THU AM News: UW dean discusses implications of AI for research; Cellectar Biosciences rolling out new clinical trial data later this year

November 5, 2026

— AI is drastically speeding up the process of formally communicating research findings in the computer science field, according to the founding dean of UW-Madison’s College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence.

Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau spoke this week during a seminar hosted by the university’s School of Medicine and Public Health. He discussed how AI has largely taken over writing all computer code as the technology becomes more deeply entrenched.

Major tech firms in Silicon Valley just last year transitioned “almost overnight” from writing most computer code by hand, to delegating this work to the latest generation of AI agents. And Arpaci-Dusseau said the industry is never going back.

“There’s not going to be a world where we say, ‘you know what, that was really fun to do it much more easily. Let’s go back to doing it the hard way,’” he said. “Doing code by hand will be viewed as this period between 1950 and 2025 … however long humans are around, there were these 75 years where people laid out code brick by brick, line by line, that will not exist beyond this time.”

Along with writing the actual computer code, AI models are transforming the method of producing research papers, Arpaci-Dusseau said. One of his graduate students used the technology to assess hundreds of other published scientific papers, build a guide for writing them effectively and ultimately produce a high-quality end product.

“Our papers usually would take a year, like from beginning, idea to end. You know, build, analyze, write the paper,” he said. “And we did this whole paper in probably four or five weeks, like it’s crazy how much faster we could go.”

He acknowledged concerns about human versus artificial authorship for works produced this way, noting it raises questions around what is being created by a person and what is the product of the tool. In this case, he said “it was clear the person was still the important part” of this process.

“There’s going to be this bifurcation of people who are using these tools are starting to go really fast at the things they do … and the people that don’t are going to go at the same speed as before,” Arpaci-Dusseau said.

He also briefly touched on concerns around the huge data centers that are powering this AI revolution, emphasizing the “incredibly large” energy demand for these projects.

“Only time anybody ever yelled at me about something I said is, I said something on Wisconsin Public Radio like, hey I wouldn’t want a data center in my backyard either … it’s a serious question we have to ask ourselves as a society,” he said. “Do we want to invest in these sorts of things, and how do we invest in them and how do we do that in a responsible way for the world going forward?”

And while academic leaders like Arpaci-Dusseau are considering these and other questions about the rapid rise of AI, huge forces are moving ahead with the buildout to sustain this growth.

Last year alone, the tech industry spent three-quarters of a trillion dollars on capital expenditures to support AI, Arpaci-Dusseau said. That’s expected to rise to $1 trillion for this year.

“That’s coming from four companies,” he said. “That amount is more than the next … Fortune 500 companies spent on anything. It’s the biggest investment in almost anything probably in human history, going on right now.”

Watch the video.

— Cellectar Biosciences says it will present new clinical trial data later this year reinforcing the effectiveness of its cancer drug.

The drug development company, which has roots in UW-Madison, yesterday announced it will present “compelling data and clinical progress” for its main radiopharmaceutical drug candidate at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition. It’s being held in New Orleans in mid-December.

Chief Operating Officer Jarrod Longcor said the new results that will be presented “further strengthen the clinical profile” of iopofosine I 131, its drug delivery platform for the radioisotope iodine-313. It’s been tested in clinical trials for the treatment of various forms of blood cancer.

Company leaders at the conference will offer an update on 12-month follow-up data from the Phase 2b CLOVER WaM clinical trial.

Findings show a “significantly longer duration of response” for patients who got the treatment after only two prior lines of therapy, relative to more heavily pretreated patients. The company says that indicates it should be evaluated for earlier treatment settings, pointing to substantial unmet need in this space.

“These findings reinforce our confidence in its clinical potential as we advance our registrational strategy,” Longcor said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the company is targeting the first half of 2027 for an FDA submission seeking “accelerated approval” for its cancer therapies, Longcor added.

“These planned milestones define a clear path forward as we work to bring iopofosine I 131 to patients with limited treatment options,” he said.

Along with the clinical trial findings, the company says it will unveil new details about the design of its Phase 3 confirmatory study for a subset of cancer patients. Initial work to prepare the study site and more have begun, setting the stage for dosing patients in the first quarter of next year.

See the release.

See more in earlier coverage on the company’s research.

— Wisconsin had the ninth-highest rate of construction workers injured on the job among 41 states included in a recent analysis.

The report, from Massachusetts-based personal injury law firm Breakstone, White & Gluck, used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2022-2024. It included 41 states that had available data on construction sector injuries.

It found Wisconsin had 4,233 construction worker injuries per year on average, and 136,072 average construction workers per year. The state’s injury rate was 31.11 per 1,000 workers — 36% higher than the national average of 22.92 per 1,000 workers.

Among Midwest states, only Minnesota came in higher on the top 10 list at No. 5 with 34.63 injuries per 1,000 workers. Iowa was just below Wisconsin at No. 10 with 30.06.

Meanwhile, Vermont had the highest rate in the country with 42.12, but a far smaller number for total injuries with just 667 out of its annual construction workforce of 15,827.

Authors note Wisconsin’s rate is more than four times greater than that of Louisiana, which had the lowest injury rate among the 41 states with just 7.24 per 1,000 workers.

The report drew from the BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, as well as average annual construction employment from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

— State regulators today will consider whether to allow two Wisconsin utilities to raise their electric rates over the next two years.

The Public Service Commission will decide whether to approve the rate increases proposed by We Energies and sister utility Wisconsin Public Service or opt for a lower rate.

We Energies wants its non-data center customers to pay an additional $355.4 million over the next two years, under its April rate increase proposal. The utility is billing data centers under a separate tariff approved by the PSC to insulate existing customers from new infrastructure costs.

WPS customers would pay an extra $128 million.

Both companies are subsidiaries of WEC Energy Group.

The average We Energies residential customer would see their monthly electric bill increase from $144 to $166 by 2028, while the average WPS residential customer’s monthly bill would go from $116 to $133.

Intervenors in the case, like the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin, are arguing customers should pay less than the proposed increase.

It objects to the utilities including cost overruns on multiple solar projects in a pool of capital investments that customers pay a return on as part of their bill.

In addition, CUB doesn’t want customers to pay that profit margin – known as return on equity – on several defunct coal plants counted among the utilities’ capital investments.

Another intervenor, Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group, has proposed having customers pay a lower return on those “stranded assets” over a longer period of time.

CUB is also seeking to reduce the rate of return the utilities collect on that asset pool, from its current 9.8% rate to 9.1%. Other intervenors want to drop that rate further.

We Energies and WPS are seeking to increase that rate of return to 9.9%, citing persistent inflation.

PSC staff have proposed to lower the rate to 9.5%.

As travel through Madison airport grows, here’s what you can expect

Modine secures another major data center deal, tops record $1 billion in quarterly sales

TOPICS

AGRIBUSINESS

– Wisconsin corn and soybean harvests stay ahead of average

– 2026 Stride Conference will connect students with ag careers

FOOD & BEVERAGE

– Jersey-style pizza spot from Sorella owners opens in Shorewood

HEALTH CARE

– Early measles vaccine could help some babies as Wisconsin outbreak grows