A new four-university alliance, led by the University of Michigan’s Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE), is helping researchers across the Midwest turn their inventions into marketable products to benefit society.

Supported by a $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps program, the alliance — which also includes the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University and the University of Toledo — has established a “node,” or hub, for a network that educates, supports and connects academic researchers to the entrepreneurial ecosystem across the region. “The geographic spread, diverse industrial base and scale of the node help the Midwest in a way that was not previously possible,” said CFE managing director Jonathan Fay, who also serves as the node’s executive director.

To achieve their goals, the four universities plan to host training programs for scientists and engineers. These intensive courses will encourage them to extend their focus beyond the laboratory and to examine the commercial potential of their technologies to avoid building a product that does not solve a customer’s problem or address an unmet need — the number one reason that startups fail.

The node program was activated in January 2017 and will be funded for five years.

A new research effort, buoyed by $3.5 million in seed funding from the university, is focused on optimizing physical performance and health for athletes of all ages and abilities.

Called the Exercise & Sport Science Initiative (ESSI), it will build on the work of more than 100 faculty and student researchers — representing such diverse disciplines as kinesiology, medicine, bioengineering, psychology, nutrition, social sciences and data science — and help connect them to viable partners in industry and government.

Catapult Sports, which develops wearable sensors for measuring performance, is an example of an emerging industry partner. The company began working with the U-M athletic department in February 2017, when it outfitted the men’s basketball team with wearable sensors. The sensors collect 1,000 data points per second on such metrics as biomechanical fatigue, mechanical performance output and the displacement of forces in any direction — information that can be used to improve player safety and enhance performance.

“What’s unique about our partnership with U-M is that we often only work with one program within a school,” said Brian Kopp, Catapult’s president for North America. “Through ESSI, we have an opportunity to work with multiple programs at U-M, looking for ways to assist coaches and athletes in a broader context.”

U-M professors Ellen Arruda and Ron Zernicke are co-directors of the initiative.

The bones of an ice age mastodon, discovered three years ago emerging from a stream bank near Mayville, Mich., were recently recovered by a team associated with U-M.

Daniel Fisher, director of the university’s Museum of Paleontology, led students and staff as well as 10 Tuscola County teachers in the dig. Through their efforts, the animal’s long limb bones, both shoulder blades, the entire pelvis, the skull, many vertebrae and most of the ribs — accounting for 60–70 percent of its skeletal mass — were unearthed.

This particular mastodon, an extinct relative of the elephant, was believed to have been about 30 years old at the time of its death, based on molar wear. It likely lived at least 11,000 years ago; a radiocarbon age analysis will be conducted to pin down the date to within a century or less.

Over the decades, the remains of roughly 300 have been found in Michigan. But fewer than 10 of those specimens are as complete as the one recovered in Mayville, Fisher said.

The remains were originally found by students associated with the Fowler Center for Outdoor Learning. In their honor, the specimen will be known as the Fowler Center Mastodon. Kyle Middleton, executive director of the Fowler Center, praised the dig as a win-win. “A big part of our mission is to enhance personal growth through outdoor adventures that provide an opportunity for learning by doing,” she said. “And that’s exactly what this partnership with local teachers and U-M researchers was all about.”