Attorney General James Doyle presented UW-Madison with a check from the state Friday for $250,000. This money will be used to further stem-cell research at UW in the hopes of discovering cures for diseases such as juvenile diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.

The money, given to UW in the name of UW alum and renowned film director and producer Jerry Zucker, was part of a settlement with six major vitamin manufacturers. The manufacturers agreed to pay $335 million to compensate consumers, state governments and businesses for conspiring to fix vitamin prices to increase profits. Wisconsin received $6.6 million in the settlement; $900,000 in compensation to the state government and $5.7 million to benefit the health and nutrition of Wisconsin residents.

Instead of actively seeking out individuals to refund what Doyle called “five cent checks,” the state decided to try to put significant money behind some of “the most important health needs in the state.”

Zucker, credited for such films as “Airplane!” and the “Naked Gun” series, has a daughter who was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes two years ago. He has been one of the major contributors to research about ways to improve the lives of children with diabetes and to help find a cure.

“My wife and I made a promise to our daughter that we would find a cure for juvenile diabetes,” Zucker said. “We began to work with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to find out what research was happening. We heard about James Thomson’s work [with] the derivation of human embryonic cells, and this is the one area that gave us the greatest hope.”

The ultimate decision about funding allocation was left to Doyle. He said he felt stem-cell research was vital.
“There probably is nothing more important that we could support than the stem-cell research that is going on at the UW,” he said. “To me, [stem-cell research] is a gift that has been given to us by some fantastically brilliant scientists at the UW, one that is going to open the doors for the cures of many illnesses, and we have to really support the people who are doing this.”

Doyle said one of the areas of stem-cell research most likely to see significant breakthroughs was juvenile diabetes.

“I have decided that we are going to give [this grant] to the Primate Center at the UW to support the basic stem-cell research that needs to be done to ensure that we move as rapidly as we can to the development of the science and the technology that will lead to the cure for juvenile diabetes,” Doyle said.
This money will help continue research in what he called the “bridge time” between now and when funds from the National Institute of Health begin to come in for research at UW, Doyle said.