Speeding the Breeding: The Topic of Procreation turns from Cranberries to Cows

The happy news last week was that UW-Madison in FY 2012 had the third largest R&D budget among all US universities.  The university continues a remarkable record in which it has ranked no less than 5th in the past 30 some years.

When I was a grad student here, I had no idea that this university was such a juggernaut on the national stage.  Of course, my major professor frequently pointed out that when I was a graduate student, I had no idea about a lot of things.

One way in which any university competes with others is to launch new research centers in the hope of being a pioneer in an early wave of funding for a new field.

This week we’re celebrating the 3rd anniversary of the opening of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery building.  The WID and its component centers are among the latest innovations in organization being plied by the university.

On December 4, Dave Nelson will describe one of the UW’s earliest innovations in research organization:  the Institute for Enzyme Research.  Carrying the story of the Institute will be the personage of Henry Lardy, whom I knew by reputation as the developer of the extender of bull semen that enabled commercial artificial insemination and as the co-inventor of the adjustable micropipette.  I knew him as a gentleman from chatting with him in Lot 41 when he was on his way to his lab at the Enzyme Institute and I was on my way to pick up my then-baby daughter at the UW daycare next door.

Dave’s talk will be that rare occasion when you can learn about some ingenious science as well as about ingenuity in growing the research enterprise.