Wisconsin, It's Not Just for Cheese Anymore

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle held a press conference this afternoon on why Wisconsin is way more than cheese.  Announcing that the Genetics Policy Institute picked Wisconsin as the host of the 2008 World Stem Cell Summit, Gov. Doyle laid out how the state is on pace in building the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. The Institutes are twin institutes, one public and one private, to be constructed in the heart of the UW–Madison campus as a hub for interdisciplinary research.  They will be the largest outside the coasts in the U.S. and they represent a potential $5 billion opportunity for Wisconsin. When asked how any new administration would impact stem cell research and commercialization, Gov. Doyle said that both candidates have indicated that they will broaden stem cell research.  The governor predicted that Sen. Barack Obama, if elected, would totally lift the ban on stem cell research and that either candidate would likely make critical research available and set strong ethical rules for development.  The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would assure that any recipient institutions operate under the correct scientific and ethical standards. "I don't think we'll see another false, arbitrary standard where limits on research are based on the date the president happened to give a speech, " said Gov. Doyle.  He indicated that science, not politics, should set the standards. Now, if only we could figure out why Wisconsin is called the Badger State.