For most of its 81 years, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has enjoyed a reputation as a pioneering and savvy leader in the commercialization of university inventions, the force that helped bring to market vitamin-D-enriched foods with to fight rickets, the blood thinner Warfarin to prevent strokes, and key technologies used in PlayStation 2 video-game machines.
Here on the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin, the foundation commonly referred to as WARF is also widely heralded as an enduring and generous benefactor of the research enterprise. It has provided close to $1-billion for professorships, research grants, and new buildingsÃ? ââ?¬â? including, most recently, a matching gift that will help build the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. The project, announced this spring, will foster cutting-edge collaborations in biology, nanotechnology, and computer science.