The owner of a set of sheds sandwiched between two University of Wisconsin-Madison primate labs wants to sell them to the university instead of animal rights activists who claim they have first dibs on the land.
Interviewed: Dr. Joan Schiller, an oncologist at the University of Wisconsin
The owner of property wedged between two University of Wisconsin primate research facilities says he’s likely to sell the land to the university instead of to two animal rights groups.
The groups, the Alliance for Animals and the Primate Freedom Project, say they have a written agreement with the owner to give them nine months to buy the land. They hope to put a museum about animal experimentation on the property.
MADISON ââ?¬â?? The Badger State will likely never produce a Silicon Valley, but it could become a major force in the science and technology business world, a trio of experts told trustees of the Wisconsin Investment Board Wednesday morning.
But to do that, emerging companies need financial backing so they can grow, produce jobs and contribute to the state�s economy.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has awarded a $3.4 million grant to University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers to study the disease.
The researchers, led by Professor Ian Duncan of the School of Veterinary Medicine, will attempt to develop new ways to repair and protect the nervous system in patients with multiple sclerosis. The research will include the use of human stem cells.
The group is developing cell transplant techniques, which might someday be used to repair nervous system fibers.
A UW-Madison official said a property owner has accepted a $1 million purchase offer for land right next to UW primate research facilities on Charter Street.
UW Research Park Director Mark Bugher told 27 News the property owner’s acceptance of the UW’s proposed option to buy, may lead to an expansion of the exisiting primate research facilities.
(UNDATED) Alcohol during pregnancy can harm the developing fetus. Now some UW-Madison researchers think they know why. (Second item.)
Snuppy, the world’s first cloned pup, romped onto front pages last week to fascinate and provoke. Seoul National University’s puppy, whose genetic material came from a single cell from the ear of an Afghan hound, teased the public with the prospect that people might soon be able to clone their beloved dogs.
Even creating embryos for stem cells to research is morally wrong. Those of us who support a ban on all types of human cloning do so because we believe that ultimately no good can come from the procedure.
State of Wisconsin Investment Board trustees on Wednesday began studying the possibility of making more investments in young state firms.
….Madison’s University Research Park is betting on the emerging technology effort in Wisconsin. It recently spent $8 million to acquire about 300 acres of land and will make $15 million in infrastructure improvements, the park’s director told trustees. The additional acreage more than doubles the park’s size, allowing it to provide more space for companies that spin out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re writing the check because we think this economy in the science and technology area is where the action will be in the next several years,” said Mark D. Bugher, the park’s director.
NASA and its daring astronauts showed again this week that they can face danger, ad lib and succeed in space – all while furthering our knowledge of the universe.
President Bush said it well Tuesday – the amazing shuttle trip, covering 5.8 million miles in 14 days, “regains the confidence of the American people” following the Columbia accident in 2003.
Discovery landed safely Tuesday morning in California after a series of events and experiments, some planned and others a surprise. It helped show why our nation’s space program deserves strong support despite significant risks and costs.
The successful mission also bodes well for UW- Madison. Our great university has had strong ties to the nation’s space program dating back to the 1950s.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will use $16 million from the federal government to find ways to improve the flow of goods through the Upper Midwest.
UW-Madison will set up one of 10 new national research centers with money included in the federal transportation bill President Bush was expected to sign this week. The center at UW will build on regional transportation studies the school already is doing at its Midwest Regional University Transportation Center.
Kevin McSweeney, the interim director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, has won the permanent position, the university announced today.
McSweeney is also a professor of soil science.
Martin Cadwallader, dean of the graduate school, said in a statement that McSweeney’s leadership will “work wonders for the Arboretum,” the UW’s 1,260-acre ecological facility.
US scientists say they have successfully tweaked a common heart drug to make it fight cancer. Digoxin or digitalis, which comes from the foxglove plant, is normally used to steady the rhythm of the heart and help it beat more efficiently. Now a University of Wisconsin-Madison team has changed some of its building blocks to make it target tumours.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher has found that national forests have become islands of wilderness, increasingly blocked off from other forests by creeping residential development.
