The significance of the House vote this week to allow federal research on stem cells taken from discarded human embryos was perhaps best illustrated by Rep. James Langevin of Rhode Island. He cast his vote from a wheelchair.
Quoted: Tim Osswald, professor and co-director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Polymer Engineering Center.
A fledgling organization that wants to provide early-stage capital to high-tech start-ups and eventually spur development of a new research park could get $2.5 million in the next state budget. The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee has recommended funneling the money to the Biomedical Technology Alliance, which is seeking to forge various high-tech research efforts in the area into a stronger, more collaborative undertaking. Joining in the effort are the Medical College of Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University, the Milwaukee School of Engineering and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
WASHINGTON, May 25 – Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican and chief sponsor of a bill to expand federal financing for human embryonic stem cell research, issued a stark challenge to President Bush on Wednesday, saying he had enough votes in the Senate to override a presidential veto of the measure.
A survey of more than 100 medical schools has found that they vary widely in their standards for testing new medicines for drug companies, with some saying they would accept far more control from the companies than others would.
MADISON, Wis. — The scientist who first isolated human embryonic stem cells now hopes to profit from the discovery.
Even as the debate unfolds in Washington over federal funding for stem-cell research, Jamie Thomson and two colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have formed Cellular Dynamics International, a company that will test new drugs on heart cells they plan to develop from the undifferentiated master cells.
WASHINGTON – Madison researchers and U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin hailed the passage by the House of Representatives of two bills that would relax restrictions on stem cell research.
After more than six hours of debate, the House voted Tuesday to pass two stem cell bills allowing federal funding for researchers to explore umbilical cord cells and extending embryonic stem cell research beyond limits imposed by the Bush administration.
A bipartisan group of senators is pushing the Senate leadership to take up the bills, but President Bush has vowed to veto the kind of bills that passed Tuesday.
An animal rights activist pleaded not guilty Tuesday to domestic terrorism charges that he freed mink from Midwestern farms in 1997, causing thousands of dollars in damage and spreading fear among the nation’s fur farmers.
Fifty Republicans joined a heavy majority of Democrats in passing a House bill Tuesday that would allow federal funding to support research using new lines of embryonic stem cells.
Four years ago, when President Bush placed severe restrictions on the types of embryonic stem cell research eligible for federal funding, he made it tougher for scientists to pursue potentially life-saving medical advancements.
A federal trial is scheduled next week in Madison involving major makers of scientific equipment, UW- Madison and an entrepreneur, all over who can profit from a device most people know from high school chemistry.
At stake is millions of dollars in U.S. sales of the adjustable pipette, the syringe-like instrument that researchers around the world use to measure and transfer liquids from one container to another.
Most debates about “ethical” issues aren’t debates at all; they’re arguments that no one ever wins.
You either think abortion is right or you think abortion is wrong – but endless discussion of the matter is unlikely to change your mind.
Questions of whether gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry legally might not quite be so clear in people’s minds – but most of us have a pretty firm idea of where we stand.
But, when it comes to the issue of using embryonic stem cells to develop cures for dreaded diseases, things aren’t nearly so clear for many of us.
WASHINGTON ââ?¬â? A House bill passed Tuesday that would loosen President Bushââ?¬â?¢s restrictions on medical research on human embryos would be a boon for scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the nationââ?¬â?¢s leader in the field.
MADISON ââ?¬â?? As the Legislatureââ?¬â?¢s budget-writing committee wrestles with balancing the stateââ?¬â?¢s biennial budget, calls for additional cuts in spending by the University of Wisconsin System will likely move front and center. In some ways, thatââ?¬â?¢s logical: The UW System budget is one of the stateââ?¬â?¢s five biggest spending programs.
In a move that could help resolve one of the most politically controversial issues in science, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to overturn President Bush’s limitations on federal financing for research on human embryonic stem cells.
MADISON — Over the past dozen years, the UW-Madison campus has seen a building boom of more than $1.6 billion, with two-thirds of the funding coming from federal and other sources. Many of the new and renovated structures were for the sciences.
College students who get drunk regularly are likelier than other students ââ?¬â? even those who drink alcohol ââ?¬â? to physically injure themselves, or to be hurt by other drinkers, according to researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
The House of Representatives defied President Bush’s veto threat and voted Tuesday to expand federal funding for stem cell research using human embryos.
A federal trial is scheduled next week involving major makers of scientific equipment, the University of Wisconsin and an entrepreneur, all over who can profit from a device most people know from high school chemistry.
At stake is millions of dollars in U.S. sales of the adjustable pipette, the syringe-like instrument that researchers around the world use to measure and transfer liquids from one container to another.
As debates over embryonic stem cell research flare anew worldwide, a private foundation says it will give $50 million for such work to three Upper East Side medical institutions, a gift they say will position New York City as a player in an increasingly competitive field.
Four years ago, when President Bush placed severe restrictions on the types of embryonic stem cell research eligible for federal funding, he made it tougher for scientists to pursue life-saving medical advancements. That was a mistake.
