U-M is a partner in award-winning group

The Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative (MUCI), which includes U-M, received top honors for its contributions to the state's economic vitality at the sixth annual Business Success Celebration in Lansing.

The honor for "Exemplary Efforts in Commercializing Technology and Promoting Entrepreneurship" was one of 17 awards in eight areas of economic development excellence presented by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC) last month.

MUCI, funded by the MEDC through the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor Fund, enhances the existing technology transfer functions at Michigan's research universities in the life sciences arena.

Among its activities, MUCI manages a challenge fund of more than $2 million to address gaps in commercialization funding and also seeks to develop common guidelines for Michigan universities and industries for licensing and other technology transfer agreement.

"MUCI has provided a wonderful opportunity to work across boundaries–with other universities, with venture capitalists, and with life sciences companies–to ensure the best ideas of our faculty are turned into valuable products and processes," says Marvin Parnes, associate vice president for research and executive director, U-M's Division of Research Development & Administration. Parnes co-chairs MUCI's oversight group, the Intellectual Property Commercialization Committee with Tom Porter, of EDF Ventures, an Ann Arbor-based venture capital firm.

"Also, by working with this community on the underlying issues associated with technology commercialization, we will make translating research into products easier in the future."

More stories

• CRIME ALERT
• LSA keeps priorities during period of budget cutting
• Regents approve schematic design for SPH renovation
• Terrence McDonald recommended as dean of LSA
• U-M appeals postseason ban, accepts other NCAA sanctions
• Experts to discuss SARS, low risk on campus
• Policy: All are responsible for violence prevention
• U-M leaders testify before Senate subcommittee
• DPS upgrades training, equipment
• Professor recommends sharing of nonprofit infrastructure
• Iraqi teen treated at U-M Trauma Burn Center
• President's Residence modeled by 3-D printer
• Recyclers find new uses for items students abandon
• U-M-D professor talks of importance of undergrad education
• Seminars for U-M-D freshmen enhance undergraduate instruction
• Spotlight: He will, he will, rock you
• Public knows no more about genetics than in 1990, study shows
• All jazzed up
• Workplace 2003 Staff Recognition awards
• Study reveals poor health, high mortality for men
• U-M expert: UN, not U.S., should handle post-war rebuilding
• U-M is a partner in award-winning group
• Egg = mc2
• LSI biologist wins major teaching grant
• New guide for high blood pressure treatment co-written by U-M doctor
• Kids who get prescription asthma drugs visit ER less often
• U-M scientists trigger new hair growth in mice
• U-M Road Scholars: Hands across the mitten
• A farewell to bells
• U-M investment funds update