THU AM News: Local hotels fully prepared for next week’s NFL Draft influx, Green Bay officials say; UW speakers say cuts to federal funding could disrupt progress in health research

April 17, 2025

— The head of Discover Green Bay says local hotels are ready for next week’s influx of visitors for the NFL Draft, though he expects the event’s economic impact to be spread across much of the state.

Brad Toll, the tourism organization’s president and CEO, yesterday said local hotels are used to big crowds for Green Bay Packers home games. But next week’s event, kicking off a week from today, is expected to draw 250,000 visitors and has been described as the largest event the city has ever hosted.

“They’re prepared, certainly, we have a number of short-term rentals available,” Toll said in a recent interview on WisconsinEye. “But … it really is a drive event. People are accustomed to driving to it, 65% in other markets have driven in.”

Toll said he expects many visitors coming into Wisconsin to attend the draft will stay outside of the Green Bay area, where hotels “have some availability” but are nearing capacity.

“So we expect everywhere from Green Bay to Milwaukee, off toward Eau Claire and Wausau, people will see spending in hotels but certainly in gas stations, restaurants and attractions throughout our state,” he said. “Which really it is a state event in many ways, so it definitely will spread its wings throughout our state.”

As the event approaches, room prices in Green Bay have spiked, with one nearby hotel that typically rents rooms for about $80 per night jumping to about $1,600 for the night of the draft.

Still, Packers Director of Public Affairs Aaron Popkey said the team is encouraging visitors to check for home rental property openings in the area.

“But like a Packers game, our hotels eventually fill up, and then people go 30 miles out, 60 miles out, we fully expect that with this,” he said. “The Fox Valley, the lakeshore, heading west to Shawano and towards Wausau … and even Milwaukee, that is a drive that people make all the time to spend half the day or the evening.”

The Packers expect the event will have a $96 million impact in the state, including $20 million in the Green Bay area alone.

Toll says Green Bay’s efforts to land the draft began around 2015, when the NFL first began taking its draft event on the road to cities around the country.

“Really from the very beginning, when that opportunity came along, we knew this would be a great event for the Green Bay area, and for Packers fans, for football fans that have grown up with this in our blood here in Wisconsin,” he said. “It’s very exciting that next week it’s happening.”

See the full interview.

— Further cuts to federal funding for health research could jeopardize the progress being made in studying Alzheimer’s disease.

That’s according to the associate director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Sterling Johnson, who was a featured speaker in this week’s UW Now livestream. The discussion was hosted by UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association.

Johnson said scientists have “made extraordinary gains” in recent years as they’ve sought to understand, screen for and treat the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease. He pointed to FDA-approved therapies being developed that slow down related symptoms — along with others that could reduce the chance of developing symptoms at all — as well as blood-based screening tools and more.

“Well, how did we get to this really optimistic, successful time in the history of Alzheimer’s disease? A lot of this has come from NIH-funded Alzheimer’s centers,” he said, noting there are 35 across the country, including one in Wisconsin.

His remarks come after the Trump administration recently announced cuts to federal funding for “indirect costs” associated with health research, a move that’s expected to have a major impact on research institutions’ ability to conduct clinical studies.

Johnson said major institutions are at risk of losing National Institutes of Health grants for Alzheimer’s studies, as the agency is already pulling back support for scientists from minority groups or for studies focused on “non-mainstream” populations.

“The main components of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s, they’re intact and they’re continuing,” he said Tuesday. “We’re all on edge though, and there’s worry and doubt, not just in the workforce, but there’s confusion among research participants, wondering if we’re going to stay with them, stay in the communities and support them in their journey through this disease.”

He argued if further cuts are made to NIH research funding, the pace of scientific discovery in the field will slow, the workforce would be weakened and ultimately, more people will have Alzheimer’s disease.

This uncertainty comes as the university’s School of Medicine and Public Health is experiencing “enormous growth” in its research enterprise, Prof. Anjon Audhya said during the livestream. Over the last five years, the UW SMPH has seen about $30 million in annual new growth in research funding, he said.

Of the nearly $500 million in expenditures he noted for fiscal year 2023, more than half comes from federal funding.

One of the school’s top growth areas has been clinical trials, including both industry-sponsored efforts and projects that compete at the federal level for grant funding. The UW SMPH has seen $4 million growth annually in recent years, kicking off more than 150 new clinical trials every year.

“It’s these clinical trials that are really transforming our health care system,” he said. “We want to innovate in the space of improving cancer care, dementia care. The way that we do this is through clinical trials, which really ultimately rely heavily on federal investment as well.”

He added the indirect costs that have been targeted for federal cuts “are absolutely essential” for safety, regulatory and compliance requirements.

“You can’t really distinguish or divorce the directs from the indirects. Together, they’re really what make it feasible for us to take our discoveries and try to bring them into clinical implementation,” he said.

Watch the video.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

Sign up here.

— A Madison startup called Qolab has been selected for a DARPA initiative that aims to develop an “industrially useful” quantum computer by 2033.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency chose Qolab as a co-leader of the Quantum Benchmarking Initiative alongside Texas-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the company announced recently. John Martinis, chief technology officer for Qolab, will be leading quantum hardware efforts.

Quantum computing is an emerging field that relies on quantum mechanics to do calculations that traditional computers can’t.

Qolab is focused on building “high-quality superconducting qubits,” which play a key role in the process of quantum computing, Martinis said in the release. He notes the company sees a “critical need for significant improvements” in this area.

“We are thrilled to be at the forefront of hardware development for this groundbreaking initiative,” he said.

See more at Madison Startups.

— The latest episode of “Talking Trade” features a segment of a recent discussion held at Carroll University, focusing on the impact of the Trump administration’s tariff plans.

Show hosts Sandi Siegel and Ken Wasylik joined Carroll University Business School Dean Tim Sullivan and Prof. Alexandra Sielaff for the conversation at the university’s Shattuck Recital Hall.

Watch the video and see coverage from the event.

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