Advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Individuals with Down syndrome have differences in how their brains form that cause intellectual disability. Down syndrome or trisomy 21 is the most common genetic cause of intellectual and developmental disability and is caused by the triplication of chromosome 21.
A newly funded project will combine the expertise of four Waisman Center investigators to develop advanced machine learning methods for studying brain organoids, three-dimensional cell clusters grown from stem cells that closely mimic key aspects of human brain development.
Spatial sequencing technologies enable the single-cell-level study of molecular organization in tissues.
Giang Pham, a rising senior from Lawrence University in Appleton, is spending her second summer doing research at the Waisman Center University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of an internship program established and supported by the late John Mielke, MD, a former member of the Waisman Board of Visitors and Appleton native, and his wife Sally. …
Puerto Rican families have started traveling to Wisconsin to be part of the research study, but the goal is to build the infrastructure to eventually conduct the studies on the island.
At a Glance A newly discovered protein marker on the surface of a retinal cell could help pave the way for cell therapies that restore vision in people with currently incurable forms of blindness. Research in the lab of Waisman investigator David Gamm, MD, PhD, professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of …
On August 11, the Friends of the Waisman Center celebrated a remarkable group of students, staff, and volunteers whose dedication, achievements, and service have strengthened the Waisman community. During the annual awards reception, Friends Board President Jim Dama presented awards recognizing outstanding contributions, while Waisman Center Director Qiang Chang presented the two recipients of Wisconsin …
A University of Wisconsin–Madison interdisciplinary team led by Waisman Center investigator Xinyu Zhao, PhD, has received funding through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)-supported Igniting Interdisciplinary Innovation (I³) initiative to develop new methods for manufacturing and analyzing human neural organoids, miniature three-dimensional models of the human brain grown from stem cells. This multidisciplinary collaborative project, “Scalable Manufacturing and …
Cerebellar damage may impair someone’s ability to adapt both the timing of speech and vocal pitch, new Waisman Center studies suggest, shedding light on the involvement of the cerebellum in speech motor control.
Waisman Center investigators Seth Pollak and Kristin Shutts are among the forty-two UW–Madison faculty to be awarded fellowships from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR) for 2026-2027. Click here for the full story.