MADISON ââ?¬â? A federal trial is scheduled next week involving scientific equipment makers and the University of Wisconsin over who can profit from a device common to high school chemistry.
At stake is millions of dollars in U.S. sales of the adjustable pipette, a syringe-like instrument that researchers around the world use to measure and transfer liquids from one container to another.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â?? Recent developments in Washington and Korea could have a lasting impact on Wisconsin’s stem cell community, putting more roadblocks in scientists’ search for funding.
A bill in Congress would offer federal grants to encourage researchers to destroy new human embryos from fertility clinics for their stem cells.
The latest headlines in embryonic stem cell research come from South Korea. Scientists there announced last week that they had used cloning techniques to create stem cells that genetically match sick patients, making rejection by the body less likely.
Washington – President Bush vowed Friday to veto legislation intended to ease the restrictions he imposed on stem cell research in 2001, setting up a potentially divisive battle with Congress over the morality of modern science.
Up and down the East Coast, stem cell researchers are feeling the tug of a powerful, invisible force. It is a wave of recruiting calls from institutions in California seeking to expand their research programs with help from Proposition 71, the state’s $3 billion stem cell initiative.
President Bush on Friday condemned stem-cell research advances in South Korea and said he worried about living in a world in which human cloning was condoned. He said he would veto any legislation aimed at loosening limits on federal support in the United States.
“I’m very concerned about cloning,” Bush told reporters in the Oval Office. “I worry about a world in which cloning becomes acceptable.”
BROOKFIELD – As the state Legislature considers a merger of the University of Wisconsin campuses in Waukesha and Milwaukee, Waukesha County Executive Daniel Finley said Friday he sees the local campus possibly rivaling the medical center complex in Milwaukee in the future.
The Bush administration policy on stem cell research is shifting efforts that might lead to cures and treatments for a host of diseases away from the federal government. President Bush limited federal funding to 78 existing stem cell lines when he set his policy on Aug. 9, 2001. That policy has led to a patchwork of initiatives that scientists, patients and some lawmakers say has stunted progress on finding cures for diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other diseases. ââ?¬Å?The field would move much more quickly if the federal government gave its support,ââ?¬Â says George Daley, a Harvard University scientist.
South Korean scientists have dramatically sped up the creation of human embryonic stem cells, growing 11 new batches that for the first time were genetic matches for injured or sick patients.
It is a major advancement in the quest to grow patients’ own replacement tissue to treat diseases.
Quoted: Norm Fost, a medical ethicist and professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Scientists in South Korea have developed a reliable technique for generating lines of human stem cells from cloned human embryos, opening up a new avenue for studying diseases and possibly for treating or curing them.
With speed and efficiency that will make waves in laboratories and legislatures around the world, scientists have created nearly a dozen new lines of human embryonic stem (ES) cells, ones that for the first time carry the genetic signature of diseased or injured patients. Last year, a group led by veterinarian Woo Suk Hwang and gynecologist Shin Yong Moon of Seoul National University reported the first–and until now the only–derivation of ES cells from human nuclear transfer experiments (Science, 12 March 2004, p. 1669). Those efforts yielded just one cell line from more than 200 tries, but the researchers report online in Science this week that they can consistently derive a cell line in fewer than 20 tries.
Using remarkably efficient cloning techniques, South Korean researchers have created the first lines of embryonic stem cells customized to specific patients, a major advance that could accelerate the long-awaited dream of using genetically matched healthy cells to replace human cells and tissues damaged by disease and injury. Quotes Norm Fost, a medical ethicist and professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
South Korean researchers Thursday announced the creation of 11 custom-made cloned stem cell lines, made for the first time from the skin cells of child and adult patients. The advance is considered a significant refinement of the controversial stem cell technology that opens the door wider for future treatment of such diseases as juvenile diabetes and Parkinson’s.
Attacks by two extremist groups, one of which has been tied to numerous acts of vandalism against research facilities at universities, are growing in both frequency and size and represent one of the most serious domestic-terrorism threats today, federal law-enforcement officials told a Senate panel on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON, May 18 – With a vote on embryonic stem cell research expected as early as next week, the House majority leader vowed on Wednesday to defeat a measure that would expand federal financing of the science.
“Once people understand the issue,” said the majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, “more than 70 percent are against embryonic stem cell research.”
It was a true eureka moment. The discovery two decades ago of a similar set of genes in fruit flies, mice and humans was both startling and unifying.
Up to that point, biologists believed that diverse animals use diverse tool kits to build their bodies. With the discovery of so-called homeobox genes, it became clear there is but one.
Interview with Sean Carroll, a professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin,
WAUWATOSA ââ?¬â?? Individually, each of the four major building projects underway on the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center campus and the neighboring Milwaukee County Research Park is impressive.
The National Science Foundation on Monday announced the winners of the 2004 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring.