An organization associated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison is considering spending $1 million to purchase buildings next to the school’s primate research center that animal rights activists want for a museum to protest the work going on next door.
Wisconsin is on track to have another strong year for new-business starts. If the current rate of business openings continues, this will be the fourth straight year of double-digit growth. So far this year, 20,341 new companies have registered with the state, a rate that’s 12.5% ahead of last year. Some are high-tech companies spawned by professors and proximity to the state’s universities, but many more are in the traditional business categories of services, retail and manufacturing.
Two animal rights groups are wrestling with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s real estate buyer to purchase a property wedged between two primate research facilities.
The university has offered to buy the property for $1 million, outbidding the activists by $325,000. But the animal rights groups say they have a contract allowing them to buy it first.
The groups, Alliance for Animals and the Primate Freedom Project, want to create a museum at 26 Charter St. The groups say the museum would detail the suffering of animals who serve as research subjects.
U. S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s smart and courageous stance on embryonic stem-cell research should embolden more Wisconsin state lawmakers – especially Republicans – to support scientific advances.
Frist, R-Tenn., recently threw his support behind a House bill to expand federal funding for research on stem cells. The bill would only affect stem cells taken from embryos created in fertility clinics for reproduction, but which aren’t used and would probably be discarded. He also asked for a comprehensive system of ethical oversight.
150 research reactors in the world still use highly enriched uranium, including at eight U.S. universities. After 9/11, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered the universities to upgrade their security.
The University of Florida and Texas A&M will convert their reactors to low-enriched uranium in 2006. The Senate Appropriations Committee added another $7 million to President Bush’s budget to speed up conversion of reactors at Purdue, Oregon State, Washington State and the University of Wisconsin.
South Korean researchers Wednesday said they have created the world’s first cloned dog: a playful, black, tan and white Afghan hound named Snuppy.
Man’s best friend has been cloned for the first time in a genetic duplicate of a 3-year-old male Afghan hound, South Korean scientists report today.
The biggest angel investing network in Wisconsin said Wednesday it has invested $535,000 in eMetagen Corp., a drug-development company in Madison. The firm’s business is based on proprietary technology for finding and developing drugs that was discovered at UW-Madison.
Thanks to its geography and its clear skies, South Africa has long been a prime location for astronomy.
Which is why UW-Madison ââ?¬â?? plus a dozen other international organizations – signed on a little more than five years ago to help build and fund SALT, the Southern African Large Telescope.
Analysis of 3,000-year-old pottery shards from the ancient Olmec capital of San Lorenzo and other sites contradicts the notion among some researchers that the Olmec civilization was the “mother culture” that laid the foundation for the Inca, Maya and other civilizations of Central and South America.
Many researchers believe that the Olmec were the primary culture of the region, dominating, inspiring and ultimately raising the other chiefdoms to the level of civilization.
None of the options sounded pleasant, but 65-year-old Richard Brodhagen of Marshfield knew that time was not on his side.
Doctors had diagnosed prostate cancer, which physicians had caught in its intermediate stages. Brodhagen was weighing whether to have his prostate removed or to have radiation treatments, or whether any other options would result in fewer side effects.
One night, he was watching TV.
A new UW research complex is one step closer to completion.
Monday, members of the UW medical community, along with Governor Jim Doyle, broke ground for the school’s interdisciplinary research complex.
Madison, Wis. – Gov. Jim Doyle on Monday expressed hope for the future of stem cell research, lauding Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s recent decision to support removal of some of the current limitations on such research.
Doyle made his comments at the groundbreaking of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Interdisciplinary Research Complex, where he also praised Wisconsin’s medical development scene.
The announcement was met with praise at UW- Madison, a leader in research on human embryonic stem cells, by stem-cell researcher James Thomson.
