Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation

[1] WARF was founded in 1925 to manage a discovery by Harry Steenbock, who invented the process for using ultraviolet radiation to add vitamin D to milk and other foods.

Instead, Steenbock sought a way to protect discoveries made by UW-Madison faculty, ensure use of the ideas for public benefit and bring any financial gains back to the university.

Slichter began soliciting the interest and financial support of wealthy UW-Madison alumni acquaintances in Chicago and New York.

The UW Board of Regents approved the plan on June 22, 1925, and the organization's charter was filed with the Secretary of State of Wisconsin on November 14 that same year.

[7] From the early discoveries related to vitamin D and development of the blood thinner WARFarin to the derivation of stem cells and algorithms that speed computer processing, UW–Madison inventions have changed lives.

In 1933 a farmer from Deer Park showed up unannounced at the School of Agriculture and walked into a professor's laboratory with a milk can full of blood which would not coagulate.

In 1941, Karl Paul Link successfully isolated the anticoagulant factor, which initially found commercial application as a rodent-killer.

[14] Warfarin is one of the most widely prescribed medicines in the world,[15] [16] used in vascular and heart disease to prevent stroke and thrombosis.