University of Wisconsin–Madison

Cancer

A greyscale electron microscopy image of a plant cell is shown on the left, the false-color rendering of the features in the EM image is shown on the right — Give most kids a basic microscope and a leaf or a drop of pond water, and they are in awe of the, well, microscopic patterns and organisms they can now see. Give a cell biologist a transmission electron microscope (TEM), and they can understand how structures within cells are organized […]

Seeing things more clearly, thanks to campus-wide microscopy effort

February 20, 2019 by Sarah Perdue

Three T cells are shown surrounding and binding a cancer cell, which will activate the T cells and lead to cancer cell death. — Leukemia is one of the most common cancers of childhood. So, as childhood cancer awareness month comes to a close on this almost final day of September, we wanted to take a moment to help explain a groundbreaking new FDA treatment – CAR-T cells – that offers hope to children with a […]

Driving the CAR-T toward better cancer treatments

September 29, 2017 by Sarah Perdue

An abstract image shows a DNA double helix overlaying a human outline, with cartoon molecules depicting the different genetic and protein changes that may be causing disease — Precision medicine has become a fairly big buzzword in cancer treatment lately. The University of Wisconsin is planning the UW Center for Human Genomics and Precision Medicine, and the Wisconsin state government’s recently-passed budget includes funding for the UW Carbone Cancer Center’s statewide Precision Medicine Molecular Tumor Board. What is […]

What is precision medicine in cancer treatment?

September 25, 2017 by Sarah Perdue

A small 3D molecule, in blue, is fit into the desired site of a 3D model of a target protein. If the docking program can make this fit easily, this small molecule would receive a high docking score. — From anti-cancer to antibiotic, high throughput screening is a powerful method of drug discovery. Researchers identify a target protein and test tens if not hundreds of thousands of chemicals for their ability to inhibit its function in the lab setting. Then, they whittle the chemical pool to a handful of […]

The machines are learning to develop new targeted drug therapies

August 14, 2017 by Sarah Perdue

At the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters’ James Watrous Gallery, local artist Leslie Iwai’s exhibit, Daughter Cells, is on display now through January 22. Iwai’s work was largely inspired through a collaboration with UW Carbone Cancer Center professor Mark Burkard and his research on cell division. I sat down with Iwai and Burkard recently to […]

When science becomes art

November 30, 2016 by Sarah Perdue

From research to diagnosis to treatment, the ability to visualize cancer has played a big role in understanding and fighting the disease. To highlight this importance, and to show how advanced imaging has become, the National Cancer Institute recently held its “Cancer Close Up” contest. Two UW Carbone Cancer Center […]

Cancer gets a close-up

April 15, 2016 by Sarah Perdue

In any research field, shifting a paradigm is never easy. If you’re going to try, it never hurts to continuously improve your techniques and evolve your models. And, use lasers. Rich Halberg, associate professor of medicine at the UW Carbone Cancer Center, has spent over a decade challenging the tenet […]

Shining a (laser) light on the ancestry of cancers

March 22, 2016 by Sarah Perdue

closeup of human papilloma virus — There may not yet be a cure for cancer, but for some human cancers, one thing comes pretty close: the HPV vaccine. That’s why, last week, the 69 National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers, including UW-Madison’s Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC), issued a statement urging increased uptake of the three-dose vaccination. This […]

Preventing cancer in just three shots

February 5, 2016 by Kelly April Tyrrell

Mark Burkard and colleagues knew that when cells — from yeast to humans — have more DNA than normal, their biology changes. They also knew that cancer cells often have extra DNA. What they did not know was whether this feature, called polyploidy, could be exploited in cancer treatments. […]

Too much DNA: A new way to target cancer cells?

January 8, 2016 by Kelly April Tyrrell