The tools of modern biology have made it possible to obtain an incredibly detailed picture of how cancer cells differ from healthy cells at the molecular level. Somewhat paradoxically, despite these meticulous portraits of cancer, it remains remarkably difficult to answer the very fundamental question: What caused cancer in this patient?
Category: Virology
Ellen Arena: A career that traverses different fields, different countries
Ellen Arena’s young career has already taken her from an undergraduate degree at UW-Parkside in Racine to advanced degrees in British Columbia and Paris. Her research also has traversed from molecular biology to bacterial pathogens to microscopy and computation.
Omid Forouzan: Microfluidics allows for close study of virus-host interactions
Omid Forouzan, as part of the new Morgridge Fellowship program, wants to harness engineering and biomedical fields to develop a microfluidic multi-cell culture model. This microscale research tool will allow for study of cell-cell interactions in the development of HPV-associated cervical cancer.
Targeting HIV with live cell imaging
Using an imaging technique that illuminates viral behavior within live cells, a team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research are identifying new targets to derail the disease-spreading machinery of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Anthony Gitter: Taking the statistical road less traveled
Much of biostatistics involves finding and mapping the predictable pathways that can tell us something about what makes a disease tick. But Anthony Gitter finds equal importance in the statistical back roads that other scientists might ignore.