Science Market Update

For all the excitement there’s been over stem cells in biotechnology (including in our Science Market Update posts- for example  Mayo Clinic Spearheads Regenerative Medicine and California to Spend $32M on Stem Cell Research Biobank), one very exciting application for the technology that has been heretofore unannounced is stem cell transplants in the brain. Here to remedy this fact is the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where it was just recently discovered that stem cells can form nerve cells which can actually increase learning and memory capability.

When it comes to identifying the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, every minute counts. Often it’s not even possible to determine whether a person is afflicted with it until it’s too late: that is, once symptoms start to show. A promising study at the University of Wisconsin, Madison suggests that there exists a way to diagnose Alzheimer’s before the onset of symptoms, not after.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a richly-funded science research environment, which is especially evident given recent NSF and NIH research funding statistics. In total, the University of Wisconsin-Madison received $335.9 million in research funding from the NSF and NIH in 2012. The NSF awarded the university $106 million. Of that money, $13.8 million went to bio research projects alone. For our readers’ convenience, we have spotlighted the top five NSF-funded bio research projects broken down by funding program, project title and research funding below.

A little-known fact about the University of Wisconsin, Madison is their emphasis on fish research. In fact, according to an Isthmus article, the university uses and keeps over 400,000 fish: more than the rest of their three dozen species combined. The University of Wisconsin’s research on fish is extensive, and scales from regulating the waterways they travel through to the invasive dangers they face.

Wisconsin is universally known for its abundance of milk and cheese products, which establish its reputation as the “Dairy State.” Therefore, it stands to reason that the University of Wisconsin at Madison would have a fantastic Center for Dairy Research (CDR) at the forefront of cheese research. According to the CDR Homepage, this includes studying the functional and physical properties of cheese, create new flavors and varieties of cheeses, and investigate technologies for cheese production, safety, and quality.

Medical research building construction is underway at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with high hopes for top level research once the three stages of this project have all been completed. The goal for this project, which together will be called the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research (WIMR), "is to create a new kind of, almost revolutionary, model for how we do medical research," said Dr. Robert Golden, dean of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

Relations between the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the state's business sector have undergone a wholesale reversal from 30 years ago, when academic researchers were discouraged from starting up companies and the school's idea of a research park was a farm.  Today, Madison's University Research Park is a thriving business center, start-up incubator, and campus extension all in one.  And faculty are now actively encouraged to go into business, even given the resources to do so.  Intellectual licensing brings in a lot of money to the state, and companies bring jobs that pay well.