“Recent advancements in the field . . . really demand that we now go beyond the president’s compromise,” Thomson said. “I personally believe that if we don’t get beyond that compromise soon, people will suffer and die needlessly. Given the current political realities of his party, Senator Frist’s announcement was courageous, and I commend it.”
With a newfound interest in weather sciences, Terry Kelly transferred from Harvard to the meteorology program at UW- Madison. After graduation, he parlayed his interest in atmospheric phenomena into a company, called Weather Central, that now provides software and forecasting services to countries around the world.
U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, the majority leader, announced on Friday his qualified support for a bill that would loosen President Bush’s limits on federal financing of research on human embryonic stem cells.
The El Paso, Tex., suburbs stretch west, across the Rio Grande and into New Mexico. Just on the other side of the river lies this community of 2,500 people. In a gated housing development here, not far from a golf course and around the corner from a swimming pool, Steven Best lives alone — just him and his 10 cats.
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Friday threw his support behind House-passed legislation to expand federal financing for human embryonic stem cell research, breaking with President Bush and religious conservatives in a move that could impact his prospects for seeking the White House in 2008.
U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, the majority leader, blocked a vote on Thursday on a bill to expand President Bush’s limits on federal financing of stem-cell research, effectively delaying any vote until at least September. Dr. Frist said he was still working with other senators to package that proposal with related bills, at least one of which has been criticized by researchers.
Sean Carroll is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. In a review for Science & Theology News, Michael Ruse called Carrollââ?¬â?¢s recent book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, ââ?¬Å?an attractive and accessible introduction to the field of evo devo [shorthand for evolutionary development].ââ?¬Â
Gov. Jim Doyle said Thursday his staff should not have delivered a bag of used needles to Assembly Speaker John Gard on behalf of a Door County woman calling attention to stem cell research, but added that the action did not warrant an apology.
Dear Editor: Your column called stem cell research foes narrow-minded and illogical, and not caring for “actual people.” But you never mentioned adult stem cell research, which is morally acceptable and has already provided miraculous results, including repair of damaged spinal cords.
Your opinion seems to be that the more important issue is jobs for researchers paid for by funds extracted from Wisconsin taxpayers. If you are looking for good jobs that will do good for actual people, a good place to start would be to support progressive, forward-thinking and effective adult stem cell research.
Halvor Vermund, 88, the first chief of radiation therapy at the University of Wisconsin, died July 21 from a cycling injury in Oslo, Norway.
Vermund helped refine the use of radiation, in the context of surgery and chemotherapy, in the treatment of cancers, particularly of the head and neck. His first research paper was published in 1953, and his 99th research paper will be published later this year.
The University of Wisconsin’s research foundation has signed its first licensing agreement with a private company to develop commercial products using embryonic stem cell technology developed at the school.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which holds the patents to human embryonic stem cell discoveries made at UW-Madison, and Chemicon International of Temecula, Calif., announced the agreement this week.
The Dalai Lama, who once said he would have been an engineer if he hadnââ?¬â?¢t become a monk, has been invited to speak at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, in November ââ?¬â?? to the distress of some society members who are boycotting the meeting.
Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and lead investigator in the study, said he shares concern about the ââ?¬Å?slippery slopeââ?¬Â of involving religion in science. However, he helped set up the talk by the Dalai Lama because it could ââ?¬Å?encourage increased attention to these domains of inquiry,ââ?¬Â which he thinks hold potential for improving health.
MADISON, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin’s research foundation has signed its first licensing agreement with a private company to develop commercial products using embryonic stem cell technology developed at the school.
An aide to Gov. Jim Doyle delivered a brown paper bag filled with used medical needles to the office of Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-Peshtigo) to help a Door County woman make a statement about the important of stem-cell research.
Megan Twohey’s July 24 article in the Journal Sentinel (“The protesters next door”), which described Rick Bogle’s protest of research at the National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was full of irony while missing several important points about medicine, the use of animals in medical research and the animal rights movement.
