The Latest

Researchers Identify New Target in the Gut for Reducing Alzheimer’s risk

Nearly 10 years ago, Federico Rey, a Wisconsin Institute for Discovery Fellow and UW–Madison professor, helped lead research showing that the communities of microbes living in the intestines of people with Alzheimer’s disease differ from those of healthy people. Now, new research builds on that work by examining imidazole propionate, a common compound produced by gut bacteria, and finding that higher levels may contribute to dementia-related changes in the brain.

  • Graphic showing red and blue virus evolution with DIPS.

Undergraduate Researcher Explores How Viruses and Their Parasites Evolve Together

Viruses evolve quickly, often finding ways to escape antiviral drugs. A new study led by WID undergraduate Shiv Muthupandiyan explores whether new antiviral therapies could evolve alongside them. The research focuses on defective interfering particles, or DIPs, mutant viral particles that act as parasites of viruses. DIPs cannot reproduce on their own, so they use a virus’s replication machinery and consume resources inside infected cells, slowing viral growth. By modeling how viruses and DIPs adapt to one another over time, the study offers a new way to think about antiviral therapies that may be better able to resist viral escape.

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Mel Hammond Uses Science to Shape Her Stories

WID’s new Writer in Residence, Mel Hammond, is passionate about capturing accurate scientific information and weaving it into YA books using language that feels credible and meaningful to young audiences. Her work shows how science can shape a story, deepen curiosity, and help young readers see the world in new ways.

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How Simple Bubbles May Hold Clues to Life’s Beginnings

One of humanity’s most enduring questions is also one of its biggest: how did life begin? Long before DNA, genes, or cells as we know them existed, how did life emerge from non-living chemical systems?  One possible explanation  lies in simple chemistry, which has the capacity to evolve and become more complex.  In a new study at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID), Tymofii Sokolskyi, a PhD candidate in Astrobiology & Evolution working in the David Baum Lab and the Department of Botany, takes a fresh look at that question.