A team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is part of a new multi-institution effort to better understand Alzheimer’s disease in adults with Down syndrome. Adults with Down syndrome are at high risk for …
Research
New Innovator Award winner looking for unprecedented view of the brain
Congratulations to Aviad Hai, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and a Waisman affiliate, on being selected as a 2020 National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award.
The sound beneath the waves
If you’ve ever seen a graphical representation of a sound, you are probably familiar with what it looks like: hundreds of steep, tightly packed peaks and valleys, all of different heights, moving above and below a common line of symmetry that cuts horizontally through the middle. “When a sound travels through the air, it basically sets the molecules around us in motion, using sound pressure to create sort of a wave,” says Waisman researcher Michaela Warnecke, PhD.
Stem cells can repair Parkinson’s-damaged circuits in mouse brains
The mature brain is infamously bad at repairing itself following damage like that caused by trauma or strokes, or from degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s. Stem cells, which are endlessly adaptable, have offered the promise of better neural repair. But the brain’s precisely tuned complexity has stymied the development of clinical treatments.
New initiative to study Parkinson disease
Su-Chun Zhang, MD, PhD, the Steenbock Professor in Behavioral and Neural Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Waisman Center investigator, is part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers selected by the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative to receive $9 million over three years for the “Parkinson5D: Deconstructing Proximal Disease Mechanisms Across Cells, Space and Progression” or PD5D project.
Waisman Biomanufacturing partners with GigaGen to manufacture new COVID-19 drug
Waisman Biomanufacturing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison will begin manufacturing a new drug to treat and prevent COVID-19, developed by California-based biotech company GigaGen. The drug, called GIGA-2050, uses a new approach similar to treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma, or blood products from people recovering (convalescing) from an infection. Waisman Biomanufacturing was created to facilitate just this sort of development and testing of new types of drugs.
Inside Waisman: Meet Lindsay McCary
As a third year graduate student in school psychology at the University of South Carolina, Lindsay McCary, PhD, was looking for a new advisor to help her with her dissertation. At the time, Jane Roberts, PhD, had just joined the Department of Psychology and had some data available on younger children with the genetic disorder fragile X syndrome (FXS). McCary was immediately fascinated by the new professor’s research because it integrated both behavioral and physiological data to examine an individual’s observable characteristics.
UW researchers devise approach to treat rare, incurable form of blindness
Waisman Center investigator David Gamm, MD, PhD, and Waisman affiliate Kris Saha, PhD, have published a proof-of-concept method to correct Best disease – an inherited form of macular degeneration that causes blindness, and that is …
Research Core Revitalization Program funds upgrades to shared resources on campus
Projects from three research cores at the Waisman Center are among 17 UW core projects to receive grants from the Research Core Revitalization Program—an initiative with support from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for …
For Caregivers Of Children With Autism, COVID-19 Conditions Can Present Extra Challenges
It’s hard to think of an aspect of life that hasn’t changed since the novel coronavirus began spreading across the globe. Many aspects of life — from work, to school, to travel, shopping and socializing — are dramatically different than they were just a few months ago.