UW Researchers Partner with US Department of Defense to Develop Stem Cell Therapy for Combat-Related Eye Injuries

Using an ingenious microscopic retinal patch, eye researchers at UW‒Madison will develop and test a new way to treat United States military personnel blinded in combat. WID’s Sarah Gong is a collaborator on the project.

Randolph Ashton and Collaborators Win WARF Innovation Award

WID’s Randolph Ashton, Gavin Knight, Benjamin Knudsen, and Nisha Iyer take top honors from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s Innovation Awards. Their work, Superior Neural Tissue Models for Disease Modeling, Drug Development and More, was selected from more than 400 innovation disclosures.

New Effective and Safe Antifungal Isolated from Sea Squirt Microbiome

By combing the ocean for antimicrobials, scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have discovered a new antifungal compound that efficiently targets multi-drug-resistant strains of deadly fungi without toxic side effects in mice. WID postdoc Marc Chevrette is part of the team that published the finding in Science.

Tiny Capsules Packed with Gene-Editing Tools Offer Alternative to Viral Delivery of Gene Therapy

An interdisciplinary pair of WID researchers has developed a new nanocapsule delivery method for delivering the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool. The new system could be used for many types of gene therapies.

Uncovering a Connection Between Regulators and Genes During Early Neurodevelopment

WID researchers used a collaborative combination of computational and wet lab experimental techniques to find a connection between a transcription factor and a neurodevelopment gene.

WID Hubs Launch at Illuminating Connections Event

WID’s new hubs—Data Science, Multi-Omics, and Illuminating Discovery—represent a new path forward for collaborative research projects and fields.

New Technology for Controlling Neural Tissue Manufacturing

A paper published in eLife this week by an interdisciplinary team at WID describes new methods for reproducibly manufacturing brain and spinal cord organoids with strict control over morphogenic and developmental processes.

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.

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.