Randolph Ashton Continues Research into Causes of Lou Gehrig’s Disease

In August 2017, Randolph Ashton received almost $800,000 from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of NIH, to continue a five-year research study of Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS), after successfully completing its first phase.

Communication and Policy the Focus of Two Science Festival Events

WID Director Jo Handelsman and the Catalysts for Science Policy were instrumental in assembling fantastic panels for mini-symposia about science policy and science communication geared toward graduate students, postdocs, and faculty but open to anyone interested in science.

Weaning Crops from Nitrogen Fertilizers: Examining Evolution’s Innovations

WID researcher Sushmita Roy and collaborators at UW­–Madison and the University of Florida will use a $7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study how some plants partner with bacteria to create usable nitrogen and to transfer this ability to the bioenergy crop poplar.

Connecting the Dots: a New Method to Understand Cell Type Transitions

Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID) researchers Rupa Sridharan and Sushmita Roy are combining their expertise in regenerative biology and computational biology to better understand how cells transition from one type to another through gene regulation.