Doctoral Studies Funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Four Biotechnology Training Program (BTP) trainees have received Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Edna Chiang from the Microbiology Doctoral Training Program under advisor Garret Suen Benjamin Gastfriend from Chemical and Biological Engineering under advisors Eric Shusta and Sean Palecek Katherine Mueller from Cellular and Molecular Biology under advisor Krishanu Saha Delia Scoville …
Several University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty members who serve as trainers for the Biotechnology Training Program (BTP) have earned prestigious university awards. Bacteriology professor Richard Gourse received the Hilldale Award in Biological Sciences, one of just four Hilldale Awards given out each year. With more than 140 scientific publications to his name, Gourse is a distinguished …
The University of Wisconsin–Madison and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) have a strong presence in biotechnology, entrepreneurship, and technology transfer. One essential element of these areas is the patent process. The Biotechnology Training Program’s (BTP) focus on these areas and the importance of patents inspired BTP alumnus Daniel Agnew to pursue a career as a …
Since the 1970s, millions of women have appreciated the ease of a urine-based home pregnancy test to find out if their family is about to grow. A diagnostic test that’s just as accurate and easy to use would make a big impact in the war on tuberculosis. With more than 10 million affected people worldwide, …
The diminutive size of our aortic valve — just shy of a quarter — belies its essential role in pushing oxygen-rich blood from the heart into the aorta, our body’s largest vessel, and from there to all other organs. Yet for decades, researchers have focused less on damaged valves than on atherosclerosis, the gradual hardening …
For the past five years, CRISPR-Cas9 technology has revolutionized the field of gene editing due to its ease and low cost. But although this technology reliably finds and cuts the targeted stretch of DNA sequence, fixing that cut as desired has been something of a hit-or-miss process. Error rates as high as 50 percent are a particular …
The Biotechnology Training Program congratulates several dedicated women BTP trainers on their recent academic promotions. Sushmita Roy has been promoted to an associate professor with tenure. She is a faculty member in the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. She utilizes computational methods to map cellular networks. Her interests …
The blood-brain barrier is the brain’s gatekeeper. A nearly impenetrable shield of cells, it keeps toxins and other agents that may be in circulating blood from gaining access to and harming the brain. A critical anatomical structure, the barrier is the brain’s first and most comprehensive line of defense. But in addition to protecting the …
Jackie Mejia, a current trainee in the Biotechnology Training Program (BTP) and Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has helped co-found Pathogenomica, a startup that uses next generation DNA sequencing to detect pathogens in waste water and drinking water. Mejia and three of her colleagues started the company in March and have received a grant …
The National Science Foundation has awarded nearly $20 million to a consortium of universities, including the University of Wisconsin–Madison, to support a new engineering research center that will develop transformative tools and technologies for the consistent, scalable and low-cost production of high-quality living therapeutic cells. Such cells could be used in a broad range of …