Success Stories – WARF

Lynn Allen-Hoffmann

warf_admin — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 18:01:51 +0000

Lynn Allen-Hoffmann is a pathologist, CEO and trailblazer. She is the first female UW faculty member to start a biotech company, Stratatech Corporation. In 1996 she made a remarkable discovery – a line of extraordinarily long-lived skin cells called keratinocytes obtained from discarded foreskin tissue. Even more interestingly, she found that the cells could be engineered into living tissue almost...

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Melissa Skala

warf_admin — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 18:19:56 +0000

There was a time when biomedical engineer Melissa Skala dreamed of becoming an astronaut. But at a young age a fascination with physics, and then with light, emerged. It was Lake Mendota that first drew Skala – a skilled sailor – to Madison. Today, Prof. Skala leads the Optical Microscopy in Medicine Lab at the Morgridge Institute for Research. Her program is among the most diverse and dynamic on...

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Gerald Kulcinski

warf_admin — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 17:52:32 +0000

From the jungles of East Asia to poppy fields in Colombia, death sleeps a few inches beneath the ground. Across the globe an estimated 110 million land mines await reckoning. A fraction will be detected and dispatched by professionals; many others will be triggered by unsuspecting civilians. Over the last 20 years, these weapons have claimed more than 112,000 casualties, roughly half of them...

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David Lynn

warf_admin — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 17:54:03 +0000

With support from WARF Accelerator, a super-slippery coating being developed at a University of Wisconsin-Madison lab could benefit medical catheters, factory equipment and even some day, oil tankers. The coating contains a lubricating oil that resists the attachment of bacteria. A first commercial target is catheters, which are used to deliver or remove fluids in medicine.

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Guelay Bilen-Rosas & Humberto Rosas

warf_admin — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 18:51:58 +0000

It is a few days before Christmas Eve. That Dr. Guelay Bilen-Rosas has found time to be interviewed is a small miracle in itself. A pediatric anesthesiologist at UW Health, she is preparing for an upcoming 20-hour operation. Her patients, she admits, are never far from her mind. Still, Dr. Bilen-Rosas is gracious and eager to talk about a remarkable technology that has been her waking dream for...

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Kevin Barnett, Kefeng Huang & George Huber

warf_admin — Sat, 01 Sep 2018 17:49:30 +0000

“When I describe what I do, I say I put dirt in a reactor, heat it up and flow liquid over it,” jokes Kevin Barnett. It is a profound understatement for Barnett, a postdoctoral researcher in the visionary lab of Prof. George Huber (chemical and biological engineering). Huber’s biofuel research group is pioneering the tools of a trade. Reactors, catalysts, computer models and imaging systems – a...

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Katie Gold, Amanda Gevens & Phil Townsend

warf_admin — Tue, 01 May 2018 17:50:08 +0000

In infamy, few crop diseases rival late blight. It starved one million people and displaced a million more when it ravaged Ireland’s potato fields in the 1840s. More recently, it struck Bangladesh. “Late blight continues to be a significant problem in potato and tomato production globally,” says Amanda Gevens, associate professor and extension plant pathologist. “Wisconsin ranks third in the...

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Jing Li

warf_admin — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 18:46:02 +0000

Armed with the Cloud and a mission to push the limits of deep learning, Jing Li and her team of student “hackers” have bested industry titans and set a performance record. The robot in Jing Li’s laboratory does not look like one, she admits. “My student wanted to design something to replace himself.” She gestures to an unimposing circuit board on the bench top. “This does his work collecting data...

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Kyoung-Shin Choi

warf_admin — Fri, 01 Sep 2017 17:48:25 +0000

The data is startling: approximately 2/3 of the world must survive without ready access to fresh water at some point this year. In her office on the UW-Madison campus – a mere stone’s throw from Lake Mendota – the global water crisis may seem far away. But Kyoung-Shin Choi pulls up a world map on her computer indicating the regions that lack access. From Sydney to Sedona it’s splotched with...

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Dan Ludois

warf_admin — Mon, 01 May 2017 17:59:37 +0000

Entrepreneur and self-described “tinkerer” Dan Ludois is building the nuts and bolts of a revolution. For being audaciously young, Dan Ludois has an appreciation for history. In his office in Engineering Hall, a poster of Nikola Tesla broods beside a Ghostbusters-inspired proton pack. Antique batteries share shelf space with handmade prototypes of his inventions. Part of a motor he patented as a...

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