 1960, is considered a landmark in chemical and biological engineering.
Lynnae Meyer quit smoking last year – until a house fire forced her to move in with her mother, and the stressful situation led her back to cigarettes.
This year, the 28-year-old from Mineral Point decided to quit again. She had developed bronchitis, and with a family history of cancer, she worried that poor health could keep her from caring for her 6-year-old son.
“I was afraid I would never see my son graduate from high school,” she said.
Meyer is one of more than 300 people enrolled in one of the most comprehensive smoking cessation studies ever conducted at UW- Madison.
The beautiful lakes surrounding Madison have become a recent concern for the city�s future.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor was named a recipient of the 2004 National Medal of Science, the nation�s highest honor for science and technology, by President George W. Bush Tuesday.
The two healthiest counties in the state are also the two wealthiest, while the two least healthy are counties with large American Indian populations and low incomes, according to a study by the UW Population Health Institute.
The Wisconsin State Journal’s Nov. 4 editorial “Extreme tactics miss the mark” is what misses the mark. The extreme tactics are not being perpetrated by animal rights activists; the extreme tactics are being perpetrated by the rest of us.
Animal rights activists have done little to evaluate the merit of research being done at our university, indicated by distortions in public statements. People who use animals for biological research are harassed, regardless of whether they have done anything reprehensible.
I participated in the recent demonstrations against the primate experiments at the UW. I was approached by many neighbors and passers-by who shared their experiences with me, involving the animal experimentation industry.
Thanks to the Wisconsin State Journal for their balanced coverage of the recent protests. Too often the tactics of these groups, which include harassment, threats and property destruction, are underreported. The best way to expose the extremism of these groups is to fairly and openly document their methods.
Activist Rick Bogle, in his Monday guest column, claims the UW stifles debate about animal research. His contention is easy to refute. As the chairman of the All Campus Animal Care and Use Committee, the oversight body for animal use at UW-Madison, I have been working to establish contact with animal activists to find common ground, improve research animal welfare and enhance public understanding.
A generation ago, childhood cancer was considered a death sentence. Now, through research, approximately 75 percent of children with cancer in the U.S. are being cured. Still, we need to provide more effective and less toxic treatments.
This means testing. Some research can be done by computer modeling and in test tubes. However, any experimental treatment being considered for clinical testing must first demonstrate conclusive anticancer effects without causing “side effects” that outweigh the anti-tumor benefits, which still can only be done by involving laboratory animals that have cancer, most often mice.
Not everyone can claim a chicken as a career counselor.
But sick chickens in Pennsylvania steered Yoshihiro Kawaoka into bird flu research.
As attention to the human threat of a worldwide epidemic from bird flu has swelled in recent months, the UW-Madison virologist has emerged as one of the country’s leading experts on the subject.
SAN JOSE, Calif. – New federal proposals would significantly change how research is conducted at universities, placing tough restrictions on foreign-born scientists and tightening access to equipment and computers.
UW-Madison researchers said the proposed rules could create problems for them. Universities are exempt from most federal controls on their work because they conduct what the government calls “fundamental research” – work that is taught in open classrooms, published in journals and shared openly with the scientific community.
SCIENCE has always fascinated me. As a child in Tibet, I was keenly curious about how things worked. When I got a toy I would play with it a bit, then take it apart to see how it was put together. As I became older, I applied the same scrutiny to a movie projector and an antique automobile.
Across the United States, radioactive uranium rods wait in storage containers at nuclear power plants, mounting into a large waste issue for the national government and utility companies. As waste builds, many Midwestern universities, including UW-Madison, are looking to improve nuclear fuel reprocessing techniques and streamline the nuclear fuel cycle, which would reduce the overall volume of toxic waste.
Madison’s lakes can be saved, but it will take generations to undo the damage done over the past 150 years.
This frank assessment of the future of the Yahara chain of lakes came Friday from world-renowned University of Wisconsin Professor Stephen Carpenter at the 25th symposium of the North American Lake Management Society at Monona Terrace.
Stay in school, kids – it’s good for your health.
That’s the premise of a study being released today that ranks Waukesha County as Wisconsin’s healthiest county, partly because of its low high-school dropout rate.
The theory behind the University of Wisconsin-Madison study is that educated people are more likely to make smart choices about cigarette smoking and other unhealthy lifestyles.
