The Waisman Center has a long history of excellent and remarkable leadership. Each director of the center has played a pivotal role in advancing Waisman’s research, service, training, and outreach efforts. This article highlights the Waisman Center’s directors, both past and present, that have allowed the center to proudly follow its mission of advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Albee Messing
We need to know STAT: Mechanisms behind GFAP accumulation in Alexander disease involve transcription factor STAT3.
The hallmarks of Alexander disease, aggregation of misfolded GFAP proteins and dysregulation of brain cells called astrocytes, may be stopped and reversed in rodent models with the inactivation of the transcription factor STAT3.
Alexander disease: A lifetime’s work in the hope of saving lives
Messing wanted to study if the overexpression of GFAP resulted in a certain reactive response in the brain.
Promising treatment for Alexander disease moves from rat model to human clinical trials
Alexander disease is a progressive and rare neurological disorder with no cure or standard course of treatment. But a new study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison involving a rat model of the disease offers a potential treatment for the typically fatal condition.
Waisman Center launches new fund to advance intellectual and developmental disabilities genomics research
The Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, launched a new fund to support interdisciplinary research in the area of intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) genomics.
Mutation in common protein triggers tangles, chaos inside brain cells
In a study published today, Waisman Center investigators Su-Chun Zhang, Albee Messing and colleagues point to new understandings of the broad range of effects that result from the GFAP mutation impacting astrocytes — important supporting …
Alexander Disease Family Conference
Save the Date! August 4th, 2018
Albee Messing, VMD, PhD – Slide of the Week
A single injection of antisense oligonucleotides into the lateral ventricle of adult mice leads to nearly complete elimination of GFAP throughout the CNS (GFAP quantitation by ELISA).
Progress made toward treatment for rare, fatal neurological disease
After more than a decade of work, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Waisman Center reported promising results in the lab and in animal models that could set the stage for developing a treatment for Alexander disease, a rare and usually fatal neurological disease with no known cure.
Madison County girl hopes to help unlock cure of rare disease
Waisman Center Director, Albee Messing, is collaborating with researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to better understand the progression of Alexander disease, a rare and fatal neurological disorder with no known cure. In …