Elizabeth L. Donley, one of the key people in the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s controversial approach to managing patent rights on the use of embryonic stem cells, has resigned.

Ms. Donley, who was executive director of the WiCell Research Institute, said she was leaving to work at a technology or biotechnology company in the Madison region, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

Before becoming director of WiCell this year, Ms. Donley was general counsel for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the patenting arm of the university. It created WiCell in 1999 to help promote stem-cell research. WiCell and the foundation have stirred up controversy with their stringent demands for university and company scientists to obtain licenses from the foundation when working with stem cells, even in pre-commercial research (The Chronicle, September 15).