Science Market Update

By now you've probably heard of "lab-on-a-chip" technology, where engineers take a lab analysis process that once required, well, a lab, and make it possible to run that analysis on a handheld smartphone device.  Results are generated in real time, cheaper, and without bulky equipment.  In this case, Michigan State University (MSU) plant pathologists are using the device in a field of vegetables under attack by pathogens.

Research at the University of Michigan shows that zinc may help alleviate or stop cellular damage from type 2 diabetes. The research appears in the Journal of Molecular Biology.

Originally published in June of 2011, we're reprinting this blog because watching thousands of people dance and sing makes us happy, and for those folks currently shoveling snow it's a reminder that summer will come again one day! --12/23/2011

Until November of 2008, the State of Michigan had some of the most restrictive laws in the country governing stem cell research.  Dr. Eva Feldman of the University of Michigan went to California on a grant from philanthropist/benefactor Alfred Taubman to do her stem cell research toward treatment of Lou Gehrig's disease.  Then Michigan voters passed Proposal 2, allowing researchers to use human embryonic stem cell lines derived from surplus fertility clinic embryos.  After a year debating the ethical and legal angles of this new stem cell opportunity, UM came out with guidelines to direct and permit its researchers to move forward using cells from surplus blastocysts.  Dr. Feldman returned to UM, where she is Professor of Neurology and currently conducting the first human trial of a stem cell treatment for Lou Gehrig's disease.  [Photo of Dr. Feldman courtesy of Michigan Research Corridor]

“Plants are amazing biochemists as they make hundreds of thousands of compounds, yet we don’t know how most of these chemical compounds are produced by the plant or the role of these metabolites in the natural history of species across the kingdom.”

Michigan State University professor of molecular biology and biochemistry Robert Last (above photo and quote) and his team of researchers recently received a $4.1M grant from the National Science Foundation to study Andean Tomatoes and the chemicals they naturally produce.  Professor Last's research focuses on the tiny hairs on plants, called trichomes that are related to the plant's smell and taste through the sticky, pungent compounds they produce. 

In 2009 the University of Michigan bought the shuttered Pfizer campus adjacent to its North (Ann Arbor) Campus for $108 Million.  The 174-acre, 30-building, 2-million-square-feet of research and administrative space have since been renamed the North Campus Research Complex, and the Complex' Venture Accelerator has just opened with five startup companies as tenants.  The 16,000 sf Accelerator facility is designed to fast-track new businesses based on UM technology by providing lab and office space, IT infrastructure, business services, and mentorship.  The Accelerator is a branch of U-M's Tech Transfer, which also moved onto the new campus, along with the Business Engagement Center and the Medical School Business Development.

The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor is a major research institution, ranked among the top five nationally in spending, according to NSF statistics.  Yet in today's economy, having funding and prestige is not enough: the future lies in getting research out into the world, and increasingly the way to do this is through strong entrepreneurship.  To build those science marketing skills, UM has developed a Master's degree program in Entrepreneurial Education that combines coursework from the business and engineering schools to teach creative young business-scientists how to "give their inventions legs."