The University of Michigan was ranked the No. 3 university in the nation for undergraduate entrepreneurship education according to the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine.

The university was also named the No. 6 program for graduate entrepreneurship education, a ranking that recognized the achievements of the Zell Lurie Institute at the Ross School of Business and Center for Entrepreneurship at the College of Engineering.

Michigan was the only public university ranked in the top ten for both undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship programs.

Michigan’s entrepreneurship education history runs deep, beginning with the Zell Lurie Institute in 1999 at what is now the Ross School of Business, followed by the Center for Entrepreneurship at the College of Engineering in 2008. Over time it has broadened to include new programs and units across campus, at schools and colleges like the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, the School of Information and others.

According to a recent survey, one-third of University of Michigan students engage in entrepreneurship in some way, whether it be taking a course, participating in a competition, or joining an entrepreneurial student organization.

Finding funding at the tender seed stage can challenge the best startups, but a new student-led $10 million seed fund at the University of Michigan’s Zell Lurie Institute helps make entrepreneurial dreams come true.

The Zell Founders Fund, created in 2015 by a donation from Sam and Helen Zell, invests in startups by recent U-M graduates. It has chosen its first company to support: Sneakers by Jordana, started by recent alumnus Jordana Schrager. The $100,000 investment will be used to start mass production on a new footwear and fashion line that features Jordana’s unique and signature artistic style.

“Jordana’s was the first deal we considered for the Zell Founders Fund. It was an instructive process for both sides,” said fund manager Stewart Thornhill, executive director of the Zell Lurie Institute. “It’s been a nice relationship where we’re able to continue to help our alumni. We all win if she succeeds. We’re all partners in her business. It’s not a grant. It is an investment.”

Schrager, who graduated from U-M in 2015 with a bachelor’s in art and design and with a business minor, started designing the sneakers in high school. She’s made custom shoes for celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, P!NK and Selena Gomez. The custom sneakers sell for $250 to $400.

A University of Michigan startup that’s developing a non-invasive way to remove diseased tissue from cancer patients using high-intensity ultrasound has attracted $8.3 million in Series B financing.

The investment will help advance clinical trials of HistoSonics’ Robotic Assisted Sonic Therapy — an innovative tissue-destruction technology targeted for liver cancer and other solid tumor applications.

Christine Gibbons, chief operating officer of HistoSonics, said the therapy is based on the science of histotripsy, which uses pulsed sound energy for the precise destruction of targeted tissues. It was discovered and developed by leading scientists at U-M led by Charles Cain, professor of biomedical engineering. Cain has served as an adviser to the company, which licensed the technology from U-M Tech Transfer.

“It uses focused sound energy to treat diseased tissue non-invasively. The mechanical aspect of this focus sound allows us to make the treatment area very precise,” she said. “We believe it will be attractive to clinicians because it can be visualized in real time with an ultrasound or MRI and will address a significant unmet clinical need.”

With the global cancer burden continuing to surge, and the cost of cancer expected to increase from $290 billion in 2012 to $458 billion by 2030, there is a continuing demand for new and better therapeutic options.

Funds will be used to support clinical studies and further development of a clinical system for the liver cancer application of its therapy.