The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, known for helping UW-Madison commercialize discoveries such as vitamin D enrichment, a blood thinning drug and stem cells, may seem like a solid presence on campus whose existence was never in doubt.

But WARF, the nation’s first university technology transfer office, had to fight for survival from its founding in 1925 until at least 1980, when the federal Bayh-Dole Act said universities could retain patent rights on federally funded research.

Read more on madison.com.