Year: 2015

Waisman Center partners on new multi-site NIH initiative to find Alzheimer’s biomarkers in Down syndrome

Brad Christian, PhD, Waisman investigator and associate professor of medical physics and psychiatry, is part of a new National Institutes of Health initiative to identify biomarkers and track the progression of Alzheimer’s in people with Down syndrome.

Holiday cards for autism

Giizhik Klawiter has autism and began drawing at six years old as a therapeutic outlet. For the last six years, Giizhik and his brother Mino have designed holiday greeting cards and sold them in their hometown of Hayward, Wisconsin with the help of their mother, Pam Miller.

Searching for associations: New Waisman investigator studies child behavior disorders and the genetics and environment behind them

James Li’s drive to research, understand and develop effective interventions for childhood behavioral disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), was sparked in the hallways of a juvenile justice center in Baltimore.

Ed Hubbard, PhD

Title: Perceptual Ratio Processing Predicts Fractions Skills Legend: (Lay): College students were asked to decide which of two ratios were larger (examples in a-d) that were presented for 1.5 seconds. We show that people who were better at this perceptual task also performed better on four tasks involving symbolic fractions: comparing symbolic fractions (e.g., saying …

Derek Hei, PhD

Title: iPSC derived Optic Vesicles (OVs)/Neural Retinal Progenitors (NRPs) – Production, Characterization and Cryopreservation Legend: 1) Representative pictures of selected OVs derived from iPSCs grown on E8/Matrigel. iPSCs, cultured on E8/Matrigel, mTeSR1/Matrigel, and E8/vitronectin, were differentiated into OVs (Optic vesicle-like structures) composed of NRPCs (neuroretinal progenitor cells). 2) Characterization of OVs (60 days in culture)- …

Divorce rate doesn’t go up as families of children with disabilities grow

Couples raising a child with developmental disabilities do not face a higher risk of divorce if they have larger families, according to a new study by researchers from the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Sigan Hartley, PhD

Title: Support Needs of Fathers and Mothers of Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder Legend: Left, top image: The most support needs most frequently rated as both important and unmet for both mothers and fathers.  Mothers’ non-overlapping top important, unmet support needs were child-focused (financial support for treatments, information about programs and services, and …

Help support autism, epilepsy research at weekend fundraiser

Anyone paying attention to these editorials knows we are passionate supporters of the Waisman Center, especially of the life-changing research into neurodegenerative diseases and causes of developmental disabilities done there.

Genetic counseling students learn to serve patients in ever-changing field

Many expected the Human Genome Project to cause a revolution far beyond the field of genetics — into economics and culture — and thought the 13-year, $3 billion international research endeavor would allow us to understand and control viruses, identify the root causes of cancers, advance forensics, create better crops and update anthropology tools to get a better view of our evolutionary path.

Samuel P Gubbels, MD

Title: Characterization of a unique cell population marked by transgene expression in the adult cochlea of nestin-CreER(T2)/tdTomato-reporter mice Legend: Left image: Cochlea from an adult nestin-CreERT2/tdTomato-reporter mouse 56 days post tamoxifen injection. Low power macroscopic imaging analysis showed a pattern of tdTomato expression on the neural aspect of Sox2-positive supporting cells. An apical-basal gradient was not …