Quoted: Richard Davidson, professor of psychology and psychiatry
Through a microscope, the H5N1 flu virus looks about as menacing as a moldy doughnut hole: not something you’d want to put in your mouth, but not something you’d run screaming from either.
Working in a high-containment laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Stacey Schultz-Cherry and three other researchers have been studying the H5N1 virus.
Gov. Jim Doyle�s current nine-day trade mission to Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic will expand relationships that may benefit Wisconsin businesses and UW-Madison research facilities.
Cancer patients involved in clinical trials in Wisconsin are one step closer to receiving health-insurance coverage for routine treatments, thanks to a bill unanimously approved by the Wisconsin Senate Tuesday.
The University of Wisconsin biomedical engineering department was awarded the Wallace H. Coulter Foundations Translational Research Partnership Award in Biomedical Engineering, officials announced Monday.
Need cash? There’s a Tyme Machine down by the bank near the stop-and-go-lights.
And if you’re not sure where that means, you might want to check with the Dictionary of American Regional English, which contains thousands of colloquial words and phrases used across the nation. Based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the dictionary was a 1960s project of English professor Frederic Cassidy.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â?? Motorists driving along the DeNeveu Creek bridge on Highway 151 near Fond du Lac will never notice the difference as they drive over a bridge that uses a new method of construction developed at UW-Madison.
However, highway officials who concern themselves with the cost of road construction may definitely notice the difference in the form of a much longer-lasting road.
In a laboratory at Indiana State University, a dozen green iguanas sprawl tranquilly in terrariums. They while away the hours basking under their heat lamps, and at night they close both eyes – or sometimes just one. They lead comfortable lives pretty much indistinguishable from any ordinary pet iguana, except for one notable exception: the bundles of brain-wave recording wires that trail from their heads
Quoted: Giulio Tononi, psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin and Chiara Cirelli.
University Research Park has forged a “sister park” agreement with the Frankfort Biotechnology Innovation Center in Frankfort, Germany, in Wisconsin’s sister state of Hesse.
A memorandum of understanding between the two research parks was signed in Frankfort by UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley, University Research Park Director Mark Bugher and Christian Garbe, managing director of the Frankfort Biotechnology Innovation Center.
UW-Madison keeps turning out life-sustaining and life-changing technologies.
Yet another example is a recent discovery by a UW-Madison virologist that improves on a bird flu vaccine-production technique he helped develop six years ago.
UW-Madison keeps turning out life-sustaining and life-changing technologies.
Yet another example is a recent discovery by a UW-Madison virologist that improves on a bird flu vaccine-production technique he helped develop six years ago.
Quoted: Amy Wong at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who is working on a portable gas-stream technology that zaps bacteria from surfaces like stainless steel
Regulating scientific research is a priority for lawmakers, but as science marches forward, its breakthroughs must be incorporated into policy-making and modern legislation. To address this need, the UW-Madison Neuroscience Training Program and LaFollette Public Policy School created a joint program to equip Ph.D students with skills to bridge scientific and political disciplines.
He�s done it again.
Governor Jim Doyle vetoed AB 499, an initiative that would have banned all methods of human cloning. In doing so, Doyle has once again made the right choice for Wisconsin. Thanks to Doyle, stem-cell research in Wisconsin will continue to prosper and, it is hoped, find cures to life-threatening diseases, as well as continue to help the state�s economy.
After several weeks of waiting, Governor Doyle finally did the expected last week and vetoed AB 499, which would have effectively banned human cloning.
Paul Hanson, with the UW-Madison limnology department, helped Lyons with the computer work on the project. He praised the effort and agreed that Lyons has plugged directly into one very deep lobe of the Wisconsin psyche.
When members of Dane County’s Muslim community gathered to celebrate the end of Ramadan with Eid al Fitr, the Festival of Fast-Breaking, on Thursday morning, they didn’t know until just hours before that they would be meeting.
That’s because the timing of the annual holiday is determined by the appearance of the slim crescent of a new moon, signaling the start of a new month in the Islamic lunar calendar.
Kemal Karpat, a professor of history at UW-Madison, is quoted.
The problem with people who zealously push a cause is that they can push too far. When that happens, they become their own worst enemies. Such was the case on both sides of the political spectrum in the past week.
Saying the state shouldn’t stand in the way of stem cell research in Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle on Thursday vetoed a ban on all forms of human cloning in the state.
