If you hadn’t heard of ALS before this summer, you’re not alone. If you haven’t heard of it by now, you must be living under a rock. Not only did the ubiquitous ALS Ice Bucket Challenge raise about $100 million from late July to late August, it boosted awareness of ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Stem Cells
Study helps unravel the tangled origin of ALS
By studying nerve cells that originated in patients with a severe neurological disease, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher has pinpointed an error in protein formation that could be the root of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Busta benefit has record-setting year, generates $55,000
The 11th annual David Busta Basketball Tournament and Silent Auction once again proved successful as the benefit attracted many families, friends and community members to the Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High School Saturday, Nov. 30. After raising $26,000 …
Su-Chun Zhang has a unique view of Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research
From his sixth-floor laboratory in the University of Wisconsin Waisman Center, Su-Chun Zhang, MD, PhD, has a unique vantage point on the second tower of the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research (WIMR II), which is nearing completion.
Biomanufacturing center takes central role in developing stem-cell therapies
David Tenenbaum – University Communications Developing a new drug takes enormous amounts of time, money and skill, but the bar is even higher for a promising stem-cell therapy. Many types of cells derived from these …
Waisman Center featured on “For the Record”
Neil Heinen, WISC-TV editorial director, recently sat down with Marsha R. Mailick, PhD, Waisman Center Director, along with Anita Bhattacharyya, PhD, Senior Scientist and Maria Stanley, MD, Waisman Center Clinics Medical Director, to discuss the …
Waisman scientists model human disease in stem cells
Many scientists use animals to model human diseases. Mice can be obese or display symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Rats get Alzheimer’s and diabetes. But animal models are seldom perfect, and so scientists are looking at a relatively new type of stem cell, called the induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS cell), that can be grown into specialized cells that become useful models for human disease.
A Promising Sight
But the specks in the Petri dishes were the result of years of research in the laboratory of David Gamm, an ophthalmologist at the UW’s Waisman Center. And as members of the Reese family carefully cradled the dishes, they held the future of their descendants’ eyesight in their hands.
Down syndrome neurons grown from stem cells show signature problems
Down syndrome, the most common genetic form of intellectual disability, results from an extra copy of one chromosome. Although people with Down syndrome experience intellectual difficulties and other problems, scientists have had trouble identifying why that extra chromosome causes such widespread effects.
Adult cells transformed into early-stage nerve cells, bypassing the pluripotent stem cell stage
A University of Wisconsin-Madison research group has converted skin cells from people and monkeys into a cell that can form a wide variety of nervous-system cells — without passing through the do-it-all stage called the induced pluripotent stem cell, or iPSC.