Wisconsin Science and Technology Symposium, July 22-23, 2010

On July 22-23, the 3rd Annual Wisconsin Science and Technology Symposium (WSTS 2010) was held at the UW-Green Bay. This annual gathering brings together scientists, industrial partners and politicians from across the state to share research from the comprehensive campuses and technology industries of the region. Again this year, two major laboratories from the Biology Department participated in this premier statewide meeting. Both the UWRF Tissue and Cellular Innovation Center and the UWRF Zebra Fish Laboratory presented a combined total of 8 posters and two oral presentations. This total, which amounted to approximately 31% of the posters at the meeting exceeded any other campus represented and was very well received with a great deal of interest being shown by other participants toward the biological research done here at UWRF. Drs. Lyden and Huang, the respective directors of the labs, were again joined this year by undergraduate researchers who presented their work in the all day poster sessions. Meanwhile Dr Lyden presented a podium talk entitled “In-vitro 3D Artificial Tumor Microenvironments as Potential Models of Clinical Disease“ which focused on the TCIC human tumor 3D modeling project being conducted in collaboration with Marshfield Clinic and the Rivers Cancer Center. Dr. Huang also presented a podium talk entitled “Zebrafish Make a Splash in Drug Discovery“ which highlighted work done in his lab in collaboration with researchers at the UW-LaCrosse Mycology Discovery Lab. UWRF student presenters were: Tim Morris, Kevin Rixmann and Reid Kuen from the TCIC as well as David Mankowski and Johnathan Emahiser from the Zebra Fish Lab.

UWRF Posters presented were entitled:

C6, a Potential Drug for Heart Failure by Suppressing Inflammation.
Johnathan Emahiser and Cheng-Chen Huang, UW-River Falls

Screening Synthetic Chemicals and Purified Compounds from Natural Sources for Attenuative Action against AA-induced Heart Failure in Zebrafish.
David A Mankowski and Cheng-Chen Huang, UW-River Falls

Modeling complex cervical carcinoma cell-derived structures in 3D “artificial tissue”cultures.
Brittany Lee and Timothy Lyden, UW-River Falls

The isolation and 3D culture of putative fetal and adult cardiac stem cell populations from avian, bovine and porcine heart samples.
Timothy Lyden, Mike Martin, Victor Piazza, John Magnuson and Travis Cordie, UW-River Falls and Spring Point Project LLC

Modeling and characterization of primary and cell-line derived artificial breast cancer tissues produced using 3D culture methods.
Kevin Rixmann and Timothy Lyden, UW-River Falls; Ray Haselby, Marshfield Clinic; Peter Dahlberg, Rivers Cancer Center

Longterm 3-D cultures of HEK-293 cells demonstrate clear evidence of unique
kidney tissue-like differentiation.
Miyuki Bessho, Timothy Lyden, UW-River Falls

Seeking to generate “induced pluripotent stem” (IPS) cells from the cervical cancer cell line, HeLa.
Timothy A Morris Jr., Samuel Lifton, Reid Kuen, Timothy Lyden, UW-River Falls

Modeling human cancer with complex 3D cultures using rudimentary tissue
engineering methods.
Timothy Lyden, UW-River Falls; Ray Haselby, Marshfield Clinic; Peter Dahlberg, Rivers Cancer Center; Michael Pickart, UW-Stout