Three Ohio State University (OSU) faculty-led teams are launching new businesses after successfully completing a program designed to determine whether their intellectual property “could be the basis of a startup company,” according to a recent Hannah Report. The teams participated in the 2016 I-Corps@Ohio program, a seven-week program during which “the faculty and student teams worked with mentors and other instructors to develop their ideas and determine if they were commercially feasible,” according to the article. Yi Zhao, associate professor of biomedical engineering, led Live Focus, a team “developing a technology that will allow the use of smartphones to acquire microscopic images with quality comparable to mid-class commercial microscopes.” Endowed Chair and Ohio Research Scholar Katrina Cornish’s EnergyFire team “is producing a non-allergenic, high-performance natural rubber alternative.” Bio-Pioneers, led by associate professor of animal science Thaddeus Ezeji, is “producing industrial compounds from renewable sources.”
