Category: Research

Proteins are the workhorses that run all biological systems. Controlling when and how a protein performs its function provides bioengineers with exquisite control to manipulate or monitor a biological system. In this paper, researchers at Northwestern and the University of Wisconsin–Madison demonstrate a powerful design strategy for splitting bioactive proteins into fragments that only recombine under specific conditions.

“Previous studies demonstrated that patients with lupus nephritis who had atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) were significantly younger than those without lupus nephritis, and ASCVD risk was 42 times higher in patients with lupus nephritis who were aged 30 to 39 years,” Shivani Garg, MD, MS, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told Healio Rheumatology. “The risk of ASCVD starts early, at the time of lupus nephritis diagnosis. Often traditional risk factors alone do not explain the accelerated ASCVD risk in such patients.

UW-Madison ranked eighth place in the national research rankings for both public and private universities, the same ranking as the last survey covering the 2018 fiscal year. UW ranked sixth among public universities, which was also the same ranking as in fiscal year 2018.

Liquid nitrogen is so cold that it freezes anything it touches, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It clocks in around 320 degrees below freezing. Because it’s so cold, liquid nitrogen immediately boils when it touches anything room temperature, which is what causes the cloudy smoke seen in fancy cocktails and frozen desserts.

Dr. Thomas Friedrich, a professor of virology at UW-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine, says his lab focuses on understanding how viruses that cause pandemics overcome evolutionary barriers to get transmitted.

These life-cycle models often find that there is a much smaller retirement crisis than suggested by a focus on replacing preretirement income. For example, one 2008 study—“Are All Americans Saving ‘Optimally’ for Retirement,” by John Karl Scholz and Ananth Seshadri of the University of Wisconsin-Madison—found that only 4% of households had a net worth that was below their optimal levels. The NRRI at the time was 44%.

Noted: Their study was published in “Functional Ecology,” a journal of the British Ecological Society, and involved a collaborative team of researchers from the U of I, Washington State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and U.S. Geological Survey. It looked at how the risk of heat stress from a warming climate might affect milk production in grizzly bears. It also investigated how bears respond, including their use of soaking pools.

Microsoft’s AI for Good Research Lab is working with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the University of Wisconsin, and the Quebec AI Institute (Mila). Mila was founded in 1993 by professor Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian computer scientist renowned for his work on artificial intelligence (AI) and neural networks. Professor Bengio was the principal investigator on the project.

In 2012, Koning, then a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, began investigating the Ngao valley reserves to see how widespread and successful they truly were. Over the next eight years, he spent a total of 18 months living with communities across the region, where he documented around 50 different reserves. He selected 23 to study in depth, interviewing villagers and snorkeling the waters inside and outside the reserves to count and measure fish, along with study co-author Martin Perales.

That said, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a battery-free implant that’s powered by stomach movements.

Much of the South’s early communications infrastructure was installed in the 1960s, expanded during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and remains in use today. According to industry experts and data from institutions like the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, it is nearing the end of its life span. Without serious intervention by federal and state governments, these systems may not hold up to extreme weather events as they grow in intensity and frequency due to climate change.

The research was led by Fanny Moffette, a postdoctoral researcher in applied economics in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Moffette collaborated with Jennifer Alix-Garcia at Oregon State University, Katherine Shea at the World Resources Institute, and Amy Pickens at the University of Maryland.

The news should be welcomed by the most hard-nosed of business people and economists as well. According to a recent news article published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the savings resulting from the reduction in carbon emissions range anywhere from $149 million to $696 million. These fiscal numbers are “based on the ability of lower emissions to reduce the detrimental economic consequences of climate change.”

A contactless thermometer is helping some UW-Madison students track COVID-19 symptoms, and the thermometer was designed and created on the university’s campus.

Enter Revive Therapeutics, a biotech company with its fingers in several pies: the emerging psychedelics industry, where it has a research partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison for formulation development and a clinical trial for substance use using psilocybin; the cannabis industry, where it has patented several unique cannabinoid delivery methods; and more recently, the market for coronavirus treatments, where it is one of fewer than 20 companies undertaking a phase 3 FDA trial—and the one with the lowest market cap.

The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease flagged the article, “Observations on Homosexuality Among University Students,” which was written by UW professor Benjamin Glover. The study based itself on psychotherapy work and Glover’s belief that he could “cure” homosexual attraction.

MIT professor and physician Jeffry Harris utilized public health data with anonymized smartphone tracking data to reach his conclusion. Harris collected the smartphone data from late August through early October and compared it to COVID-19 cases from the 19 census tracts on and around UW-Madison’s campus.

A recent complaint against the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center (WNPRC) over mistreatment of animal research subjects at UW-Madison is just one item in a decades-long list of grievances animal rights groups have brought against the laboratory.

Fit Families, now based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, started as an extension of Columna’s work in Guatemala for children with visual impairments, but now offers workshops for children with autism.

University researchers Thomas Friedrich and David O’Connor, and their labs, analyzed the spread of the coronavirus in a Nov. 3 study published in Nature Journal. The initial data indicated Dane and Milwaukee Counties had limited genetic mixing, with reduced rates of spread after Gov. Tony Evers’ Safer at Home executive order was implemented.

We now have the first data released from a third covid-19 vaccine, the one in trials here in Madison. The AstraZeneca vaccine seems to be the least effective of the three so far.