From the Fluno Center in the east to the Biotechnology Center in the campus center to the Clinical Sciences Center in the west, it really is all here.

“It” is UW-Madison’s figurative “Bioscience Boulevard,” running through the campus’s 933 acres and comprising an extraordinary collection of cutting-edge bio research and development centers fueled in 2005 by $654 million in hard-won federal grants with an additional $300 million coming from other sources.

What does that money mean?

It means that UW-Madison ranks with the likes of Stanford, UCLA and the University of California, San Diego when it comes to award-winning research talent. It allows for innovative collaborations among nearly 750 engineers, biologists, geneticists, neuroscientists, chemists, political scientists and others in the life sciences. It provides state-of-the-art research facilities, with several now under construction. And it includes one of the leading technology transfer organizations in the world to help researchers bridge the gap between discovery and the marketplace.

Bioscience at UW-Madison doesn’t occur solely in the biology department, because there isn’t just one. Just as the study of life involves observing interactions among organisms, the successful pursuit of bioscience requires constant collaboration across a spectrum of colleges, programs, disciplines and centers.

• There’s the College of Letters and Science, home to the brand-new dual degree program in neuroscience and public policy, the first of its kind in the United States.
• There also is the School of Veterinary Medicine, one of the top 10 in the nation, where groundbreaking work in stem cell science is edging toward treatments for multiple sclerosis and other diseases.
• There’s the School of Medicine and Public Health, home to the McArdle Research Laboratory, where the late Howard Temin, the 1975 co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, was based.
• The School of Pharmacy, site of the new Lenor Zeeh Pharmaceutical Experiment Station. One mission of the station is to provide early stage drug discovery support services to UW-Madison-based “startups” located in the University Research Park and to the Madison-area pharmaceutical community.
• The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, which contains the Biotechnology Center and its recent offshoot, the Genome Center of Wisconsin. The Genome Center focuses on four main research areas: genome sequencing, functional genomics, comparative genomics and bioinformatics.
• And finally, the College of Engineering, home to Hilldale Professor Emeritus of Chemical and Biological Engineering Edwin Lightfoot, who recently received the 2004 National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for science and technology. 

Donna Paulnock, an immunologist-turned-infectious disease investigator who is also an associate Graduate School dean for biological science, thinks that the rise of interdisciplinary bioscience reflects larger changes in the world.

“I think there’s a real tide, a rising tide, in our world to think about connections,” Paulnock says.

“Issues of public policy, public health, are forcing us to think in ways that are multidimensional,” she adds. “And it’s giving rise to scholars who want to work in those interfaces, who are flexible and mobile.”

Welcome to bioscience at UW-Madison. It is all here.