From WPR: Wisconsin Educators Look To Cultivate A New Generation Of Scientists And Antibiotics
The project Includes Hands-On Lab Work Testing Soil
Stories
Wisconsin Instructors Engaging Students in the Fight Against Antibiotic Resistance
Instructors from schools across the state are getting their hands dirty in the search for antibiotics by joining a new program.
New Hope for Stopping an Understudied Heart Disease in its Tracks
Biomedical engineering professor and Discovery Fellow Kristyn Masters and colleagues identified the early stages of a process that may eventually cause aortic stenosis, a severe narrowing of the aortic valve that reduces blood flow to the body and weakens the heart.
Wisconsin Teachers Converge on Madison in Search of Antibiotics
Instructors from eight UW System schools and more than a dozen other colleges and universities are taking a week out of their January break to meet in Madison in search of a crucial discovery — antibiotics.
Building Better Tools for the Big Data Boom
WID researchers are engaging in fundamental mathematical and statistical research to support the development, testing, and fine-tuning of tools for the future, finding new ways to make sense of the mountains of data that are available in the 21st century and bringing into view important applications on the horizon.
All-in-One Repair Kit Makes CRISPR Gene Editing More Precise
Error rates as high as 50 percent are a problem when the goal is to correct typos in the DNA that cause genetic disease. Now, a team of researchers led by WID’s Kris Saha has made the fix less mistake-prone.
Tools for Discovery: Sam Rikkers
Sam Rikkers was born and raised in south central Wisconsin but has managed to make his mark in far-flung places. A graduate of Columbia University with a Master of International Affairs, he has served the Peace Corps in Zambia, earned a Law Degree from the University of Wisconsin and served …
Mastodons, Brains, and a View of Mars: How the Wisconsin Science Festival Helps Bring Kids and Science Together
The Wisconsin Science Festival was a roaring success, with every corner of the Discovery Building containing something for people to see, hear, touch or manipulate.
Scientists Struggle with Sexism and Racism: ‘We Think These Bias Studies Don’t Apply to Us’
The Washington Post writes about the harsh realities faced by women and minorities in science presented by WID Director Jo Handelsman at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Washington, D.C.
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.
Catalysts for Science Policy Group Finds New Home at WID, Focuses on Forensic Science Policy
CaSP is joining with the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery to amplify its voice on science policy issues. On October 4 in the Discovery Building, they host a panel on improving forensic science policy.
Why Blue is the World’s Favorite Color
Karen Schloss talks about the psychology behind color preferences in an interview for Artsy.
UW-Madison to be Partner in Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies
The National Science Foundation has awarded nearly $20 million to a consortium of universities to support a new engineering research center that will develop transformative tools and technologies for the consistent, scalable, and low-cost production of high-quality living therapeutic cells. Several WID investigators are collaborators on the project.
WID Launches a New Web Experience
The work being done at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery does not end in the lab or with research publications, and it goes beyond the science and engineering that happens in the Discovery Building every day. WID is more than a collection of researchers — it is a collaborative community …
App Helps Farmers Make the Most of their Corn Harvest
A new tool developed at UW-Madison could save farmers time and money during the fall feed-corn harvest and make for more content, productive cows year-round.
Interdisciplinary Faculty Build Data Science Future in New Institute Based at WID
The new institute, housed at UW–Madison’s Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID), will play a key role in the future of data science, developing fundamental techniques for handling increasingly massive data sets in shorter times.
Photoreceptor Scaffold for In Vitro Modeling and Transplantation Therapy
Zhenqiang Ma, Yei Hwan Jung, Michael Phillips, David Gamm, and Shaoqin (Sarah) Gong have developed microstructured scaffold systems that can guide the growth of photoreceptor cells and mimic polarized outer retinal tissue.
Q & A: New WID Director Jo Handelsman on Returning to UW, Leading Institute
Handelsman talks about the global challenges the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery is addressing, where the interdisciplinary research institute has been in its first seven years, and what its future looks like.
The “Icing” on the DNA
Xuehua Zhong recently received an outstanding investigator award from NIH via the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) mechanism to support her research. She talked about how she uses plants to study epigenetics in an interview with Grow magazine.
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.
Jo Handelsman Named Vilas Research Professor
Handelsman is one of 34 faculty honored with Vilas professorships supported by the estate of professor, Senator, and Regent William F. Vilas.
Machine Learning Can Detect a Genetic Disorder from Speech Recordings
Machine learning is a form of artificial intelligence by which algorithms are “trained” to analyze new information using existing data. Researchers are using it to identify individuals with a genetic condition known as fragile X premutation.
Inference and Evolutionary Analysis of Genome-Scale Regulatory Networks in Large Phylogenies
In a paper in Cell Systems, Sushmita Roy and colleagues develop a probabilistic graphical model-based method, multi-species regulatory network learning that uses a phylogenetic framework to infer regulatory networks in multiple species simultaneously.