The Section of Cardiovascular Medicine exists in the remarkablysupportive and rich intellectual environment of a top-notch tertiarycare medical center and a world class university. Indeed, Universityof Wisconsin Madison provides an ideal setting for cardiovascularresearch. It is the only university in the United States which combines, on a single campus, a school of medicine and public health and a teaching hospital,colleges of letters and sciences and of agricultural and life sciences,schools of pharmacy, nursing and veterinary medicine and one ofjust seven regional primate centers in the country. Because of thestrong research and training programs in each of these divisions,there are unequaled opportunities to learn from and work with outstanding talents of diverse faculty across the entire campus. Thebiological sciences (biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, zoology and chemistry) are considered among the very best inthe nation.

The UW has been at the forefront of biomedical miracles....

• Discovery of vitamins A (E.V. McCollum, 1914), B (Margaret Davis, 1916) and niacin (Conrad Elvehjem, 1937) soluble Vitamin D (Harry Steenbock, 1920s), discovery of dicumarol, oral anticoagulant later sold under the name of WARFarin (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) (Karl Paul Link, 1939)
• Discovery of the importance of iodine and iodized salt in preventing goiter (Edwin Bret Hart, 1920s)
• Discovery of methods for preserving and storing mammaliansperm (Henry Lardy and Paul Phillips, 1939)
• First description of the mechanism of bacterial resistance toantibiotics (Joshua Lederberg, 1950s)
• Development of the diagnostic test for B12 absorption or pernicious anemia (Robert Schilling, 1950s)
• 'Sugar' coating of pharmaceutical pills (Dale Wurster, 1959)
• Identification and treatment of mental retardation caused byphenylketonuria (Harry Waisman, 1960s)
• Discovery and quantitation of the sun's harmful UV radiationthat formed the basis for SPF rating of sunscreens (DerekCripps, 1960s)
• First successful sibling-to-sibling bone marrow transplant(1968) and discovery of histocompatability testing (FritzBach, Richard Hong)
• First DNA synthesis for which Har Gobind Khorana sharedthe Nobel Prize in 1968
• Creation of the first medical ethics program
• Discovery of reverse transcriptase, for which Howard Temin shared the Nobel Prize in 1975
• First cloning of human embryonic stem cells, a Science'Breakthrough of the Year' (James Thomson)
• Establishment of the McArdle Laboratory for CancerResearch, the first academic basic science cancer center in theUS (1941) and discovery of 5-fluorouracil (1957) and tamoxifen (Douglas Tormey, 1980)
• Founding of the Wisconsin Center for Applied Microelectronicsin 1991, one of the world leaders in nanotechnology and creator of the first micromotor (Henry Guckel)
• Sequencing of E. coli's genome (Frederick Blattner, 1997)