The individual recipients include Jeffrey S. Russell, a professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
A fight between centrist and conservative Republicans over a bill to expand federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research has intensified in the past week as the House moves closer to a promised vote.
With 199 co-sponsors, supporters of the bill are confident that they have enough votes to pass it when leadership brings it to the floor this month, furthering the possibility that this legislation will become the first veto of President Bush�s tenure in the White House.
Entrepreneur magazine was not overwhelmed with the entrepreneurial programs at the UW-Madison in its April 2005 edition, and several surveys show the state ranks in the bottom third when it comes to creating new companies.
The cash-starved Wisconsin Historical Society has $1.1 million more in its endowment fund than officials thought was there.
The state Legislative Audit Bureau said this week that an audit identified an error in the society’s internal accounting records.
The Historical Society which has suffered severe cuts in its budget in recent years because of a state fiscal crisis – relies on donations and endowment fund earnings to finance many activities such as managing historic sites and operating the library and museum.
For years, Madison residents and school children have had a unique place from which to study the stars and the planets and all the wonders of the heavens. It’s called Space Place and it is operated as the outreach arm of the UW-Madison astronomy department.
HOUSTON, May 13 – Students attending the University of Texas at Austin will find something missing from the undergraduate library this fall.
Books.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher has dropped an adviser from his proposed Taser experiment on pigs after a newspaper reported the adviser was a paid consultant for the company that makes the stun guns.
USA Today reported that the experiment protocol listed Robert A. Stratbucker as a consultant. It did not list that Stratbucker, an Omaha, Neb., physician, also is a medical consultant for Taser International.
MADISON, Wis. ââ?¬â? A Wisconsin researcher removed Taser International’s medical director as an adviser to a study of the safety of stun guns after critics said his invovement with the manufacturer tainted the research.
The President’s Council on Bioethics released a list of four approaches yesterday that it said scientists should explore as alternatives to generating embryonic stem cells from living human embryos.
New Limits Are Proposed for Research on Stem Cells
BOSTON, May 11 – Hoping to make a recently passed bill on stem cell research more restrictive, Gov. Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he would ask the legislature to amend the bill by changing the definition of when life begins and by excluding a type of embryonic stem cell research that he opposes.
WASHINGTON ââ?¬â? An adviser to a federally funded study concerning the safety of stun guns made by Taser International also is a paid consultant to Taser, the Justice Department acknowledges.
Sarah Jane Alger, a doctoral student in zoology at UW- Madison, was at that point in her research all scientists long to reach.
She had collected her data, hundreds of songs of the European starling, and was about to begin analyzing them. She would listen for differences between the songs of breeding and non-breeding males.
It was time-consuming and tedious research that explored almost entirely new ground, according to Lauren Riter, an associate professor of zoology and Alger’s adviser. And the research is promising not only because it offers insights into bird songs and behavior but also into autism and communication in humans. Her work is being funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? The second-ever group of Master of Science in Biotechnology students will walk across the stage for their diplomas at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this weekend.
Biotech farmers this week are lauding what they say is a milestone for the industry: the planting of the billionth acre of biotech seed.
LOS ANGELES, May 9 – California’s stem cell program is exploring temporary fund-raising options because a lawsuit has stopped the issuance of the $3 billion in bonds that would finance the research.
The program’s finance committee on Monday authorized the state treasurer to consider issuing up to $200 million in short-term notes to get the program up and running.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is famous for many things. An astronomy education center in an old steakhouse, though, probably isn’t one of them. UW Space Place, located for the last 15 years in a former Ponderosa restaurant, will move next month to a newly remodeled facility at the Villager on S. Park St.
Allan R. Odden, a nationally recognized expert in school finance at UW-Madison, received a $500,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation of New York to determine what it costs to adequately fund K-12 education in Wisconsin.
Milwaukee ââ?¬â? Examine the techno-geography of other states across the Midwest, and you’ll find they’re generally “bipolar.” No, that’s not a psychiatric diagnosis, but instead a reflection on the fact that most successful states have one or more tech centers.
If you had a fancy high-tech copy machine that would actually make 3-D copies of things such as molecules and proteins, wouldn’t you be tempted to play around with it, just a little bit?
Like, wouldn’t it be cool to copy something like a model car? Even Ted Pan, the technology specialist who runs the unique copy machine for UW-Madison’s Biology New Media Center, is human.
The discovery of an ivory- billed woodpecker deep in an Arkansas swamp has bird lovers in Wisconsin talking about the possibility of finding such flying ghosts in this state’s remote wooded or marshy reaches.
Is there, for example, a hidden population of passenger pigeons tucked away out there somewhere? Not likely, say experts such as Stan Temple, a wildlife ecology professor at UW-Madison who teaches a course on extinction.
Researchers at UW-Madison have found that the compounds in cranberries could help prevent heart attacks and strokes. Kris Kruse-Elliot conducted the research by feeding powdered cranberries to pigs. (Last item.)
