The University of Wisconsin-Madison effort to launch a shared cryo-electron microscopy facility for the bioscience community is gathering momentum, with two new faculty hires and key technology investments this summer.
Tim Grant, a research specialist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Janelia Farm Research Campus, is the latest addition to the core team. Grant will be a virology investigator for the Morgridge Institute for Research and an assistant professor of biochemistry at UW-Madison when he comes to Madison in early 2020.
Peter Favreau joined the Department of Biochemistry in July as the new manager of the Biochemistry Optical Core (BOC). The research core is housed in Biochemistry but serves as a resource for all campus researchers using or interested in using microscopy in their research.
Favreau joins the BOC from the Morgridge Institute for Research, where he was a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of biomedical engineering professor Melissa Skala. The project he worked on investigated cancer drug screening. In the Skala Lab he utilized multiple microscopy techniques to help physicians find the...
When Robert Kirchdoerfer was offered a faculty position in the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Biochemistry, it was a bit of a homecoming. The 2006 undergraduate alumnus and Oregon, Wisc. native will be arriving back on campus in mid-August — this time as an assistant professor in Biochemistry and the Institute for Molecular Virology.
Following his Bachelor of Science with majors in biochemistry and genetics, Kirchdoerfer earned his Ph.D. in biophysics at Scripps Research Institute in Southern California and continued there as a postdoctoral scholar before coming back...
Dan Blasiole’s career is a synthesis of his two intellectual passions: the sciences and the humanities. After honing his science knowledge with a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the lab of professor Alan Attie, he found the perfect combination of these two interests as a patent agent.
Originally from Pennsylvania, he attended Franklin and Marshall College intending to get a degree in a science field. Instead, he left with a degree in philosophy and headed to the University of California, San Diego for a master’s degree in the philosophy of science. After spending several years...
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have identified blood-based fingerprints – human protein markers – associated with the pre-cancerous forms of colon cancer that are most likely to develop into disease. They say their findings are a promising start to what could ultimately lead to a new blood test for the cancer.
With a new method to synthesize a popular pain-relieving medication from plants rather than fossil fuels, researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center have found a way to relieve two headaches at once.
A team led by John Ralph, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has been awarded a patent for a method to synthesize acetaminophen — the active ingredient in Tylenol — from a natural compound derived from plant material. The approach offers a renewable alternative to the current manufacturing process, which uses chemicals derived from coal tar...
This fall, the Morgridge Institute for Research will convene international leaders in metabolic research at the third Frontiers in Metabolism—Mechanisms of Metabolic Diseases meeting. Biochemistry professor Dave Pagliarini, director of the Metabolism Theme at the Morgridge Institute, is the meeting's organizer.
Disrupted metabolic processes underlie a broad swath of rare inborn errors of metabolism and prominent human diseases. Frontiers in Metabolism brings together a diverse group of renowned scientists working to improve human health by investigating the basic underpinnings of...
Venturelli Receives Gates Grand Challenges Grant for Exploratory Work on Microbiome and Malnutrition
With a Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists Ophelia Venturelli and Brian Pfleger are working to further research on how to use human-associated intestinal microbes to combat malnutrition in developing countries.
The Integrated Program in Biochemistry (IPiB) is pleased to continue its commitment to teaching and mentorship by announcing the 2019 graduate student awards that celebrate these important aspects of the program. The awards were given out at the IPiB Summer Reception on Friday, June 7.
Evan Glasgow, from the lab of Professor Brian Fox, and Nathan Thomas, from the lab of Professor Katherine Henzler-Wildman, received the 2019 Denton Award for Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring. Andrew Voter, from the lab of Professor James Keck, received the 2019 Sigrid Leirmo...
Biochemistry major Claire Evensen was one of just three University of Wisconsin–Madison undergraduates to receive a prestigious 2019 Barry Goldwater Scholarship for undergraduate excellence in the sciences.
She is among 496 Goldwater Scholars named this year out of 1,223 college sophomores and juniors nominated from across the country. Evensen is from Verona, Wisc. and also majoring in applied mathematics. In the Department of Biochemistry, she works in the laboratory of Professor Thomas Record.
The Goldwater Scholarship covers one year of tuition, fees, books, and room and...
Biochemistry professor and Morgridge Institute for Research investigator David Pagliarini received a 2019 H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship. Eleven total University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty received the fellowship, which recognizes faculty up to six years past their first promotion to a tenured position.
The award is named in recognition of the late Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) trustee president H.I. Romnes, and comes with $60,000 that may be spent over five years. Support for the award is provided by the UW–Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and...
What started as a side project in a laboratory in the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Biochemistry is now a successful Wisconsin startup that’s closer than ever to giving women a way to easily track their hormone levels and help overcome difficulties conceiving a child.
Propelled by an abundance of resources on campus and in the city of Madison, Katie Brenner — a former UW–Madison postdoctoral researcher in biochemistry — and her co-founders at their company BluDiagnostics are seeing their idea become a reality.
"We believe that when women’s health care wins,...
Thirty-one University of Wisconsin–Madison biochemistry majors earned 2019 undergraduate campus awards for research and scholarly excellence. These students made up close to 20% of the overall winners across the different awards.
“Our biochemistry undergraduates are extremely talented and highly dedicated, and they also take great pride and ownership of their research projects,” says Professor Sebastian Bednarek, the chair of the Department of Biochemistry Undergraduate Committee. “Credit also goes to the biochemistry faculty, postdocs, and graduate student undergraduate research...
Biochemistry professor Judith Kimble has been honored with a Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Named Professorship, as one of 10 distinguished campus researchers receiving them this year.
Support for the award is provided by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education (VCRGE) with funding from WARF. The awards, which come with $100,000, honor faculty who have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge, primarily through their research endeavors, but also as a result of their teaching and service...
Biochemistry professor Marvin Wickens is the recipient of the 2019 College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) Award for Excellence in International Activities. Wickens founded and runs two research abroad programs for undergraduate biochemistry majors and other biological sciences students at UW–Madison. Now a decade old, his programs have sent nearly 100 students abroad to perform research at outstanding institutions across England and Germany, including Cambridge, Oxford, The Crick Institute in London, and the EMBL-Heidelberg.
“I had my own experiences abroad as a young...
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