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Category: UW-Madison Related

Insulete raises $300,000 of equity funding

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Insulete was founded and is headed by Hans Solinger, a well-known transplant surgeon and University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who has helped bring pharmaceutical drugs to market. Sollinger and Tausif Alam, Insulete’s chief financial officer, discovered and patented a DNA sequence that is glucose responsive and promotes the activation of the human insulin gene.

Walker to lead business development mission to Mexico in June

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Walker also is set to participate in the 2016 CIGAL Dairy Trade Show, which focuses on the dairy production sector and draws exhibitors from throughout Mexico and the United States, the governor’s office said. The Dairy Trade Show will be held in Guadalajara June 15-17, and Walker will be joined by a delegation that includes Wisconsin businesses, University of Wisconsin-Madison, UW-River Falls and DATCP.

Thousands more flee fast-spreading wildfire in Canada

Fast-moving wildfires spread farther across the Alberta oil sands region on Thursday, forcing the evacuation of three more communities south of Fort McMurray and the work camps north of the city. Thousands of people who fled the flames earlier in the week had to evacuate for the second time in three days. UW-Madison’s SSEC helped interpret satellite imagery of the fires.

Reporters have interesting perspective on Steven Avery trial

Madison Magazine

Noted: You may recall that the Wisconsin Innocence Project, based at the University Project, based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison law school, freed Avery from prison after 18 years based on new DNA evidence proving that another man had committed that sexual assault, which occurred in Manitowoc County in 1985.

State revokes tax credits after W.W. Grainger cuts, outsources jobs

Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (via Channel3000.com

Noted: The foundation managed and funded by Grainger also has been a generous donor to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The business school building was named for Grainger after he and the Grainger Foundation together gave $10 million for its construction. And last year, the foundation made a $47 million gift to the UW-Madison engineering program from which David W. Grainger graduated.

Madison man charged with trying to kill acquaintance through arson

WKOW TV

Noted: Riendeau previously worked at UW-Madison, but was fired, and is currently banned from campus.

Records in connection to the revocation of Riendeau’s probation from a past, criminal case, show he sent emails to a state worker evaluating his bid to try to regain his job, that included threats against the university. “I can assure the Commission that as soon as my unemployment runs out, I will be running amok on campus,” Riendeau wrote in July 2013.

Wisconsin researchers land NIH dementia grant

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin- Madison have received a four-year, $5.5 million grant to better understand how communication between parts of the brain changes as the result of normal aging or of dementia.

Lawsuit: UW adviser concealed link to drunken driver from victim’s daughter

Wisconsin State Journal

In April 2013, four days after her mother was struck and killed by a car driven by former Lutheran bishop Bruce Burnside, UW-Madison student Megan Mengelt received an email from a UW administrator she had never met, asking if she needed help. What College of Letters and Science assistant dean Tori Richardson didn’t tell Mengelt, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month, was that he had been at the other end of a text message conversation with Burnside as he was driving, shortly before Burnside struck and killed Mengelt’s mother, Maureen Mengelt, in Sun Prairie on April 7, 2013.

Madison Black Chamber of Commerce under new leadership

Madison365

Noted: Another part of what the Madison Black Chamber of Commerce does is develops collaborative relationships that result in reaching organizations with rich resources and like-minded goals. Since 2004, they have collaborated with more than 25 Wisconsin businesses and agencies such as CDBG with the city of Madison, BMO Harris Bank, WARF, Summit Credit Union, Madison College, UW Small Business Administration and Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative (WBIC).

More money needed to keep professors

Wisconsin State Journal

State Journal editorial from 1956: Recently the state Emergency Board granted $250,000 to the University of Wisconsin to be used for pay raises to professors who are being tempted by greener pastures elsewhere — pastures offering more of the long green, that is.This is a problem that a lot of schools at all levels are going through, as they fight to retain their best teachers. But it is not the whole problem by any means.

Shelley Peterman Schwarz: Making adaptations to help everyone stay fit

Wisconsin State Journal

Andy Rooney once said, “Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives.” I know of one such teacher. His name is Tim Gattenby, faculty associate in the kinesiology department at UW-Madison and the director and coordinator of adapted fitness and personal training. His program and the students he supervises have changed my life and the lives of many others in ways we never could have imagined.

Eden learns to fly with the UW Band

Channel3000.com

(Video) The highly anticipated UW Varsity Band spring concert kicks off Thursday. The show isn’t just known for its music but also UW Band Director Mike Leckrone’s unconventional flying entrance. News 3 This Morning reporter Eden Checkol got a lesson from the band director himself.

Wisconsin’s secret Legislature: Dane Circuit Court

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In the lead-up to the Wisconsin presidential primary last week, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton stopped by the University of Wisconsin-Madison to give what was billed as a “sober, serious” policy speech about the U.S. Supreme Court. It was a wise move for Clinton to wrap herself in the cloak of gravitas, given that she could not have matched opponent Bernie Sanders’ wild, crowded rallies in Madison.

#100Miles4Research: Madison woman embarks on the trek of a lifetime

WKOW TV

Almost 20 years in remission, a Madison woman is celebrating being cancer free and having her mobility back.

Courtni Kopietz is the communication specialist at the Morgridge Institute for Research at the University of Wisconsin’s Discovery Building. “Science can sometimes seem inaccessible or not approachable,” says Kopietz. “I wanted to help translate research for the public so they can see how this work is impacting their lives.”

Businesses with global impact unfortunately hidden

Madison Magazine

Noted: Under the leadership of its inspirational founder, retired UW–Madison ophthalmologist Dr. Suresh Chandra, Combat Blindness International and a team of dedicated volunteers and staff have restored sight for more than 260,000 people in India, Africa and South America since 1984. It does so by performing cataract surgeries for roughly $25 per patient.

Incentives offered to charge up sales of electric vehicles

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Other workplace charging challenge partners in Wisconsin include University of Wisconsin campuses in Madison, Whitewater and Oshkosh, ABB Inc. in Wauwatosa, Evolution Marketing in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin Public Service Corp. of Green Bay, Xcel Energy Inc. of Minnesota (the parent company of Northern States Power), GE Healthcare and Organic Valley Cooperative in Lafarge.

UW grad Anne Hubatch, now an Oregon winemaker, returns with pinot in tow

Capital Times

Hubatch is a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate and Sheboygan native, and when she moved, she knew very little about Oregon wine. “When I left, the chance of me finding a bottle of Oregon wine in Madison was not super great,” Hubatch said. “There was not a ton of Oregon wine making it to Wisconsin 15 years ago, and if it was, it wasn’t small boutique producers like myself.”

As Dane County Judge, Everett Mitchell pledges to work for the people

Capital Times

Supporters of newly elected Dane County Circuit Court Judge Everett Mitchell made a joyful noise Tuesday evening, joining with him as he called on them to renew their commitment to making Dane County a place where “everybody is somebody!” Mitchell, director of community relations for University of Wisconsin-Madison, pastor of Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Church, community activist and former assistant Dane County District Attorney, ran unopposed. He spoke to a crowd of some 80 supporters at the Goodman Community Center, recalling how in a recent interview he was asked how it was going to feel “working for the man,” sitting on the bench in Dane County Circuit Court and meting out justice. “I’m not going to be working for the man. I am going to be working for the people,” Mitchell told the crowd.