Supporters of the ban said it would have prevented unethical research from being conducted here. Doyle went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Biotechnology Center to veto the bill (AB 499).
Activists ratcheted up their opposition to animal experiments at UW-Madison this week by parking a truck with giant video screens outside the homes of animal researchers and broadcasting footage to neighbors of what they said was the torture of monkeys at a campus lab.
In offering $1 million to purchase property near the UW Primate Research Center, UW-Madison has become a bullyââ?¬â?overstepping its bounds and recklessly throwing its power around to put down a small group of harmless advocates.
A new solution has arisen in regards to the milk shortage that affects developing countries around the world.
Joining a worldwide effort to safeguard humanity from the growing risk of avian influenza, University of Wisconsin researchers developed a more efficient method of producing vaccines to combat the disease.
The head of infectious diseases at UW Medical School says he’s confident the avian flu will show up in North American birds within the next few months. But he says people should not be panicked. That’s because each year, tens of thousands of Americans die from the standard flu…the bird flu has killed less than 100.
Colin Hutt thinks the region’s biotech industry is about to soar, and he wants his start-up public relations firm to be flying with it.
President Bush on Tuesday asked Congress for $7.1 billion in emergency spending to prepare for a possible pandemic of avian flu, the illness that some scientists fear could spread to humans from the disease now devastating birds and chickens in Asia and Europe.
At the same time, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are forging ahead with advances that could make the president’s proposed goals easier to attain.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have developed a new way to speed up production of flu vaccines.
The discovery could be helpful to quickly develop large amounts of vaccine in the event of an outbreak of H5N1, commonly known as bird flu.
Scientists say they have found a faster way to make a bird flu vaccine should an outbreak among humans ever occur.
Experts fear the H5N1 virus, which is lethal to humans, will mutate to allow it to spread more easily among people – and could kill up to 50 million
(MADISON) University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers will be part of a controversial new effort to recycle nuclear waste.
Spent nuclear fuel is piling up at many commercial power plants around the nation. Scientists know how to re-process and reuse the fuel, but that�s currently not done in the U.S. nuclear power industry. (Third item.)
When Celera Genomics first sequenced the entire human genome in 2000, the scientific community and the world at large met the news with unbridled enthusiasmââ?¬â?and with good reason. Sequencing the three billion base pairs in human DNA in a little over a year was a staggering achievement.
A multidisciplinary team of UW-Madison researchers recently received a five-year, $3.4 million grant to develop techniques for using stem cells to repair nerve damage in victims of diseases like Multiple Sclerosis, and to improve imaging technology to view the lesions and repairs at the cellular level.
Does your brain feel lighter this morning? Today is some people’s favorite “holiday” – the end of daylight-saving time, which brings an extra hour of sleep.
What the body does during that or any hour of sleep – or why we slumber in the first place – remains a mystery. But some scientists, including a team of researchers at UW- Madison, have a theory.
Researchers have given us an atlas of the brain. Molecular biologist Julie Simpson is drawing a street map.
Studies by researchers such as the UW-Madison’s Don Waller have shown that deer are decimating the understory of Wisconsin’s northern forests, especially cedar swamps. So studies are under way, Wydeven said, to understand the relationship between wolf predation and plant growth in Wisconsin’s forests.
Wisconsin’s abysmal record of venture funding activity continued in the third quarter, and state companies are on their way to having their worst year in a decade for raising venture capital.
Just three state companies – all in the Madison area – raised a total of $9.68 million, according to the MoneyTree Survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association.
News 3 leaned a window a laboratory on Brooks Street was shattered.
LATELY I have had the brain on the brain.
Instead of fretting about the Packers, or the fact winter is coming, I have been thinking about the brain. Odd, I realize. But I have called on my own semi-functional brain to deduce a few reasons why this may be so….
(Professor Richard Davidson is mentioned in this column, along with professor emeritus Wally Welker, internationally recognized as a researcher in the brain morphology of mammals.)
To further the public understanding on nanotechnology, the University of Wisconsin, in coordination with various science museums nationwide, is focusing on creating interactive exhibits on this science.
Animal rights activists who planned to open a museum showcasing what they say is the torturous reality of primate research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are headed to court instead.
David Wilcove, keynote speaker for the Madison Ecology Group�s fall Ecology Symposium, came to campus last month to speak about America�s endangered species and the struggle to save them from extinction.
