It's a new twist on an age-old question: What came first, the chicken or the fertilized egg? So far as flu vaccine production is concerned, the answer is definitely the egg. Millions of contaminant-free, fertilized eggs are needed each year to produce vaccines against predicted strains...
The mission of the Obama government to tackle the U.S. health care system is no easy project. There are so many components that need fixing. Do you fix the increasingly high cost of health care, expand the coverage to a universal system or try to...
Randall Lambrecht, Vice President for Research at Aurora Health Care, clarifies Aurora's mission behind the biorepository project - most importantly the privacy concerns that some have expressed concerning the use or selling of their DNA and medical records to the for-profit genetic research industry and...
Two national publications have recently recognized Madison as an emerging biotechnology cluster. Biotech is so successful at attracting brainpower, related industries, and money to regions that today almost everybody is trying to get into the act. Obviously, some regions will fare better than...
Prodesse, Inc. announced today that several clinical laboratories using the ProFlu+ Assay have received Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmation of positive swine flu from specimens initially identified as Influenza A by ProFlu+. The positive results, spread throughout the US, were not...
The simplest way to tell the story of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater graduate Ben Hobbins' achievement is just to say that Popular Science Magazine has ranked his plastic fishing lure one of the magazine's “Top Ten Inventions of the Year.” That would be the simplest way, but...
“SWINE flu” last week was the most searched term on Yahoo, displacing “American Idol.” Google Flu Trends shows the activity in Texas as low because it is looking more broadly at influenza than the relatively rare cases of swine flu that have received media attention. In...
Madison start-up Stemina Biomarker Discovery Inc. has launched its first commercial product, which uses human embryonic stem cells to screen drugs for their likelihood to cause birth defects. The launch comes shortly after President Barack Obama lifted restrictions on stem cell research, opening up opportunities...
A Milwaukee-based health care organization has launched a technology-driven biobank at one of its hospitals that aims to link science, technology and patient care. Aurora Health Care’s Open-Source Robotic Biorepository and Informatics Technology (or ORBIT) databank could help determine whether patients may benefit from a...
If a pandemic hit Madison, canceling a football game at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Camp Randall would protect thousands from exposure to illness. However, the economic cost would be substantial for stadium workers and employees at nearby restaurants and businesses if widespread, prolonged illness forced...