….Wisconsin scientists should be celebrated for their contributions to human and animal health. They and their families should not have to face threats from animal rights extremists. And they should not have to read articles in the Journal Sentinel that glorify extremists who support the use of violence against them.
A package of used hypodermic needles delivered to Assembly Speaker John Gard�s office last week has highlighted a political battle over stem-cell cloning for diabetes research. It�s also caused Gard to question Gov. Jim Doyle�s judgment in sanctioning the political stunt.
The Dalai Lama is at the centre of an unholy row among scientists over his plans to deliver a lecture at a prominent neuroscience conference.
His talk stems from a growing interest in how Buddhist meditation may affect the brain, but researchers who dismiss such studies as little more than mumbo-jumbo say they will boycott the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in November if it goes ahead.
The research peaked in November last year when a team led by Richard Davidson, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, published research in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that suggested networks of brain cells were better coordinated in people who were trained in meditation.
Madison, Wis. – The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has licensed the California immunological research firm Chemicon to commercialize research products using WARF’s stem cell patents, Chemicon’s parent company Serologicals announced Tuesday.
Milwaukee area business and higher education leaders said Monday that they were disappointed but remain optimistic about future funding after Gov. Jim Doyle used a veto to slash money for a southeastern Wisconsin research alliance.
The Senate is having trouble deciding how to approach the controversial issue of stem cell research using human embryos, dimming hopes of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and other supporters that a bill will pass before the summer recess begins Friday.
Quoted: Norman Fost, who will argue that it’s unethical not to do research on children, and that current regulations are too strict. “The main problem is there’s not enough research,” says Fost, director of the bioethics program at the University of Wisconsin.
MILWAUKEE ââ?¬â?? When UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos Santiago was provost at State University of New York at Albany, he was part of the team that created a $1 billion nanotechnology research center.
Santiago, who celebrated his first anniversary as chancellor last week, hopes to duplicate that public-private partnership at the state�s second largest university.
Almost 20,000 state workers will not receive pay raises for the more than two years they worked without contracts, but they also won’t have to pay back the state for covering health insurance premiums, under union contracts approved Wednesday by the Legislature.
Quoted: Dhavan Shah, a professor of journalism and mass communications and political science at UW-Madison.
Quoted: Patty Loew, an associate professor who teaches American Indian issues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: A study that tracked 12,000 graduates, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Science of Sociology masters thesis by Katherine McCoy.
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle was right to veto millions of dollars in cuts to the University of Wisconsin System made by Republicans who control the Legislature.
There are several groups in the region working to protect and restore the endangered Karner blue butterfly. Now these efforts could be helped by a new computer mapping and statistical modeling technique. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has more. (Audio.)
(MADISON) Public vaccinations helped stem the spread of certain childhood diseases. Now, some health experts think it may be time for a similar concerted effort to help kids to trim down. Tuesday night (7/19), the University of Wisconsin Medical School is holding a free public seminar entitled ââ?¬Å?Confronting the Childhood Obesity Epidemic.ââ?¬Â
….Let’s fight for a truly independent public radio and TV. Yes, it would hurt to lose the 16 percent of the budget that comes from federal funding, and some cuts would be necessary. But knowing that contributions would be going to an independent news source, listeners would save Wisconsin public radio and TV even if the Lobbyist’s Legislature won’t give us funding.
Let’s try it. If that doesn’t work, try something else. But one thing is clear. We need public radio and TV. Don’t let them steal it.
MADISON – Before Congress takes its traditional August break, the Senate may help decide the future of federal support for human embryonic stem cell research. Let’s hope a scientifically sound and ethical resolution is reached – and that states such as Wisconsin follow the lead.
In Wisconsin, it often seems as if the debate over whether to allow embryonic stem cell research to proceed is a partisan one. Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, stands on the side of science and supports research. The Republican-controlled state Assembly and Senate take the side of conservative extremists and superstitious merchants of fear to oppose it.
But it is important to recognize that, while key Republicans in Wisconsin may be living in the dark ages, Republicans elsewhere agree with Doyle.
