Precision medicine is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person. This approach will allow doctors and researchers to predict more accurately which treatment and prevention strategies for a particular disease will work in which groups of people. It is in contrast to a “one-size-fits-all” approach, in which disease treatment and prevention strategies are developed for the average person, with less consideration of the differences between individuals.
Researchers at WID with expertise in complex biological systems, epigenetics, data science, health care, gene editing, and tissue engineering will contribute to “healthy people” initiatives through precison medicine.
Precision medicine is an important component of WID’s Multi-Omics Hub.
WID’s Sarah Gong is part of a team that developed a micro-molded scaffolding photoreceptor “patch” to be implanted under damaged or diseased retinas, the next step in restoring sight.
Shaoqin “Sarah” Gong collaborates on a new approach to target genetic mutations and develop a new therapy for restoring vision in children and adults.
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.
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.
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.
Development of computational methods for inference and analysis of biological networks
Novel CAR T Cell therapy development in translational and bench top settings
Creating and utilizing neural tissue engineering platforms for the study of clinical disease.
WID’s Kris Saha was among UW–Madison researchers who have published a proof-of-concept method to correct an inherited form of macular degeneration that causes blindness, and that is currently untreatable.
A team of UW-Madison researchers led by Discovery Fellow Wendy Crone has created a powerful tool to help assess what experimental factors help to produce stem cell-generated cardiomyocytes that behave like adult heart cells.
WID’s Kris Saha spoke to Wisconsin Public Radio to answer questions about gene editing technology CRISPR in response to a question received by WHYsconsin.
The the MS Biotechnology program at UW and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery are partnering to screen the documentary film “Human Nature”, an exploration of gene editing and its implications both biological and ethical.
WID researchers have developed a computational tool that can accurately predict the three-dimensional interactions between regions of human chromosomes.
Xuehua Zhong’s close study of an ordinary plant’s cellular mechanisms could lead to big advances in agriculture and medicine. Zhong is featured in Grow magazine.
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.
WID graduate student Arezoo Movaghar was a collaborator in a study that employed machine learning to mine decades of electronic health records of nearly 20,000 individuals.
Assistant Professor
My research involves the development of statistical models to answer biological questions.
Researchers at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery are co-Principal Investigators and co-Investigators on four UW2020: WARF Discovery Initiative projects.
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.
Associate Professor
Neurodevelopmental mechanisms of stress and mental illness in youth
CRISPR-Cas9 Strategy to Generate DOT1L-Deficient Embryonic Stem Cells to Study Pluripotency
